FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 743

Let’s see if we can get stuck. In stuckness we find something new.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 742

Life seeks to interhere. When life meets life it does not take in like a machine. Rather, it meets, it eats, it encompasses, it seeks to unite with. Children in schools are not funnels to receive what the teacher pours over them; rather, they seek to learn, to take in and make their own, to use and become a part of the new, to absorb and comprehend and internalize and assimilate what they have heard. It is an organic process, not mechanical. Life wants to weave itself to all it sees, touches, hears. This intertwining, this one-making is in fact what theologians and philosophers call love.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 741

Who needs to be heard?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 740

You’re an adult: you’re expected to talk to strangers.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 739

A half-dozen doughnuts is $4.50; a whole dozen is $5.39. Temptation is cheap.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 738

Stop trying to make sense of the world. Speak poetry.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 737

The work is to meet. Simply meet. That makes change. That births persons. Simply meet. That disorganizes communities.

We are about organization too much. What does Buber say? “The world that is ordered is not the world order.” We need to disorganize, get out of our boxes and ovals and lines and charts and meet. When we meet, new things emerge.

Simply meet. Emergence happens.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 736

Tell me your dream. Tell me your dream for this place, your people, your grandchildren. Even if you think the job is done, does your dream?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 735

We have an immense array of questions, opportunities, issues, passions, responsibilities: it will take more than one person for us to respond for good. One person deciding for all will not work. Even two or a small task force or executive committee does not have enough resources. The more people–the more good hearts and heads–the better will be our chance to even have a future.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 734

The debate so far over the President’s plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq has been less than fruitful. People are digging in. We are dearly missing reflection.

One thing that has escaped attention is the President’s ego. And our national ego.

His talk and that of his cabinet has been generously sprinkled with words like “winning” and “success.” Notice that these words are undefined. Notice that one cabinet official said winning could not be defined.

There is the logical problem: if we don’t know what we’re after, how will we know when we get there? Perhaps someone is served if we don’t know, and keeps going after the job is done? But there is also the practical problem: whether we stir the pot or walk away or do something else, we will have materially contributed to what happens next. We are part of this world, and cannot escape our responsibility.

So our eyes are on the wrong ball: we want to win and succeed, when we should be looking at how we all live in this world together.

Our clue is in that “or do something else:” are there third alternatives? Debate rarely brings people together. Consequently debate rarely takes us into the future wisely. Are there only two options—increase the troops or remove the troops? Beat these people into submission or run from the fight?

There are third alternatives. The very problems should suggest we need to expand our thinking: if we put more rifles on the streets, does that eliminate, reduce or increase the weapons on the streets? If we withdraw, do the war-lords take over? Is there something behind the insurgencies more than an appetite for blood? Could the grandmothers exert an influence? Do people see violence as a solution because that is how we came in? Is it possible that people anywhere at any time can see peace as necessary for their way of life? If anyone can, can we not teach the ways of peace?

What if we sent in teams of people wise in the ways of council, inviting people out of their homes and enclaves to sit together? What if we kept soldiers available to protect these councils? As the councils and the ways of peace became stronger, the need for soldiers would decline.

We are a people inventive, creative, and kind. What if we turned that face to the world?

What if we listened?

What if we found some third alternatives? Together?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 733

Trees have a few simple rules:
Go up
Go to light
Roots other
Wise

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 732

Compost works!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 731

We can only be present for each other. Stand by each other. Be there. Words don’t do it—they often ring hollow. Intention behind the words helps. But being there, meeting, being to being: this is what it is about. Completing our presence.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 730

We are now seven tenths of the way through the oo decade. Is it ooh or oh-oh? While we yet breathe—or die—there is still time.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 729

In between
is the conversation
giving and receiving
and the conversation is with G-d
and the conversation is G-d
all things are made through the conversation
and without the conversation is not anything
made that is made
in the conversation is life
and the life is the light of humankind
the light shines now in the darkness
and the darkness does not overcome the light

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 728

On holidays
families play together
doing the work of family growing
playing together
on holy days

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 727

The world is up to us.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 726

Lean forward
listen intently
not for what God says
through this person’s lips
(people are not tools to any real God)
but to the soul
beginning to speak
his or her life
this
is
God

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 725

An open hand holds most.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 724

The longer I live
the more I have to learn
yet it is all one thing to learn:
to love
to give
to be water
to be watershed
to look for G*d in others
to listen
to hear, to hear, to hear
to see differences and know they are one
to know life is not a zero sum game
still it is a game
the body is real
hugs matter
meeting is the essence
to touch and be touched
to die and then to live

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 723

Truths are made to evolve:
shed a story
Beauty is in the eye of the times:
look around
Goodness responds:
crack open a right or a wrong

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 722

The answer to your fear comes when your vision opens.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 721

The coffee shop

People are coming and going, getting their drug to start them pumping. Pumping what? Do they find friends here? Sometimes. Do they find Its here—people to buy their products, services, them?

Did they see the beggars by the door? What beggars by the door? I thought the proprietor ran a better shop than that, making sure those with their hands out, the scruffy and unkempt were kept at a distance. The outwardly homeless are, for sure. You have to drive past them to get to this trendy joint. What neighborhoods do you drive through? Who haunts the bus stops and seamier sides of town? Do you nod to them, wave, roll down your window and say Hello? Neither do I. Of course. But why not?

Remember the people we left at the door? The people who have houses, but still homeless? Perhaps yourself: hoping someone notices you, says Hello, engages with you.

Some of us go into the coffee shop, head down; some are scanning for a home for their hearts. Some don’t really know why they are there; some just want to get through one more day.

A tragedy in one act, no villains, no heroes, no heroines. No plot.

Such are our lives at the coffee shop, circa this year.

Yet, is it so written? Is there no choice? Is there no vision? What could this place be? Who could we be—not just you and not just me and not just those over there, but us. Together. Is there a role for an “us?”

A memorable vision

Jack goes into the coffee shop for his morning latte. Jill is sitting, sipping tea, browsing a Website, and waves him over. “You seem agitated, Jack.” “Yeah, a few minutes ago, I saw a cop putting an Hispanic man in handcuffs. This idea of arresting people because of where they were born bothers me.” “Yeah, but what can we do about it?” “We can write it down, take pictures, hear peoples’ stories, ask others to listen. This is our country, our community. If not us, who? Wanna help?”

Beauty, truth, good are born of such conversations. Love.

All because someone dared to give voice to their vision. To look to see larger. Love.

Hate and fear will still rule many hearts. No matter. Love.

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© c 2007, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com