FootprintsintheWind.com

Can you come out to play?

:- Doug.

I must find you
this you who plays
and brings to flower
from us our
genius

:- Doug.

What is done with my language, what is the play of it, what do you hear, what do we hear together and say together this now? And how does this create us anew this time?

:- Doug.

We have not a God of power, a power we can wield against others as a weapon, but a God of weakness, the weakness of being ever present with us, with us in our shark attacks and pangs of conscience and poverty and grieving: this is the God we have. God meets us; God holds our hand; God feels, with us.

:- Doug.

I believe in no puppet-doll Christians with painted-on smiles who are just waiting, just begging for some make-believe god to pull on their strings and put them to good use, who refuse to get to work with their native creativity, will and muscles, who refuse to see that if one ain’t saved, ain’t nobody saved.

:- Doug.

Always remember—God is bigger than that.

:- Doug.

The important thing is that we converse.

:- Doug.

Surprise is the triumph of the present over the past, of the actual over the unexpected.

:- Doug.

Engage real conversation.

:- Doug.

The rains have started, lightly dancing, sparkling, upon the pond.

:- Doug.

I read to find the connections within me to the divine and to find myself within the divine wind among us.

:- Doug.

Open Space is important to me. I want us to be able to open space in your businesses, your communities, and your homes. A business owner can and should lead her community. I am selfish—I want more conspirators in bringing about a conversational world.

:- Doug.

Personal in the reformers seems to mean less individual (this may be an American gloss born of Davy Crockett and Dan’l Boone) and more intimate, an inside, direct, core nerve thread, which admits of community.

:- Doug.

Eldering is about living well all the way through.

:- Doug.

If we had a real trip in a time machine to past times, would we not also grow younger…and might we not become the gleam in our grandfather’s eye before the glimmer in our father’s eye…that is, only a twinkle once or twice removed?

:- Doug.

Self-organizing is a communal activity, not something one person does, but it requires the all. It is critical to realize (in both senses) we are connected in order to self-organize.

:- Doug.

Peggy Holman invites us to the practice of doing what you love as an act of service. From this we can see that fun = passion, or what you love, or your essence. This practice makes the bridge between conversing and fun. We converse about what we love as an act of service. Conversing is an act of service.

:- Doug.

Fun is the way to engage people.

:- Doug.

I’ve got just 20 years or so to spread this game—what’ll be most effective first?

:- Doug.

What things do people see as fun? Singing, dancing, jokes, games—
A dance then to clean up our neighborhood
A songfest then to start a big conversation
The games then to make this city work for all…just for this weekend

:- Doug.

Let’s have inverse street theatre—where we engage people in fun that meaningfully brings conversing…and then leave them to make good things happen. Good games!

:- Doug.

Something I need to have in my conversing work: fun! It is a key way to reach people, perhaps the only way. We all want a why, and the why we want is fun. Fun means meaning and connection and stretching to use our all.

:- Doug.

You are God. She is God. He is God. The trees are God. I am God. If you think we had gone beyond pantheism, perhaps we have not gone far enough around that barn to see the whole.

:- Doug.