FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1938

Have faith in your doubts. I doubt we are a people as divided as we are telling one another.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1937

Four times we might just live
once in experiencing
twice in writing reflectively
thrice in rewriting for the generations
fourth when another reads the lesson we did not see

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 2023

Stories that change the world, myths, and lives of great people have movement in common, the lead character comes out changed at the end. There is a crisis. They grow up. They also lead. They find a new idiosyncratic way. The cost is dear and what is purchased is unknowable. The only bid that will be accepted is to paddle over the waterfall.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1936

There is a cheap hope, a hope for results. It is cheap because it denies anything will get in the way. It is cheap because it brings fear on the other side of the coin, therein devaluing the hope. There is a dear hope, the deep “ability,” as Vaclav Havel wrote, “to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” This deep hope is anchored not in outcomes but in work for specific people.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1935

Not our words
are we elders
to generations
of grandchildren
more a
tune in the wind
needing a practiced ear
and do we
practice giving
our ear
to our ancestors?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1934

Disease Divorce Debility Death
Fillet us, saw us open
Raggedly, display our gizzards
Here meet profundity
The curious craft of vulnerability

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1933

Here’s the fact: we are falling apart, we are evaporating. How do we use this fact to teach? Not to teach, to lead? Not to lead, to inspire? Not to inspire, to befriend? Not to befriend, to walk alongside? Not to walk alongside, to be silent together in the face of mystery?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1932

She waged an heroic battle against her disease, we say. Why give disease that much power? Can we find some stories to tell, some conversations we need with which to embrace one another?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1931

The call of the elder may just be to live life as it comes to us, thinking in our every day of the later and earlier ones and our responsibility to them, knowing our own failures and successes are all part of the wrinkles of life, of what gives the wonder to it.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1930

Inseparable threads entangled
Weft: eldering is about gratitude, despair,
being turned, going forth:
entwined we are a green thread,
a red, a brown, yellow, blue, ochre
Warp: loving, conversing always!
story, spiritual discipline:
threads, gossamer and brilliant
So what about these others:
neither warp nor woof
angling across, bringing us a chuckle?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1928

When we look
into the eye
of the one
facing us
we can find
much
to
fear
…
fear
respect
admire
love

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1927

Across the stages, elders are etherealizing: getting larger and more capacious until they are indistinguishable from the mystery.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1926

We had thought the machines might take over our world, our minds. Recent news of robots made of living cells (frogbots/xenobots) and living concrete made from bacteria, suggest something other: life might take over machines. Or some other permutation you won’t think of while pondering this.

Then ponder further: in 300 years our grandchildren will be living in such a world. How can what stories you tell this day, what you write or think deeply about, be of help to those grandchildren living in such a world?

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I’m not demented—I’m augmented!

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1925

I’m not demented—I’m augmented!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1924

In years
noticing our profound gains
choosing profound giving

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1923

Death is not a risk
It happens to us all

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1922

What can we do with story? And?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1921

Abandon hope. Do the work.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1920

Walking the train
new things to be seen
mountains out this window
valleys and fog out that
new voices
something seeps in
will not know for days

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1919

What are we learning from the desire for divisiveness current in our culture? How could this inform our lessons and messages for the generations?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1918

A major issue of our time is we are afraid of one another. Too afraid to open.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1917

My sister hugged my daughter in law
On Thanksgiving evening
My daughter in law’s mother is dying
Losing energy, losing memory
Slipping away, surely, over too few months
Her father too is sliding into a long good-bye
So my sister sat down next to my daughter in law
And God hugged my daughter in law helplessly

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1916

It’s up to me to change the world. Starting with changing me: seeing that I can change something in me that others may or may not change in themselves. Trust people. Meet people. Say the larger thing. Maybe they will: that does not matter. I have increased the world’s net conversing.

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