FootprintsintheWind.com

I am wind of the wind,
breeze off the hurricane,
tornado and whisper,
caress and force,
gale, gust and twining.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Be the wind, not the flame: we talk a lot about flames and fire and exploding; I talk a lot about them. It is perhaps more fruitful to be the wind, blowing, whispering around the flames, feeding them, wrapping around people’s arms and legs and hearts and heads, beckoning to them, enticing them with aromas from all over, fanning the flames, blowing through their hair, than to be the fire. The wind destroys and the wind fills the sails; the wind touches and lifts the eyes; the wind rages and lowers the eyes; the wind caresses and the wind rebuffs; the wind chills to the bone and warms the heart. I like being in the wind and being the wind.

Stammering: it is my lot perhaps not to have the right words at all times, or especially when I want them. Sometimes I make sense, sometimes I blabber incoherently: but who is to tell whether it is sense or not, and in what sense? It is helpful just to love and to stir. Someone may turn. Take no thought for your words or the morrow: these things will be provided in the wind, the breath of G-d. So open my mouth that conversation may begin; trust the people; trust G-d to make good the promise of conversation. What are the promises? Persons brought forth, worlds changed, people come together, we see and act.

:- Doug.

Distracted speech
disconnected, reaching out
for what I want to say
missing
still trying
the One loves this
more than risking nothing.

:- Doug.

Be the wind
mixing with the fire
touching, inviting, whispering

:- Doug.

All reality is shared; no one person appropriates nor can appropriate reality. In this is our strength, for in the meeting of persons we can have a larger reality. Turn to one another, meet, with your whole being, continually approaching, touching.

:- Doug.

The real meeting is meeting of life, of destiny, of G-d.

:- Doug.

Who are your teachers? Who are your teachers today?

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

Last night was the closing circle. The last man to speak was an ex-Marine, rugged, silent. He passed the stick to me without speaking–and then withdrew it with a grin. We came in here as many, he said, “now we are one.”

One man said we were tired, “but it is a good tired.” That is perhaps something else we can promise people–you will be tired, drained, but it will be a good tired.

In the closing circle, there was also talk of coming together, of hearing and meeting each other for the first time after so many years of brief meetings in coffee hour after church. This was an OST on the theme “How then shall we serve?” in my home church. The subtitle was “Where we invent, rally support for, and choose our service projects for this year.” Lutherans are not known for being aggressive in the service arena.

It was a good event. Much got started, many promises were made, some will inevitably not be kept. I felt the energy was down from the night before… yet there were groups who clearly did not feel it was over because they went on meeting well past the appointed time, and came back to each other informally. Still, I was feeling let down by it. Why?

Perhaps it was because of the sadness of the end coming, the end of this time of meeting. Perhaps it was because I was tired, exhausted. Perhaps it was because I was not part of the rich conversations, a rowboat moored to a far off island, hearing only the echo of random syllables across the water. Perhaps it was because I knew so much more was possible.

And so I must continue to invite, to open spaces.

The questions I asked people to address in the closing circle were: How (not what) did we learn? Who are we now?

We had probably 30 people in all attend this 4 day event, and we averaged around 23 each evening. The fourth evening is tonight and I expect a drop off as we head into actual work projects. The sessions were from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm, Sunday through Wednesday evenings.

One of those projects is painting the walls of the fellowship hall. This I see as the hallmark of this gathering. It was proposed the first evening, and had a great deal of enthusiasm around it. The lady who said “You know, what I’d like to see is…” had to be encouraged by several others from all around the room to post this topic. Then the excitement was in the room! This was a highly symbolic decision to be taken–and carried out. The room had not been painted since the building was built 26 years ago. We had felt locked into the colors chosen decades ago by our architect. Now we are breaking loose, showing ourselves that we can do the impossible. By Tuesday evening ladders and drop cloths were in the room, and about half the edges had already been painted, meaning there was now no turning back.

There were 5 or 6 topics posted for Sunday evening, and 4 sessions held; 7 or 8 proposed for Monday, and 6 held; and 6 proposed on Tuesday and 5 sessions held. After that we reopened the space for action planning and two projects were posted. Three sessions were held! Tuesday evening there was an evening long butterfly conversation by two gentlemen who were not members of the congregation, but others butter-flew around them and one of them reported rich conversations in the process. The book of proceedings had 15 reports. That is interesting to me because when we came into Tuesday only 6 reports had been turned in. Several people took turns entering reports into the computer for others and the job was done. We put the reports into the copier, pushed the button, and walked off to the closing circle. When we were done, we had copies for everybody, and three of us stapled and handed them out.

The committee provided baby-sitting, rides for those who needed them, and food, all without cost or baskets for donations.

There were no tears in the closing circle and I wonder about that. They were perhaps not ready to open that much space. Whatever happens, whoever comes, when it’s not over….

:- Doug.

Blur your eyes
and see what’s real.

:- Doug.

Our freedom to choose is between meeting and not meeting; mostly we choose to not meet. Still we crave meeting, we create so many opportunities, which we then flee.

:- Doug.

I am not sure if it is even possible to explain conversation to people: we are left only to meet. We must speak to each other out of meeting, and be ready to be surprised when meeting happens.

:-Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 606

I am looking into the water of my pond
the water is lapping, lapping
I see reflected the leaves of the trees
as they are moved by the wind to
flash in the light
All the confusion, profusion of lights!
O! this is what we see of life
and think we understand
when we need but be here
to meet.

Please pass it on.

