FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 858

Changing the world is a do it ourselves project.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 857

Our theology has been looking the wrong direction: we have been looking at God, trying to define God when all along we should have been trying to see what humankind is and could be, in relation to God.

For instance, in Genesis God says to Adam—Here is the world—take charge. So tell me, in your life what have you done to take charge of the world?

At the end of the Gospel, Jesus calls us his friends—when was the last time you called him “Friend?” When have you acted as if he were your friend?

In the Ten Commandments, God told us what not to do—have you tried to noodle out what that leaves open to us?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 856

Fall asleep with a question
To wrestle in the deeps
Question blessing you blessing question
You arise alive

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 855

It is a revolution I am seeking, not of this world of dominance, but of humanity’s soul-truth. I want people to see that they have the power and responsibility for the world they want to see. It is done in everyday things, so the everyday things we do need to change: we need to change our calendars to put in more time for meeting and striving for this change.

What do we want to see more of in the world? What less? What of that is already in our lives? Let us work on that. What of that is not in our lives? Let us work on that.

Soul-truth is the human parallel to space-time: something defining, real and transparent.

Soul-truth means the grasping of what we hold to be most real, most important, most central to being.

Get people to thinking on these things, and change has a plowed field. Compost is turned, gets to work. This is work. This takes courage, opening the heart and mouth to open others’ ears and hearts. It takes speaking my peace: my still word into a world confused and thinking it knows where it is going.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 854

What have I not seen? Where have I not looked? To whom have I not turned? Whom have I not heard? When have I guessed when I could still ask? Who might be larger than I thought?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 853

To stand powerless with a message
Is part of our destiny
(Take courage from the prophets)

The message for our times: Trust the people
All creativity all future is here
All action all change all work
Whatever is going to get done
Is going to get done by the people

You ask
How to engage the people
Simple: Ask for help

Trust the people: ask them for help
A better world is right here

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 852

Before it’s too soon
We need to do this
We’ve never talked like this
Sort of inside out
There are so many of us together
All that’s left is to dance
All that’s right is to dance

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 851

Now, now is our time:

1. We confront a surfeit of challenges, an abundance of persons to address them, and our problem is complex: putting them together. It will take all of us.

2. We face population compression—more of us each day on a ball constant in land area—and maybe shrinking by melting ice caps and piling up our wastes. We must converse together, work together—we have not ever tried either before—or we die.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 850

We have tough times in front of us
We’ve made a mess of this world
All we’ve got is us—& those we’ve offended
This is our hope

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 849

I want to hear what others have to say. I want to hear it so that I hear it and not aim at bolstering my arguments. I want to hear it to connect, and to be vulnerable to changing. But I want to be open to changing others, too, to bringing my voice of the majority report into the conversation.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 848

We are here not to convert but to converse.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 847

Poetry asks poet—
Find words to open
Poet & Reader & Word
Shh—words
Send out word to find no word
Rhythm to find rhythm
Pull out us—each & all
Seek luscious ambiguity
Beyond ambiguity—evoke—
Sensuous spirit sinewy
Full of life rich meaty overflowing
Educing seducing enticing adjectival
Modifying each other
Only words? Persons too
Twisting winding
Life arising reaching
Out embracing bracing
Chewy juicy dab your beard
Hear we are
Heart we stand upon to see afar
Ask your words to hear
Savor, caress
Summon tides
Ring out wonder!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 846

My job is to be present and to present my being. This is the job of each of us. Be present, present being.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 845

A friend wrote me yesterday saying that we write, don’t we, to find out? I write not to teach, nor to simply find myself. I write to find truth and reality and mostly, to find us.

This writing is a larger work, a world work, too.

Now that is interesting. I had been thinking that the work I was doing in these inklings was primarily for me. But no, this teaches me that I am doing a work for the world when I sit to write about larger questions.

So this searching is part of my world work, too.

Someday, someone might read and make the leap. Or perhaps just having set the thought at large in the world is enough for someone to leap.

This is important stuff and important stuff is often world work.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 844

When we in our projects objectify the other, make him or her an it-enemy, or even it-victim, we have done violence to ourselves and our future. We need to open doors; talk to strangers; get stranger ourselves. Yes, there are those out there who are sick and who will try to make us into their victim, but the response is not to shut out everyone, rather to open also to these, to help them with their dis-ease.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 843

My reign is not of this world—
Your world of power over
Differentiating
Excluding and dominating
It is of community
Inviting and hearing
Gathering and sharing
There is more power when all have it
More to share when more share
More world when we see it

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 842

A Possigiggle is a measure of work-connection. More possigiggles, more is likely to get done.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 841

We are the change-makers in whom we can believe.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 840

When we meet another, truly meet, we change the all there is. It is not in little ways but in big ways, for we open the possibility of other meeting and other change and on.

Meeting—conversation—is how we evolve the world. It may not be the direction we want, but it always works. It always makes the change. It goes where it goes and comes out where it comes out, without our control, but with our part used and made effective.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 839

The story never told…
Its possessor makes possessed
Yet when rehearsed sets free
Its holder & a whole community
The story told & told again
Sparks our hope, sets us to working

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 838

Meeting takes you me between. I must bring me. It seems to me this is a problem many people share with me: fear of bringing me, and lack of experience and imagination in doing so.

That’s why we want to have speakers and experts and authors: to seed our imagination. Little do we know that the person beside us could do that wonder for us.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 837

How do you make a difference?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 836

Every now and again the world gets whitewashed
We pause and reflect—beauty—truth—goodness
Then we plow it out of our way
It is good to reflect—& pause

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