FootprintsintheWind.com

To my good friends–

This morning I was disturbed by reading of Martin Luther King’s adoption of the notion that humankind is sin-oriented: I think that is too discouragement-centered. The idea of sin as used in those contexts is mushy and ill-defined. It stands for rebellion and it stands for illness. It stands for purposeful conduct and slip-ups. It stands for missing the mark and for having no mark at all. It stands for not knowing there is a God, and for separation from God. It stands for guilt.

For me, as of today, sin means missing the mark, which can be good, and for rebellion, a deliberate separation from G-d. Guilt is bad. It is bad for people to put guilt on others for merely missing the mark. As a motivating factor, guilt for missing the mark is bad. On the other side, there is rebellion which is a stage of growth, and there is an apparently irrevocable turning of one’s back, a choosing of another path. These are the redeemable and the incorrigible. The latter include also the evil.

Now we can have two responses, at least, to those missing the mark: we can say, Great, you have found a new path to G-d and neighbor; we can say Here, we will help you hit the mark next time. But to impose guilt and shame is misguided at best, evil at worst.

Rebellion prompts at least two responses: How’s that working for you? and punishment. The more profitable most of the time would be the first.

For the evil, we must resist, with love.

My experience, moreover is not that humankind is sin-oriented but just the opposite: people want to do good, they want to be loving and be loved. Beyond that, people want to raise the general level and go toward growing and nurturing others. Interdependence is what adults seek. We have aspirations built in, hardwired as the saying goes. Sin and guilt are side trips. Mob cruelty and Hitler and Saddam and Osama bin Laden and evil people throughout history are aberrations. People are worth loving; people are worth having faith in. And in them we see G-d. If you have seen me, why do you say Show us the father? Jesus may have been pointing to a truth bigger than we have seen. Part of that truth may be that we are one with the Father, we are of the same substance, we are the likeness. At base we are good, at base we are love.

:- Doug.

Crossing is a hug.

:- Doug.

What if we saw ourselves as synapses
in the mind-heart of G*d
reaching out, growing out, facing out
with each other, with G*d, to receive
and give
the juice
of the essential?
How open am I to this
pouring out, pouring in,
facing?
Open me, open you.

:- Doug.

If I yam what I yam
I’m a tuber
Sweet!
root

:- Doug.

Once you have met G*d, you are part of each other, for ever.

:- Doug.

G*d is not about solving our problems for us, saving us from our stupidities, but about meeting us, and loving us in that meeting. That loving is acceptance and challenge.

:- Doug.

There are different kinds of perfect:
There is perfect–no surprises,
as in a fan, forever going round, round.
There is also perfect–full of surprises
as a clown or comic or lover.

:- Doug.

We have a spectator democracy. We have a spectator religion. In fact, we have a spectator life.

:- Doug.

Was the Bible divinely inspired or dictated? Which one leaves room for no error? No accretion?

:- Doug.

Christian, if you had to choose one of these three, which is it? The creed, the Bible, or Jesus?

:- Doug.

When more than two converse we introduce an opportunity for reflection. There are then two persons in the room for every body, so that with three people there are 6 persons: one ostensibly talking or listening and one reflecting. As a consequence there are at least this many possible interactions: A to A’; A to B; A to B’; A to C; to C’; B to B’; B to C; B to C’; A’ to B; to B’; to C; to C’; B’ to C; to C’; C to C’: 15 in total. When 3 persons converse, they don’t each walk away with three ideas, but possibly as many as 15; more if you allow that ideas interact among themselves once they leave our mouths.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

Why get depressed? Sure, we have big problems. Is there an answer out there? Is it possible there is an answer to be found? Then these people will find it.

Why get depressed about the challenges facing our society? We can allow ourselves to be overwhelmed and seek futilely for a government or a program or some other savior to fix it for us, knowing that there is no such help coming: those people have their own agendas. Or we can get busy, do the shoveling and dirty work ourselves and see what we can make of it. We do not have time for the first option: only the second will do. Besides, we generate a multitude of ideas, bring forth legions of people, and have abundant heart for the task.

It is this people who are suffering who have the questions which will draw us forward. This people. In this place. Acting. Together. With heart and arms and legs.

This came out of the meeting last evening with a leader of the local Urban League and an attorney who works for a trust company. We were conversing about the dropout rate in the local schools and one said that that is a national statistic, too! The conversation went in the direction of how it is a societal problem, how can we force parents to take an interest in their children, how can we do anything, it is an intractable problem. This is a common direction of these conversations: the problem is seen as something impossible. We do not have the power, etc. The answer to how is do: do something, even if little (what is little?), for in doing so, people will see their power to make a change–and fall in love. That is the real difficulty: getting ourselves to doing.

:- Doug.

You are all children of whatever is sacred
Jew, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, all others
Pray for one another:
Open your heart, make room.

:- Doug.

How shall we change how life is lived?

:- Doug.

Light a conversation to dispel the darkness….

:- Doug.

In conversation we know one another. In conversation we know ourselves.

:- Doug.

In conversation we say things we never thought before. In conversation we say things we never believed before.

:- Doug.

What if instead of the metaphor of conquering the elements, we dared to speak of humanity marrying nature?

:- Doug.

Flip a coin 100 times in a row. Now the same 100 flips with a goal: heads. Or even all heads. Same results either way: the coin ignores your goals. And interpretations of results. Optimism and pessimism are lke these goals and interpretations, but at an odd angle. Neither have the final say. Life does. Life gives us many “failures” and “successes,” intermixed. Neither “wins.” Life does.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

What is the important stuff to have a conversation about? What does deep mean, practically?

This morning it seems to me that deep is as deep as people go, to recall to mind what Ian Percy told me years ago. But I think we can put a finer edge on it than that. Deep is to talk about things that matter to the people, live questions, what people are struggling with. In our society, that means struggling with alone. So it could be politics, it could be a business challenge, it could be how to make good things happen at church or in our club. It could be relationships between people or between peoples. It is talk with a content. From there, we can get on our wetsuit and go deeper and deeper. Only here, the air gets more breathable the deeper we go.

But is that all there is to be said, that it is a topic that holds water? It is not just about the topic, but what we do with it: we meet it and the others with an open heart and an open inquiry. We meet the others as persons who matter. We meet them moreover as persons who can change us. We are willing to allow that change to take place. This is beyond an open mind, it is more visceral, it is a lowering of the shields.

So we have a topic that has meat, and an openness. But it is necessary to get to where it matters to our life. If we do not resolve this, we die. It is beyond gutsy: we place our life on the line.

Also, I see that as we place our life on the line, we must continue to place our life on the line. When we get to that current in the water, that place of warmth, we can and we must continue to follow it on pain of loss of life of the people. It is all of us, and it is life at risk.

And then we come to a place where it is as deep as we can go–for today. We need to stop, take a breather, leave the next descent to the next day. Or the next person. Which is the point where I am at the moment.

Still, I want to go deeper. Who can help?

So we have: a topic that has weight; open shields; life at risk; spiral down and rest, down and rest, breathe in and out.

:- Doug.

Let us tell each other our dreams. That is as good a starting place as humans have.

:- Doug.

I asked you to show yourself to me
like the sharp shadows on the sunny lawn
immediately the shadows faded
and the whole lawn was the same.

:- Doug.

How do conversations travel? Is it a matter of the in between, or perhaps more accurately, the sea in which we swim, the air in which we breathe, the field in which we exist? We have to tie bowel to bowel and yank. Conversations travel bowel to bowel.

:- Doug.