FootprintsintheWind.com

Seek to meet people who are conversing.

:- Doug.

Seek not to be timely
rather timeless

:- Doug.

Conversation is about the Mystery–and conscious evolution of our species–about getting going–about doing the thing that makes us the beloved, the one G-d was waiting for.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

One thing that intrigued me this morning is the notion of What do we not know? Where are we vulnerable? What intrigues us?

Well, what?

For me, mystery: what I do not know, what brings a sense of wonder and surprise. Things that nip at my consciousness, that say, Here I am, here you are, isn’t it gooood! What might there be? What is possible? For us? Let us engage the world! Let us try something new. Let us give birth and work to make it real!

For me, people: people are surprising. People are bigger than we suspected. We are bigger than we suspected. We are loving, we are creative, we are held back only by our own imaginations. We are likewise freed by our imaginations: much more is possible.

For me, G-d: G-d is all about us and within us. G-d needs us. We are expected of G-d. We are the ones G-d has been waiting for. We are expected to be adults and to do something. We have been given a marvelous universe in which to play: rainbows and twinkling stars and black earth and colors of people and jumping of foals and flying of birds and bubbling of fish and squishing of sponges! Anything we could want exists or can exist.

And yet for me, mystery: there is more I do not know about G-d than I know. There is much I do not know about my wife, my children, my grandchildren, the people I meet during the day, the way of the fox and squirrel and groundhog and deer and crane. There is much to wonder at and about. I do not know what will work to continue working with people to discontinue working with people to start good things to make love and compassion and justice the way we live. I do not know and that might be good, that might be the answer: for then I must work at it, try something, see what works this time and give hope to other times. But I do not know that is the answer. There may be another, a better one. I do not know, and I revel in do not knowing: it opens me to what is and to what might be. Do not knowing allows me to experiment. Do not knowing shows me the intermediate impossible and the intermediate possible. Do not knowing opens me to the third possibility. Do not knowing is not the answer. Do not choose do not knowing as your answer to meeting the world for the object is to not know. Beyond that, the answer is to know and then go beyond knowing, and more so: do not get stuck in this cycling of waves. This is difficult, for there are many places to get caught in traps. Even getting caught in traps might be good. Do not knowing.

:- Doug.

We haunt the halls where we understand the language. It is possible to lose the language, to grow beyond the language, to know it as gibberish. I no longer haunt the halls of business because for me, its language lacks enduring meaning.

:- Doug.

Where is our vulnerability? Where are we raw? What do we not know? Does it help us grow? Where do we find wonder, touch, surprise?

:- Doug.

May you never hunger, Lord
May you never thirst
for human response
for human love.
At least from me.

:- Doug.

Whenever two or three are gathered–in the right spirit–things change. Spirit here means a state of mind and a state of heart open to others, open to possibility.

:- Doug.

What’s common within us?
What flows among us?
Speak of that,
speak of us.

:- Doug.

The oneness of Heaven
the manyness of Earth
exist in
the foreverness of Now

:- Doug.

Michael Herman said something profound here.

To our good friends–

Read an e-mail from Michael Herman last night in which he describes his first meeting with Harrison. Michael asked How do we get people to self organize and change and grow? Harrison answered with: “Well, I don’t. I go in and ask what’s working. Then I ask how we can make more of it. And that always seems to work.”

I do like the man’s way with words: laid back, friendly, slightly unexpected, unbalancing.

I like this very much. I like the short and simple “What’s working?” That could almost be a greeting, instead of How ya doin’? or even Hi! Simply, What’s working? Obviously there is a context there too, for Harrison is there because they have called him in for organizational work of some kind. So they expect to get down to business. Yet, I like it….

How can we make more of it? is interesting. It may not even be a How question so much as an opener to Yes: Is this what we really want? At the least, it assumes that we think this is good. The first question, What’s working?, assumes that what is working is what we want to be working, that the working is going in the right direction. Then this question asks how did we get here, what did we do to make it work, and yes, it is a How question because it jumps people right into mechanics and past the question of Why do we want to do this. It assumes that it is good. Assuming something is good is the same as saying it is good by definition: we have put off any real conversation about it.

Make more of it is a good turn of phrase. It is a different metaphor, kitcheny. Make more of it also suggests that we increase the good of it. We tell the story more, we turn it into something larger, like esprit de corps, or culture, or even advertising copy. We catch more wind in it, as in a sail.

It could be Can we make more of it? That raises the question more directly: Do we want to? Make is also the How question, again. Useful question, but is it premature? Should we be asking, What do we want to make more of in this world? That might be too broad a question for starter conversations. Need to be open-ended, but with a handle. What’s working is an appreciative question, turning our attention to the good, to even look at the bad and see why that is working, and working us. It gets us to appreciate–to put the value to–what we see and experience. It invites us to meet. And so How can we make more of it? may be a good way to invite the various conversations and meetings which say, We have a role in this, We can change this, We are the ones for whom we have been waiting.

I like this. What’s working? How can we make more of it?

:- Doug.

See what comes, be present, listen, listen for the mystery. You are ever present: we are asked to open. You are ever the present we are asked to open. Herein is something profound, a mystery: you are a gift, a grace, and we must do nothing, yet at the same time we are asked to open when you knock, change our hearts and minds and ways (metánoia, repent), meet you, respond to you. It is not something we can make logic out of, only somehow embrace.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Whom can we be together?

How can we together make this a better world?

What work do we need to do to make this world better?

:- Doug.

Softer, softer.

:- Doug.

What we know enslaves us; what is mystery frees us.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

What don’t you know?

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

There is only one to meet.

:- Doug.

For today, for now,
I choose to listen.
Listen, listen to
the mystery.

:- Doug.

We have become divorced from our power. We think it is with government, scientists, big corporations. We have forgotten.

:- Doug.

Meet their eyes, softly.
There’s a beauty in the wrinkle of the eyes
that still know how to crinkle, in the eye
of the youthful as well. In the sad and
mournful, lost and lowly, despised and
despising if
we take the risk to meet.

:- Doug.

What can we do to change the world?

:- Doug.