FootprintsintheWind.com

A heap of fun-sounding words we have for some of us: Luther-ran (isn’t running fun?), Episcopalee-yan (a new type of currency), Method-dist (distancing ourselves from “It?”), Protestant (it’s fun to join the picket line), even small-c catho-lick (we love fudge-sicles!). So why do we give the poor Jews only two English words to call themselves: Jew and Jewish? Jewish reminds us of peev-ish and child-ish, ick and yuck. And wouldn’t Canadians feel more at home if they were Jews, and vicerey-versery? Guilt and apology go so well together, you will agree.

Which is why perhaps Jews find Yiddish (despite the -ishness, it has Yidd which sounds fun and even like a playful shape-shifting psychological character) and He-brew (who wouldn’t want a taste of what he brews?) so much fun.

:- Doug.

Why do you want to live? Meaning: For what purpose? With whom? What gives those few days meaning? Their mere number? The people and doings in them?

:- Doug.

What characteristics would you want in someone making big medical decisions for you: good head, good heart, imagination, knowledge of medicine, tender, tough?

:- Doug.

If you were approaching death, would you focus on quality of life, or on the technology of medicine?

:- Doug.

Reach out
to others
a little further

:- Doug.

The Bible is
not a history book
doesn’t have to be

:- Doug.

Adding to a poem
Can subtract

:- Doug.

This place
is our
sacred playground

:- Doug.

Had no spiritual insights overnight. It is good some days to go without. Wringing out the sponge only makes it drier. Let living and loving take me where they will, and do the work of the day. Allow the waters to flow as they will.

:- Doug.

Have you spent months or years caring for a parent or person older than you? Despite the difficulties, was it rewarding? Please share examples….

:- Doug.

Fear is the opposite of love
I have known for some time
Today I learned another pair—
Control is the opposite of trust

:- Doug.

Inviting, Imagining, Engaging are you

:- Doug.

Beauty, truth, and goodness
children of love
underneath, buoying,
the field,
the all there is

:- Doug.

The more you know
the longer it takes to retrieve it
with computers we off-load
some of this to archive
perhaps we try to expand
our memory by off-loading to our
spouses!

:- Doug.

Not here
of each of us
not all
is here
most days
so we are smaller
than ourselves
strive not for
larger than yourself
rather to be
as big as you

:- Doug.

Some major poets have never by any other soul been read.

:- Doug.

The difference is not acknowledgement
By history nor in fame
Minor poetry is beautiful, seeks
To entertain, a wondrous turn of phrase
Major poetry works to evoke
A felt change in consciousness
In reader sometimes, poet always

:- Doug.

Love does not sit and wish, but dances!

:- Doug.

Put love into your steps
Release love from your hands

:- Doug.

Where do we place our attention? On God? I don’t think so, since God’s attention is on all of God’s offspring, and so therefore must our attention be. Union with God is less desirable than loving a hungry person with food, an outcast with taking in. Do we give up the need to change the world, as Meg Wheatley suggests? I think so to this extent, that it keeps us from loving in the now. But not to the extent it hardens us against helping up someone who is fallen or a group unjustly held back.

We can serve here and now, and therefore should. We have a larger span of vision, and so we can still strive for larger effect. In each case we hold ourselves to the standard not of results but of the love we put into play.

:- Doug.

May you Whee!
Whee! seems to fill
Heart and mind, you and friend,
Spaces between, O, spaces between,
Rhythm in, rhythm all about
Sometimes we are not here
Someplace else we are…or not at all
Smaller than Whee! could be
When we could be larger than we are
Pulse, pulse, feel your pulse!
Dance we the bigger than dance dance

:- Doug.

Is G limited
to be only
omnipresent
only
omnipotent?
or are more possibilities
open
to G?

:- Doug.

There is strength in vulnerability, just as there is vulnerability in strength.

:- Doug.