FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 660

We are seeing a bigger world–our neighbor in pain, peace in the clutches of angry combatants, nature at risk, our children to the seventh generation also at risk. At the same time we are seeing a bigger inside–our psyche, our spirits, our oneness with all creation, our relations to the divine. It all adds up to bigger possibilities, bigger futures that extend beyond what we know. Conscious evolution? Maybe. Or maybe something larger.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 659

In our age, we have forgotten the way. I am Jesus knew and knew well was a Hebrew name of G-d, the original name G-d called G-d’s self. So we can some days hear Jesus saying I am–G-d is–you are–each creature is–the way, the truth, the life. All is part and parcel of G-d. G-d is made up of this, or more accurately, makes this up. You are the way. Life is the way. Creation is the way. The way is the way. This we have forgotten. We have thought doing something, collecting something, building something, getting known, is the way. No, you are the way. Try to remember…and follow.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 658

People often do not want to change anything—they have a house, food, family, and a little life—why change that? Why risk? Because that is why we are here.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 657

What evidence is there that a “little” person can change the world?

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 656

We need to seek a larger vision. We need to take on a larger task. Working to get our food and a fancy new car is not worthy of you. Working to help another is. Working together to help people who are suffering is more so.

What is the largest, most urgent task you see to take care of our humanity? Tell me and I will share it with others.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 655

The Face of faces Nicholas of Cusa is said to have said, and seen. When I read this last night, it spoke to me. It spoke to me of conversation, and of meeting: the Meeting within and of which all meeting consists.

What is The conversation? What is the meta-conversation? What is the conversation of all time? And eternity?

What is the conversation of conversations? It is about meeting the face of faces. Face to face is a good way to say it: we are meeting, we are seeing, we are being seen, we are seeing through and being seen through, we are one face. The Buddhists have a saying that suggests to me the face before we had a face. The face underneath our face, our masks, our who we think we are, for there is something there that is beneath all that, that is the really real of us. And when we go deeply enough, then we find there the original one, the original face, the real. This is a who, a person, a personal meet-you-met-by-you. In this meeting the real is released, real-ized.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 654

There is
Much for us to do
Many to do it
Enough to do it with
Something more, released in conversing,
Met.

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Footprints in the Wind^sm # 653

Do I need to be doing something more exciting, grander than this? To help others draw upon their hearts floor plans for flying new cathedrals, for awesome communities of creatives?

For I see that grander things are possible, if I go beyond today, if I touch the spark inside and let it set off the real person within.

For I do hold back, I do not let my spark set off the real person inside. I want to fly, I want to explode! My God! What a thing to say! And yet it is my essence that has said it, this something inside that wants to set off my sparks, and sparks of others deep inside, to create grand new worlds, to create inconceivable grand new worlds! O!

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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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© 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