FootprintsintheWind.com

I’ll tell you what is Heaven:
It is “The Music of the Night” in Phantom of the Opera
It is the caress of a lover or a mother
It is a hug around the neck by a 4-year-old
It is a tearful happy funeral
It is all around us
If we open to it

:- Doug.

We cannot fail because we refuse to commit our souls to outcomes. Instead, we work for the possibility of loving.

:- Doug.

* is about
our everyday
surprise & creativity
beyond picturing
loving the immeasurable
doing the unpredictable
universal deepening
nuance
calling out our madness
being weak with us
loving
observing larger
drawing out our largeness

:- Doug.

This business of theology is to come up with a picture of the logic of God. Yet, the task is impossible: God wants no image made; any picture is a construct of the variegated human mind so no final picture is possible; God is ever larger than any work. And yet this work has chosen me.

:- Doug.

We move apart
We move together
A respiration
& all this movement
in relation
this together has a name
*

:- Doug.

My job is not to make the symphony
only to play my instrument
Our job is not to make the vision happen
only to play our role

:- Doug.

* might be seen as self
a conscious stream flowing
over mountain rocks
& lowland fields
& milky surges of stars above
seeking the best for—loving—
each of its plenitude of drops
& rivulets & bursting buds
more than—and even—a collective
conversing of many currents
in dreams & visions catching dew
& grain of sand & sidereal speck
to carry us along

:- Doug.

Can we live without hope—
That is, with a
Different kind of hope?

:- Doug.

People around the world are alike—
Do you breathe?—I breathe!
Do you love your grandchildren?—I love my grandchildren!

:- Doug.

We have more resources than we know and still we throw them off as fast as we do.

:- Doug.

Whose ancestor are you? Are you doing the kind of ancestoring they need?

:- Doug.

I wish I could attend. I’m busy that day. I’m facilitating the day.

:- Doug.

For how long do we want our family to continue? As elders we’re the ones with clear enough vision to see into the future 10 years, a generation, seven generations, a thousand years, a million. As harried as our society is, no one else will. It is a gift we can give.

:- Doug.

All are, still
Wednesdays are my especial connectings
With the all there is

:- Doug.

Our job as lawyers is to weave a path through the woods. There will always be woods, and there will always be paths needing weaving.

:- Doug.

You want the answer. There is no the. There is no answer. Life gives questions. Plural.

:- Doug.

Accounting tells a story. It is never “Any time this number comes along, do this.” First, you listen to the story. It tells you where the numbers go, so the person reading can hear the story, maybe even sing the song.

:- Doug.

Both could be right at the same time: there is above us only sky, and yet, and yet, the sky is at least person, at least a part of G*d, and G*d is larger than either of them or any of us knows, and G*d is weak as Bonhoeffer said, and not our puppet master nor our Daddy Warbucks as I hold: larger, larger.

:- Doug.

The fisher king questions are good ones to open up our conversations: what ails our world? What worries us? What do we some days think we cannot do anything about? Is there something to be gained from clear seeing and clear saying?

:- Doug.

Each strand between
The all there is
& each of us a knot
Holding together the net

:- Doug.

I help families losing a loved one to the three Ds: Dementia, Death, and Decrepancy.

:- Doug.

I’m the unauthorized edition of me.

:- Doug.

Our dog begs from us food and play and a walk, showing joy in being with us. Asking, playing: a way we too can give.

:- Doug.