FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1372

Can you afford to live to a ripe old age?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1371

Let’s make conversation
conversation rich, textured and
opening

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1370

Forget the furniture! That should be our mantra! In a book I am reading a man is recounting how his father tried to get fellow Jews to leave before Hitler rounded them up. What he heard was “What shall we do with the furniture?” He left. They did not.

What furniture holds us back from life? Perhaps I should not start this big project now because I am usually very busy in the month of May. And I have a spring class to teach. Furniture!

Choose the profound, the larger. Choose life! Choose now. Forget the furniture!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1369

This rain
now caressing
now soaking
now thunderous
brings me
home-like thoughts
of God

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1368

Why do the people turning left get to go first?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1367

Spirit is the quality we call together.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1366

Our society is in pain
& since our society now practically spans the world
the same pain is expressed everywhere:
violence, robbery, murder, rape, war, terror
we scream, we yell at one another, we see the other as threat
we try to force the other into our mold, into the old ways
all explodes—
and yet…
we are in times of great flux
the perturbance is getting larger, the swings wilder, the ride more frightening
even the ground, the oceans and the weather are shifting
the old, the reliable, the comfortable are going away
(are we too?)
something new (which we protest) is approaching
birth

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1365

The whole task of humankind is to help the others live.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1364

Do you have enough to share? A spare room for a few days? Some water to throw into the soup? We all have something to share. The world can be an hospitable place, if we choose.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1363

I cannot know all about spirit as I cannot know all about “my” poem: it is creating its meaning and breaking out on new frontiers, and new conspirators are purposely and accidentally doing the same. So I deliberately give up knowing all about spirit. I invite it to explore me.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1362

God walks past
his black face peering in our window expectantly
he wears a long grey rain coat
as he passes on
a rushing car throws water against our window

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1361

Fear being human
Then
Do it anyway

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1360

What would make the next stage of your life the best stage of your life? What would you want to do? Not do? Ponder? Explore with others? Ideally what would be on the curriculum?

PS: If you are in South Bend next weekend, you are invited to a retreat (Friday evening, Saturday whole day) called “Discovering Ourselves Wiser: Using Our Wisdom for Our World.” Please come!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1359

Invent possibility.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1358

Neediness in a conversation is as much of a gift as that by a know-it-all. The commerce is in information through ideas through creativity to real wisdom, and each of these opens the doors to meaningful exchange. It might be said asking a question is more pregnant than an authoritative answer. One starts the flow, the other risks closing it off. Serendipity comes in questionable packages.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1357

Where you stand affects what you see.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1356

Jesus imagined people better than they saw themselves. And told them about it. Miracles followed. He said we can do at least as much.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1355

All life’s chillun do dance
hold hands ‘n jangle
in delight!

Cells and cities
feed on the flow
coming from outside
die when cut off
when connected
transform
the outside world!

Grief & joy
—whatever you’ve got
surprise, prayer, symphony!
friends, families, worlds
intercourse & all other
conversation!
the dance needs the dancers
as the singers need the song
the rain that stalled my outdoor project
today gives me water to drink
this maple tree outside my window
and I provide breathing
air for each other
we are made up of our families
and friends & they of us:
without the other
neither could be who they are

These we gotsta make
’cause we’re alive!

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© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1355

All life’s chillun do dance
hold hands ‘n jangle
in delight!

Cells and cities
feed on the flow
coming from outside
die when cut off
when connected
transform
the outside world!

Grief & joy
—whatever you’ve got
surprise, prayer, symphony!
friends, families, worlds
intercourse & all other
conversation!
the dance needs the dancers
as the singers need the song
the rain that stalled my outdoor project
today gives me water to drink
this maple tree outside my window
and I provide breathing
air for each other
we are made up of our families
and friends & they of us:
without the other
neither could be who they are

These we gotsta make
’cause we’re alive!

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1354

Winds, winds: blow
winds, wind around my heart
from where and to where
unknown to us, calling to us
to go to where, to find from where
we may: ever unknown
yet ever we are given
to make up paths for all of us
for the ever more of us
winds, weave through our hearts
winds, winds: blow

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© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1353

In elder caring, things move quickly. More quickly than you would expect.

Client is in the nursing home, and the nursing home is saying he is “plateauing:” they need to stop therapy and make the family private pay. Medicare will no longer pay.

Forget for the moment that “plateauing” is not the standard. The notice says “Call your QIO at: {insert QIO name and toll-free number of QIO} to appeal….” No name or number of the QIO! (QIO is Quality Improvement Organization.) The notice is given after the termination, not two days before as required.

So we appeal. Indiana’s QIO acts quickly and upholds our appeal within 24 hours. The nursing home issues another notice: this time they insert the QIO’s name and number, but still try to backdate the notice. We appeal again. The QIO acts quickly again.

They uphold our appeal again. (Turns out the nursing home had no records to show the condition of our client!)

So I call my client’s spouse to give the good news and it turns out that the client is now becoming belligerent around the nursing home staff and they want to send the client to a psychiatric hospital. This sounds too convenient to me, but after investigation, it seems true. So off to the hospital. All in the space of Friday to Monday.

The point is that things change quickly and we need to respond as quickly. The point is also there are many good people out there who can help make things right. The point is also that sometimes paperwork does not prove what the providers say it will prove, so it is good to follow your instincts when something does not seem right. The point is also that the person in a nursing home needs an advocate and most often that advocate is their spouse or their child: you. And you can call in help.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1352

Can artists draw blood?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1351

The arc of our lives is long. At both ends it bends toward earthy rhythms. At these ends others fulfill themselves caring for us. Our loving can be found in letting them. It’s not If but When we will slow down—and How Long and How.

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© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com