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Be daring: be caring!

:- Doug.

Were you regent for the day, what would you change in the world? Whose butt would you kick, and in what direction?

:- Doug.

What would you expect an elder to have, if you go to her for advice?

:- Doug.

What do you bring beyond what a middling brings?

:- Doug.

Where are your concerns for the youngest generations, for those who come after?

:- Doug.

What is a live question, one which wrestles you, about which you can bring to bear your longer view?

:- Doug.

Eldering: where are the needs in our widening circles? What do we feel called to address? How might we help one another do?

:- Doug.

Today, I need to get to the work presenting to me.

:- Doug.

The question can be restated as What is our courage to be, simply to be, here, now, to stand up and out in our world as it meets us? We have a nothingness and meaninglessness in which we are to stand and be and to bring meaning and love. This is the course of eldering, the work when we elder a grandchild, our circle, the world.

:- Doug.

What can it mean to elder a grandchild, your circle, the world?

:- Doug.

I’m an infection
a dis-ease
seeking to afflict you
with life with love:
with conversation

:- Doug.

How great thou art
he always thought
they sang to him

:- Doug.

There is a kennel
where some keep their god
and only take it out
on a chain
to display to onlookers
how lovely how fierce
are they

:- Doug.

How ought we die
but lovingly?

:- Doug.

Artfully, artfully
screamingly, kickingly
expansively
there must be 50 ways
dyingly

:- Doug.

Ways to approach dying—
with silent screaming
as consuming medical challenge
seeing hounds approaching
as spiritual exercise
as making great art
expanding circles

:- Doug.

Complex is one thing—life is complex, inter-plaited. Complicated is a whole other unnecessary thing.

:- Doug.

I once had a class called Quit your job, get on with your calling. Now that is really the key life question, yes? The tension between eating and doing the big thing, between grabbing and loving, between earth and heaven. We humans are the ones to work that through in living our lives large and small.

:- Doug.

I help people work through their end of life questions, and I help them find ways to pay for a place like this—or even a nursing home—without becoming paupers.

:- Doug.

I help people with the big hows at the end of life: how they will get on, how they will pay for it, how they will complete a meaningful life.

:- Doug.

I reject the use of religion as a club.

:- Doug.

As in breathing
One must take in as
Much as one gives out

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1681

Even if it is never read
write major poetry
the turning of this world
needs your push

Please pass it on.

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