FootprintsintheWind.com

This quilt is made of story
One story many patches
O that glimpses were larger
A few wrinkles smoothed
Our stories retold
Our family unfold
Shifting the shape of our story
Is the core of
The healer, the human,
The lawyer

:- Doug.

Open out! Open out!
The bigger the story
The bigger the people
Hear, take in, let emerge
Others—our—parts of the story
It’s the only way
We grow a bigger future

:- Doug.

Earwax
bird feeder
aspects of God

:- Doug.

Story is a thing God does
Story is a thing God shapes
Story is a name of God

:- Doug.

Our story is too small.

:- Doug.

Growing larger every day
My all there is

:- Doug.

As the story renews
the family renews

:- Doug.

Our family holds
a story:
a stroke, trach tube, speech gone,
crisis, must pull together,
but years ago harsh words,
hard to stitch this rent fabric

Holding our breath
we consult a lawyer
the lawyer has no silver needle
only starts re-telling our story
what good is that?
we learn we are like others
we see one or two choices
the lawyer did not heal us
shifting the shape of our story
invited our new story
is that healing?

:- Doug.

Two lovers gaze into each other’s core
Solitude is communion, communion solitude
Re-creation and death are lovers too

:- Doug.

Not yet whole: always whole-ing
Ever opening to us: the transcendent moment

:- Doug.

My wife needs to fix her hair
I didn’t notice
It was broken

:- Doug.

Politicians, left and right
irrelevant to most of life
—except for when they try to interfere

:- Doug.

Than you have figured out
The world is more curious

:- Doug.

Why do business writers think in only four quadrants, two dimensions? Why not three dimensions—or more, many rhythms, many foods, rainbows of colors—in a word, real life complexity?

:- Doug.

Like Scott toilet paper
Is the kind of lawyer I am—
Soft, strong, lasts long

:- Doug.

I make poetry because—
life loves me and I love life
something alive needs to be shared
the all there is matters deeply to me
—My feet and hands jangle

:- Doug.

If Mama ain’t happy
ain’t nobody happy
If Daddy’s in the nursing facility
ain’t nobody not in the nursing facility

:- Doug.

What I write is something
That is not nothing

:- Doug.

Don’t look at how much money this long-term care strategy will save you; rather how much life is engendered: life in food and shelter for Mom, life in providing for her husband and children, life in the lessons she can live out for them.

How many meals will the $80,000 preserved by this strategy buy Mom? How much worry will it save her? Knowing she can be rested and can choose to give Dad a little extra and not have to scrimp to do it—what’s that worth? Count it not in Dollars but in meals and meaning.

:- Doug.

tick
every second
in eternity
matters
tock

:- Doug.

Why is he so arrogant
she of her talent so shy
and we and good and
evil all in one?
of the great mystery
we and all of this and
more are each a part

:- Doug.

Books about leadership mainly feed the ego of those who suppose they lead or who aspire to leading. If they really lead they have gone inside and found their profound selves, only then do they speak forth, only doing what they cannot deny. Leading never came to their minds.

:- Doug.

We can afford to be curious
And not to not

:- Doug.