© c 2005, 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

I have seen a couple of things in Buber in the last few days that I had not noticed before. On page 42 of I and Thou he says that this life, this spirit “continually approaches and touches them.” It is active, it continues all the time. On page 51 he says it another way: “The spirit is truly ‘in its own realm’ if it can confront the world that is unlocked to it, give itself to this world, and in its relation save both itself and the world.” It is in the continual confronting that the world becomes unlocked to the Thou. It says that our job is to sigh if we must and then keep approaching, touching, confronting, opening our very being to being approached, touched and confronted. We need to be there, inviting touch.

:- Doug.

Last evening, Day Two of the OST at our church, leads me to this reflection:

Still there is a disbelief that we really are the church. This is the core of what is happening here, and what will be happening. The core is conversation. S asked who will arrange the funding? The only answer is, you are in charge. If it happens or it does not happen, you were in charge. Perhaps here is the point for Rumi’s poem about the plow in the field.

The message to me is plain: if you find yourself saying “The church should do this,” remember, you are the church. You can make it happen. Not just in the far off future. Now.

So what really has been going on? Who are we now? We are people who know we can change things, and people who can change. This is what it means to be born again: to be born again each day, to see what plow needs our shoulder today, and to become a new person, from the heart out. We are seeing the light that G-d put inside each one of us–not just in ourselves, but in the others in this room and those who meet here on Sunday.

Who are we now? We are never, and can never be, the same persons we were yesterday, especially when we meet, truly meet, each other as persons, as Thous and not Its. Then the other person’s spark ignites our own and the old dies to make room for the new to be born. It happens everyday. It is as normal as life and as unusual as people actually living life.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

During evening news at an OST last night, one man said something to the effect of, “We’re not just talking, we’re… discussing!” Yeah, I know what he means.

What I take him to be saying is we are actually about the planning in earnest, the taking of first steps of action. It is the difference between theory and the birthing of practice. This looks entirely different.

:- Doug.

O night of the soul
O bright darkness
Shimmering, shining blackness
From whom all light flows
Huggable unknowable One
Impenetrable fog who would embrace us
–If we open our hearts
–To you and to the unknowable in each other.
Amazing! Blue sky beyond the cloud!
We–even we–are invited to both cloud and blue
To live!
In this dark night of the soul,
We see brightly.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Linda and I are in the midst of watching “Phantom of the Opera.” It is filled with oceanic song and fantastic images–gargoyles on the walls, labyrinthine passages, candles, candles everywhere, oversized building, four-poster beds with sheer fabric surrounds, cobwebs everywhere. The storyline is clear but weak, held together as it were by old cobwebs. It is not that it is art, nor that it works, but that it evokes.

It evokes something from the human breast, something that is evoked in OST and in movements in history (the Munich candlelight observances) and in sporting events and in romance. This latter is perhaps a clue. People want romance, they want to fly, to float on the ocean. “The Titanic” evoked some of the same, not primarily because of the outsized scenery although that undoubtedly contributed. It was the romance, and not just between the two lead characters, but the idea that life is larger. The man had a view of a larger world, and he did not survive–a lesson? Tragedy. “The good, they die young,” the lyric goes. Tragedy evokes perhaps.

Here in “Phantom” it is about something flying–a paean to music, with overtones of darkness. Iambic pentameter, an ancient beat, not heard much these days, but which finds its home someplace deep in the human soul, and is met, met by the unconscious gut. These flowing scenes, these capes turned round and large, these floating images in the mirror! All serve to lift one to another dimension, a place of flight and romance and… meeting. Back to Buber again, are we? Yes, it seems that what the Phantom is about is meeting Christine, and Christine wants to meet the music, the count and the Phantom. She is torn among them, her heart wants all three.

She wants safety, guidance, and flight. The first two are not always consonant with the latter. Or at least that is how we see things, yet do they have to be at odds? Is not the only safety and guidance in flight? Do we control, are we safe if we cower and hide, avoid our own muses and seek for guidance from others? Are not safety and guidance alive in flight, in not following but fulfilling our destiny?

And so the puzzle has to do with destiny and going out to meet it, not as it, but as Thou.

:- Doug.

Those who see the universe as one, perhaps even as part of G-d, see humans as at home here, part of the all there is. Humans are descended from stardust. Others see man (often as male only) as thrust into a foreign and inhospitable place, here to subdue and suffer.

So we have those who think all creation is part of the same family tree, and those who think we are exiles in a foul and odious land. One wants to redeem it all, the other wants to defeat it all. Fairly antagonistic pictures: that may well be the difficulty they have in speaking with each other.

It is easy to say the first has a wider view and therefore is more likely to be the one which will gather them together. Is there another way to reconcile these brothers and sisters?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 605

What if our culture were the first in the modern era to sit in circles in silence and be comfortable with whatever emerges?

Please pass it on.

Hurricanes may perhaps be bringing us to this…. Yes?

© c 2005, 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

Sometimes lovers
listen one to the other,
sometimes they
look into each other’s eyes,
sometimes lovers
simply sit together:
so too with prayer.

:- Doug.

Blogs are not about rants, as much as some rant. Blogs about figuring out the world, ourselves, and how the two meet. Meet they will, meet they must, and we are drawn out by meeting: the world is made larger, so are we.

:- Doug.

Life obviously is impossible, yet here it is, all about us, within us. So then we’d ought to give things we perceive as impossible opportunity, things like OST.

:- Doug.

Reading scripture expansively, oceanically gives us wide range to dive in. This is beyond midrash, into becoming part of the sea that is all around us, in these passages. What do I mean as reading expansively? To hear the ocean of mystery lapping at our very skin. To hear the erotic in the second verse of Genesis, to know that G-d is creating not the world but me, that there is in me, in us, a darkness which shines and light which allows a different kind of work to be done. To read that I am Joseph hiding my goblet in my brother’s suitcase, just to test him, even though I know we are brothers–not putting myself into the story, but knowing this story is my own, calling me to the beginning where I started from, to the shining that is integral to me.

:- Doug.