FootprintsintheWind.com

The promise in Daniel 4:27 is “there may perhaps be a lengthening of your tranquility.” No guarantee in this direction: in the opposite no tranquility, no sleeping easily. You’re not buying peace, a penny for an hour, all you’ve got for a lifetime supply. God, life, is sovereign. Instead, only “perhaps.”

:- Doug.

Snow! How beautiful!
Snow! Let’s make a snowman!
Snow! Let’s ski and sled!
Snow! Dangerous driving!
Snow! Slow going!
Snow! Yuk!
Snow makes the world other

:- Doug.

We live in a world of possibility
And you,
You are authorized!

:- Doug.

The snow how it clears the air
Covers the dirty streets and withered grass
With freshness: possibility swirls around us!

:- Doug.

Life can change in a twinkling
Like the weather around here
Keep working, here’s hope

:- Doug.

They were elected
But you were selected

:- Doug.

With others, risk.

:- Doug.

Invite to life!

:- Doug.

To engage the world, invite
Inviting is scary:
welcoming differing voices to your hearth
you might be obliged
to turn your life or words
You must drown to breathe
You must, now, invite

:- Doug.

Today we don’t want to speak our questions and fears, to tell one another what concerns us about the other’s words and actions: we simply walk away. We don’t try to resolve differences—or imagined differences—we walk away. We are timid, do not want to hurt another’s feelings, or more precisely want to avoid the work of conflict, so—we walk away. We choose isolation over the possibility of life-giving encounter.

:- Doug.

Time is not a commodity, not a thing on a shelf. It is a concept by which we separate out little segments of our being, saying This far and no farther, This much of me and no more. Instead say Yes! Invest yourself prodigally: hold nothing back. No stoppers, no limits.

:- Doug.

Let us find the rabbit hole in time.

:- Doug.

Invite boldness beyond
our present sagacity
to the raw edge
look over, shudder
then jump anyway

:- Doug.

Imagine
inviting 2 or 3 others
to work on what you love
to serve the world
Imagine
sitting expectantly, silently
touching divinity and humanity
Imagine
freeing yourselves
to invite others
to find
to create
a larger whole

:- Doug.

Settled convictions convict us
Unsettling as it does, imagining frees

:- Doug.

The world will come to an end, yes:
But not necessarily this ball of dirt:
Rather our constructs made out of disproportion:
We have, you do not:
We have taken from your mouth:
And so we have no choice, we must ask:
Are we waiting (in our luxury, on our couches, in front of our TVs) for this world to end:
Or are we working it to overthrow:
Now?

:- Doug.

Risk, wager, hazard
A new meeting

:- Doug.

Crotchety is okety-fine
when conversing:
just stand clear of
our itty bitty egoity
keep to our universality!

:- Doug.

I hear, I speak, therefore I am. I meet, therefore I am.

:- Doug.

Hearing demands more of us than listening, gives more.

:- Doug.

I-It is about technique and manipulation. These are useful in our world, but they are not real life. There is no technique to living fully: you simply live fully. You meet—life, which is to say the betweens you and the others in your life. Thus there are two ways to go through your years: with whatever technique you can devise; or meeting meeting. One is separation and the anxiety of it; the other is being whole, full and round, relaxed.

:- Doug.

Bare your vulnerabilities, sand your fingertips
Speak & hear & answer if you would live
Meet & meet & meet

:- Doug.

We must speak and hear and answer in order to live.

:- Doug.