FootprintsintheWind.com

Conversing does not need people
Talking favorably about conversing
Only talking about conversing

:- Doug.

You’ll probably know before your doctors
Before your family will say anything
Now, before you cannot
Things to do
Last and best gifts
Lessons to share
Hugs to give
Provide for family
Make sense of it all
Forgivenesses, good-byes
Thank yous
Make peace
End well your story

:- Doug.

Death for most of us
No big ta-da!
Expect only a sigh
How prepare to give our last loving?
What blessings give?
What whole-making words and hugs?
What messages?
What send-ons for our family?

:- Doug.

We can realize the value of our gifts only in giving them away.

:- Doug.

In end of life, stories matter and matter most. In stories, what matters is the ending. Here in life we never know ending. More importantly we can make choices of how our chapter ends, how it prefigures the next.

:- Doug.

Hope and fear are two faces of what are not and probably never will be. Courage is the third face: to act in the teeth of both.

:- Doug.

Make friends and change the world.

:- Doug.

The soul is real and direct, as much so as anything you can name.

:- Doug.

Epic the struggle
violate or console
cannibalize or create
kill or converse

:- Doug.

Assume people want the
world better, because they do

:- Doug.

Converse!
Dance this dance
This strange melody
And rhythm your only
Grab the hand offered you

:- Doug.

That bible is not more magic
than your words most ordinary
will not take you deeper
those daily closest you will remind you
your heart beats in rhythm holy

:- Doug.

The most important thing to understand
You must converse
With your closest people
About your most important things
Miss this you miss all

:- Doug.

Soft. This is what I want and want to be. Friendly. Part of the family. Hatred and its weaker sister competition send me away. I want to embrace. I want to find our tunnels between.

:- Doug.

It is a scary thing to meet—it turns us. There is and can be no solution, no formula, nothing to make it safe, nothing to allow us passage unscathed.

We have something we must bear into the world but without an ought. Freedom and destiny we meet full on. We meet this one life—peculiar to us—and no other. We are enjoined.

:- Doug.

We are not able to take anything explainable out of meeting, and cannot take anything in. All we can do is meet and that changes us.

:- Doug.

When Jesus said “Not my will” this brought him to his highest effect. We too, when we get beyond little ego, we reach toward deific, we can do larger. This is a lesson of Jesus’ life: not sacrifice: sacrifice of the ego.

This then points toward the difference between true sacrifice and the burned out candles of people who sacrifice to the point of wondering if they exist—and some to the point of giving guilt to those for whom they are sacrificing.

So we have giving up our little will, our little ego, to be wholly present, or at least wholly available to be wholly present.

:- Doug.

I’m not sure I believe in hope. I believe in working hard. I believe in helping others. I believe in whatever presents.

:- Doug.

There is depth in the world. It is in need of our attention. Sometimes we don’t notice till it has passed.

:- Doug.

Do you enjoy being bored with your life?

:- Doug.

Why is education important? To you? Why is this conference important?

:- Doug.

Collaboration = human = meaningful

:- Doug.

If the residents of the nursing home need something beyond mere existence, so too do their caregivers?

:- Doug.