FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 652

Let us write a new Bible. Every year. Let us tell tales of men and women hearing the voice of G*d, leaving their lives to go on pilgrimages at any age; let us prophesy and turn our lives into object lessons; let us sing new songs and write grand flowing poetry; let us write letters to uplift each other, memorable letters to speak to generations; let us listen from the heart to others, daring to quietly share our vulnerabilities; let us tell our visions and revelations. Let us write not with pen and ink, but with lives afire. Save us for our living response to the Word wind-whispered to us by a G*d truly met, from being wizened men and women whose stiff fingers turn delicate pages seeking to divine small lessons for shriveling lives. Our Bible is living; we are its breath. Our story is its story. Let us dare to meet this G*d who dares to listen to us, let us respond by casting our lives into the mix, let us write the next page.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 651

We are born to an eternal birth–we are always nothing coming into being–creating, bringing happiness, drawing others, and discovering what is. It is not that we shall never die, but that we shall ever be born!

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 650

Please tell us in what you see your God in this world, that we might extend our view of ours.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 649

Goal-setting
is ego at work
grasping for more
rather than giving
all
to this moment
one rejects
the gift and
the giver
the other
dances.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 648

If you were a Community Disorganizer, what would you do?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 647

We think that if we control, we exist
when actually we do not need
to separate ourselves from others
to be real.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 646

It is not difficult to see what others miss: they (and we) most often miss the divinity in all people, all situations.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 645

There is a dynamic
when we speak of what matters
when we allow our hearts expression
when we hear
our reflection in others
and a mystery larger

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 644

I picked up a book which once belonged to my mother, now gone, to see how I could meet her and know how she thought. I found her there in love teaching me. Even your act of marking a book can instruct later generations. Take care you do it with love and joy.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 643

We need–I need–books of the Spirit and people of the Spirit because when we are far away from the flame, we grow cold and lifeless. But when we are called back to our fire, we are thawed. The fire is at our center, the center of a sphere made up of all of us, and it is about melting our being into action and our action into being.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 642

Find something amazing–a sparkling drop of dew, oil in a rain puddle, the leaf of a tree, a CD held just so in the light, a baby, your hands, your breath, your pulse, a strand of hair, dishwater bubbles, a problem that won’t quit, sunlight in your face, a loved one snuggling–and meditate on that.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 641

I belove a G-d who
sings to his children
coos and chortles
challenges them to grow
gives flowers and breaks into love ballads

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 640

I used to think
–as if I’ve forsworn it!–
that I am something
special in the universe
a beloved of G-d
a possessor of special talents
an unusual good heart,
then I saw
–O that I may continue to see–
that I am one among the mites
populating and working the compost heap
not a mere grain in the warehouse
but truly one of special talents
special in the universe
good heart, and beloved of G-d–
just like billions upon billions:
imagine what is possible if
we sparkle off each other.
What a wonder!
we are

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 639

You have heard me say Honor your insights. Write them down. Now hear this: Don’t just write them down. In concert with other persons, plant them, grow them, harvest them, eat them, put them to work, let them work you–all of you, nurture their expansion beyond your imaginations. The key is “with.”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 638

If there were no conversation,
would the morning dew ever come?

If there were no meeting,
how would we feel a snowflake on our nose?

Without dialogue,
could we still fly?

No intimacy,
no butterflies?

If there were words that matter,
would clocks stop?

If I ever listened to your heart,
would the river throw off all dams?

If we meet the great souls in you and me,
would stars become super novae and black holes?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 637

Not the ex-stream of “All for society”
Not the ex-stream of “I’m the only one who matters”
Rather the wideness of sharing.
Between, the richly colorful:
Back and forth a new river flows
Exploring, exploring,
Touching you, touching me,
Touching–being–a common hurt-nerve.
Here fecundity
Lives
And we grow–
Gardens on broad islands–
A new mind and heart–
Of which we all are essential parts.
In the stream of life we can
Stand, be swept along, or
Become flow.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 636

What would it mean to take responsibility for a life full of G*d? What would it mean to converse with and through G-d? What would it mean to see each other as sacred, as embodied love and gift? What would it look like? It would look like ordinary conversation made earnest. It would be meeting each other as persons, whole, complete, able to change us and to change the world and to change. It would be vulnerability. It would be risking our whole selves. It would be throwing away what we have and who we think we are to come new into the world.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 635

Years ago I glimpsed the evocative notion of unknowing going. I suppose then I saw it as a branch of bravado: we cannot see the future, but we can trust the path we are on, the way we have chosen, or the God who lays out for us our life. We best forge on.

Unknowing going has a deeper meaning: we have a need to be ever going into the unknowing. In confusion and lostness we meet G*d. It is not that we trust G*d, but that G*d’s ways are above ours: here we learn, here we grow; here we become new, beyond our imaginations.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 634

We are the ones G*d has been waiting for.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 633

What I want to create is a world where all people ask each other, “What do we want to create?”

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 632

G-d is conversation
Intercourse
Intimacy
Engagement
All in motion
All in motion
Touching, touching
Plucking the strings
Singing a tune
All, all

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 631

I-Thou is what the stick, the circle and the open space is about: touching the real in persons again. This is the forgotten dimension. This is where the power in anything is found. It is the power that makes some people nervous and want to run away. Instead, let us stand courageously and face what we can do–together. It is about seeing something new and by the very seeing making it real. Seeing makes us real; touching gives us life.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 630

What is whole?
What is open?
How to love?
These growing questions
we live under
are each day
called to give
our new answer.

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© c 2006, 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