FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1041

We stand in need of, more than holy communion, holy communitying. G*d is the community of the all there is; let no one pull asunder what G*d has made together. Yet we are in a culture that continually fractures us apart—with each other and within families and even within our own souls. We compete even to get first to the next stop light, we fight for our rights, we take sides in elections and between elections, we scream at politicians and “those” people who support other politicians, we divorce each other, children ignore their parents, we take pills to right our thinking, we anguish over our own thought processes thinking ourselves sick. We are pulling ourselves apart at the seams and rending the fabric in between. There is hope, and promise, but only those in communitying and conversing: there are no guarantees. We have to work to make the promise real, to put muscle and sinew on the bones of the hope.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1040

We need to take in, yes. We also need to percolate, and then to pour out till we are heard, and hear ourselves.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1039

Our holeness, without the W, is what leads us to whole. We need each other, for our separate holes, incompletenesses, imperfections. It is here where our growing edges are.

Where we have reached completeness, where we have stopped growing, we have calcified. We can no longer connect there. There we can be no longer human.

It is only on our soft edges, only on our broken places, that others fit. And when we fit, we fiddle.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1136

Conflict, debate,
vanquishing, hate:
not the way
to world’s advance

Stretching
our behinds off the couch
love’s way is moving
being touched
taking the chance

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1038

Who cares? Let’s bring ’em together and see….

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1037

“Hearing anything?”
“You.”
“Me?!”
“Your breathing. Your heart beating. Your stomach gurgles. Your spirit.
“Your large-as-the-worlds-that-be spirit.
“Your tiny hard-shelled ego within your spirit. Your meandering thoughts within your spirit.
“Your large-as-the-worlds-that-be spirit within your community of like spirits.
“I’m hearing you.”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1036

Conversation is the lever long enough to move the world.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1035

A cold is sometimes a valuable thing to have: it frees you from thought to simply be. Here you can listen to the world go blathering by, feel the workings of your body, disencumber self from your mind.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1034

Competitions ought to be celebrations of our strengths of body, mind & spirit.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1033

Start saying what you’re seeing.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1032

We are holely people
You’ll know us by our many holes
We are wholly people
You’ll know us by how our holes never match
This way in every possible place we are
To you and every possible person wholly open

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1031

I do not know if I have had the experience of someone telling me my story, but I do know that often when someone tells me a story it reminds me of my own. This I think is a common experience. Today I must listen for my story in every story. This insight is profound, it goes in circles, for we may see as holy the story of all others and of ourselves, even when we think it unworthy. Especially then.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1030

Whenever do or more of us are gathered, then I am.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1029

“Everything terrifying is, in its deepest being, something helpless that wants our help.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I wonder how that applies to our current hand wringing over “Terrorism.” Adding the “ism” to it gives it a dignity and personification it has not earned. It is in fact the actions of people who are no more than hoodlums, international criminals. It is not a way of life, not a belief system such as Lutheranism or Buddhism—or even atheism. It is actually helplessness and despair on one end of the scale or psychoses and pathological criminality on the other.

The use of religious framing and fundamentalism is actually a hiding place for those who have diseases and issues on this continuum. Other voices from these same religions condemn the sickened use of their faith and scriptures for such ungodly ends.

So how do we “help” the person who is suffering from such a disease? Perhaps fighting back does not solve the underlying problem of the person who is frustrated from lack of food or work or the ability to be heard. Perhaps bombing the psychotic does not calm him or her.

Could hearing help? Could earnestly seeking a way to address perceived and actual wrongs? Would it be more costly in lives and body parts and governmental expenditures and the taxes they necessitate? Could providing food and medical help and jobs help tone down the voices that are inflaming the mentally ill? Could gathering and making friends in turn gather police and medical people to find and treat the psychotics and thus reduce the risk to our world’s peoples?

What is the pay off criminals get from spreading terror? Could imagination be employed to seek a way to reduce that pay off? Beyond what we are doing now—using brute force—and letting ourselves be victims, could there a third way?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1929

Let’s work toward more of us saying, “I love this place! I love these people!”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1028

We are the terrorists
We have done this to ourselves
Our police
Our captains, presidents, experts
Our metal detectors and electronic stripping machines
Our airlines, blankets, pillows and policies
Engender and nurse the terror among us
Terror we can see is not in bombs
But is a virus we ourselves give each other

I was reflecting on the decision to ban tailgating at the Super Bowl. I imagine the reason is that it makes it easier for the police to scan the area, patrol it, walk with explosive detecting dogs. But this also makes their job harder: the bombers, if they are there, are forced to be more circumspect. Their actions are more hidden. If they had the relaxation of moving about more freely, they might more easily give themselves away by their actions. Profiling might be easier for the police. Clearing the aisles only makes it easier to do the patrolling that will not catch nor concern those intent on doing harm. It serves most to increase the feeling of terror among us.

And of course there are those who profit by the terror—those who make the metal detectors, train the dogs, plan ways to keep people in orderly lines between the velvet covered chains.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1027

He was at the counter waiting for his order, making a game out of chasing his 4 year old granddaughter back and forth, making faces with her. And it sent me to a place of wonder….

When people are new, little, we play with them—tickling, hiding and seeking, inventing fun things to do. Strange we do not think to do so when they are new but adult-sized. We think the little ones bright and wanting to engage with us, and our attention attractive to them….

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1026

& I, I took the path, thought
I, less traveled by as if
that made all the difference
but difference I learned is
not the truth, does
not exist
what exists is our
connection to the whole
each of us has this connection
& it is the part of us
most deeply real
the part we most want to
feel, live, & set free
the part that has our
peculiar weakness which is our
strength—our peculiarity
is the common road
we all long to travel by

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1025

Rely on people to do the good that is in them. Call attention to that good. Remind them of their hearts. Tell stories of their prodigious powers. Connect them with other hearts and hands. Repeat their stories. Use their names with others. “The queendom of G*d is within you.” “You are the salt of the earth.”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1024

What is the bridge between G*d and the wholeness of the world? You are.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1023

How we mend the world is through the stitches of conversation. One at a time, this piece rejoins that, and we begin to see the pattern of the whole cloth.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1021

Come gather with me. Let’s do something about your dream. Your dream can be the turning point for the world. Let’s.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1020

Do you sometimes, like I, ask yourself what you once liked to do, something you have long since left behind? And you know, I know, it was important. And good. And my true self. Where did my true self go?

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