FootprintsintheWind.com

To my good friends–

I wrote this morning:

I have come to be changed.

But I wanted to ease the words somewhat, lessen their import by saying What if a leader stood in front of you and said this? What if you were challenged to say this? But the fact is that the words came to me unadulterated. I have come and am going to be changed. I do not want to leave you behind, Lord, and you will not leave me behind. But these people will change me, and perhaps more than most. Who knows? But it is something we need to be aware of and open to: when we meet, we will be changed, we will not be the same, we will grow, we will lose and we will gain. I have come to be changed.

Whenever persons meet, since they come into being by virtue of their meeting, then those persons are changed. They are changed from potential persons to actual. They are changed from whom they thought they were to whom they are in this person’s presence. They are changed from whom they were in that person’s presence to whom they are in this one’s presence. They are changed from nothing to somebody. They lose a piece of themselves. They gain a piece of the meeting that is between them. They lose data and gain wisdom. They lose fiction and gain truth. They lose assumptions and gain personhood.

Every day I’m different. I move from what I thought, believed and beloved yesterday to what I think, believe and belove today. I do not repeat myself as much as I thought I would; I contradict myself more than I consider safe. Once I saw this as a defect of my character; now I see it as near the center and good: when I find I do not repeat myself I know I am moving. Herein, growth. Herein curiosity. Herein life! I have come to be changed!

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Curiosity: this is the subject of the chapter which I finished this morning from Theodore Zeldin‘s An Intimate History of Humanity. Curiosity seems to me a daughter of love and a sister to truth. Curiosity is attractive and attracted. Curiosity attracts me this morning and has given me a hint as to a gift I have which I had not before seen as gift: that of being curious about things, of trying on different ideas during my reading and exploring, that this is not a negative but a positive, that I am able to thereby grow and add to and subtract from myself as I go through life.

Growth includes subtracting from ourselves as much as adding to. This is good to keep in mind. We are well served to look for things not only not to do, but not to be.

Curiosity might kill the cat, but the cat might need to die, and who said death is less than healing?

So curiosity is at least a clue and a path to conversation: Tell me about yourself. What attracted you to that? Who are you now whom you were not when you were a child, whom you were not last year? Why did you change and which do you think is better? Was the year a good one for you? What is on the horizon for you? With whom do you find yourself having good conversations in your life and work? What is a good conversation?

I am curious about conversation. What makes it good? What can it accomplish? Who are we when we converse? Who are we when we converse better? Who can we be? Can conversation help us get where we want to go, achieve our destiny? Why would we want to? What can we accomplish in conversation? When do we start? Why haven’t we started yet?

Why haven’t we started yet? Perhaps that is the hardest question for me. Is it really because I haven’t found the way? Or because I haven’t tried?

With whom to try? With those about me, while I am breathing. Be curious. Dig till we find what we need to converse about. How can we become who we can become? How can we do more of that? We are a culture which loves How questions, so we can use them to get us working on the Why questions: How can we move toward what matters? How can we ask Why more often? What work needs to be done? What are the important things we are all too busy to do anything about? What are the things we do not have the power to solve? If we do not, who does?

Lord, questions are the daughters of curiosity, the troublers of truth. I too am a troubler.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

What needs to happen in this world? In this community? In this conversation?

:- Doug.

What to be curious about, concerning G-d? What to be curious about, concerning conversation?

:- Doug.

Seek to be a part of the teem.

:- Doug.

It is good I try on ideas from many authors and peoples: it is for good we influence each other; it is for good we try out new mixtures with the familiar.

:- Doug.

Joseph Christmas!

(Just in case
“Mary Christmas”
is wearing a little thin)

:- Doug.

G-d is trapped in the human breast and brain; we need to set him free. I am disturbed at times with the pictures of God has a plan for me, I will trust God to make it right. These seem so simplistic. What if G-d wanted you to act? What are you doing? Yet it is more than acting: it is taking responsibility, being an actor, leaping onstage and entering the main act. Never fear, the play is large enough for all! All are playwrights as well as actors. God is larger than the one we have kept trapped inside our brains and breasts. Leap onstage! Create! Step back far enough to take in whole universes and become intimate with them all! It is not enough to passively receive grace: you must then become grace: to people, to animals, to plants, to universes, to your circle. For what are you saved? For what are you saving yourself? Are you a gift wrapped up and put on a shelf, awaiting the right party? This is the party you have been invited to. Party on!

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 628

This is where we are going: changing the world in a fundamental and good way, so that we G-d the world.

Please pass it on.

© c 2005, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

The ills of a group must be resolved from within, by its members. Once in a while there needs to be a force from outside, like a catalyst, but most often that catalyst serves to tell the members they have the power, authority and respect to resolve it themselves.

:- Doug.

Is it fear that makes us live lives that do not satisfy?

:- Doug.

Get the question right
or even get it wrong
and your prize is
you get another question
Life is questions
addressed to us
When you think you
have the answer
Here, have another question
Flooding questions
is what keeps life
exploring
Not for answers
but for deeper questions
Are our questions
Meaningful?
Intimate?
Idealistic?
Complex?
Living?

:- Doug.

What is the conversation you’d most like to be engrossed in?

:- Doug.

Are we starting the new conversation?

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

We can create a new language for the profession of law. We need to find a life in the law.

:- Doug.

In open space, we are inventing a new art of conversation. In conversation, we are inventing a new art of living.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

My passion is engaging persons with their future together.

:- Doug.

What has heart and meaning for you today?

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

What would an all-day meditation/contemplation look like? What could it mean?

:- Doug.

There is a sibling-hood between conversation and compassion.

:- Doug.

What career would you choose today?

:- Doug.

When do you feel most alive?

:- Doug.

With whom do you have your best conversations?

:- Doug.