FootprintsintheWind.com

People have their hard and fast backwards thinking in all domains, especially in politics and religion. I need to allow that in so I can hear them, and then perhaps help them hear me. There is so much playing of old tapes, even new tapes, but recording new ones is the reality task. And then burning those new tapes, too.

:- Doug.

With my study of Emily Dickinson, I am perhaps ratcheting to a new place: less adamant, more provisional, more indeterminate, more exploratory, more open to surprise, more open. More human, more open to reality.

:- Doug.

Pursuing
Us in our transitions
Muddling with
Us is the
Leaning in

:- Doug.

How far?
Are you willing to go
To make things better?
How much better
Can you stand?
We all have limits

:- Doug.

There are at least:
6 Powers (T₁…T₆)
6 Directions (F, B, E, W, Up, Down)
5 Gestures (It…Do)
Dimensions
Colors
360 Flows

:- Doug.

We live in a complexity made up of conundrums, enigmas, and puzzlements. Thus complexities swim in a sea of mystery. We bury ourselves—each of the seven billion of us—classifying, mapping, and fence-building. Silly!

:- doug.

The Court is here to help us do what we need to do. Why would we use a lathe as a hammer?

:- Doug.

We’re all ever making it up as we go. But we are uncomfortable with new things and so we stay as close to home as we can.

:- Doug.

Where does the notion of lawful come from? Who is doing the permitting? Probably originally from strong men and women, kings and queens, those imposing on others. Then we discovered, through the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Eleanor Roosevelt, that people are the source of the imposing: we, the demos, give the power to impose to what is now called government. What now is lawful is what we have agreed (perhaps originally at several removes and now by acquiescence) among ourselves is lawful. That suggests that the agreements can be changed. If we choose. We choose seldom. This is the culprit, the leg irons on our movement.

:- Doug.

This is holy work: making life more whole.

:- Doug.

See the little children: how they watch their cartoons! How they play with sand and bulldozers and trucks and dolls! In the cartoons watching themselves, in the play testing out the actions. They are doing work. They are trying out roles, seeing how they fit, learning about themselves, choosing directions. So too adults: seeing ourselves in movies and plays and books and songs; trying out roles; absorbing something about ourselves; choosing directions, if we choose.

:- Doug.

Walking beside
is my work
walking into our outside

:- Doug.

Let the words stop
drop away
for these minutes

:- Doug.

I have experienced tip of my tongue disease.

:- Doug.

Making change is a tall order. We must prepare for a long climb.

:- Doug.

Observing, I see that much of my thinking is trying to weave some new picture into a landscape I carry around. In other words, a smidgen of thinking forward, and a truckload of thinking backward.

:- Doug.

At any given point
the forces of non-change
are entrenched against
those of change
we might work with—
or shift—this momentum
but ever we must respect

:- Doug.

New view, new world: which comes first—the world or our picture of it? The next or our construct?

:- Doug.

Holy work. Leading people out. Because here it is where we co-enlarge the world, the world us. Like two kids leap-frogging over each other, or progressing down the road hand in hand.

:- Doug.

We cannot know whether to others
Our life will have meaning
But we can chance to live with meaning

:- Doug.

Where does your heart go?
Here is our life

:- Doug.

Life is a risk
Prayer is a risk
Risky too is not praying, not risking

:- Doug.

Our holy work is to expand worlds: of individuals and families facing tough long-term care decisions, and of communities wanting to be communities.

:- Doug.