Something of an illusion
Creation moves forward–all nows–from a central source with a powerful debouching in all directions toward the center.
:- Doug.
Archive for October, 2005
Why do we run from conversations for which we long?
Why do we run from the conversations for which we long?
Why do we waste our time talking about things which do not matter?
Laughter matters, rest and play matter.
Tell me one true thing. Please.
Why are we afraid to risk being real?
On what do you live? On what do we live?
Let us speak of what captures our imagination, our heart:
We matter.
:- Doug.
the capacity for instant connection
To our good friends–
Ashley Cooper has a nested quote wherein Christy quotes Anne Stadler as saying, “we have to develop the capacity for instant connection.”
Yes, that is something I want to develop. But how?
Christy’s favorite way is spending time with people who are open, and I like that, too. Yet it seems we should be more open to people who are not like us. Probably even (especially?) to people we do not like.
Another friend of Ashley’s suggests she likes to live in one big come as you are party. Now I like that a lot. Just what would that look like to you?
:- Doug.
Take us out of the picture
If we take us out of the picture
–our titles, thoughts, beliefs.
even who we think we are–
what is left?
This is the beginning of truth.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 615
Footprints in the Windsm # 615
Turn. To whom do we turn? Each other. This in between is where the magic is, this is where our divinity and unity is. This is love. This is the glue that holds us together, the explosive that sends us out.
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
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
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simply dance
Die to nouns, live as verb
(Careful! Verb is a noun)
We cannot be, only act!
We are not served to become part of the dance:
simply dance.
:- Doug.
I am complicated, complex
For years I have sought to understand myself
in a word or phrase
Now I see I am complicated, complex
and in that
and in me
I can relax and drink.
:- Doug.
Will you take my hand?
Is it true we live in a participatory universe?
Will you take my hand and go with me to see?
:- Doug.
Our participatory universe
To our good friends–
It is true that we live in a participatory universe: birds and animals and we and plants and the inanimates all together, affecting one another, changing the world as we go. Changing G-d as we go. The notion that there is a cheap G-d who will solve all our problems without our participation is just that: cheap. It is not real to talk about G-d at work as if we were doing nothing, expected to do nothing. It is a danger. It is an untruth. It can hurt us, stunt us, keep us from participating with, meeting with, G-d. Participation is another word for meeting.
Yet we are afraid to meet. It is our right to meet, our highest and best act to meet. We need to be encouraging each other with: To meet!
For years I have been trying to define myself, to capture and hold me in one word or short phrase. Now I see that I am incredibly complex, not just difficult to pin down, but impossible of being pinned. So acceptance is more important, expectation of surprise, looking at continual unfolding. Be in verb, not be a noun. Action not words, act, dance, move. Be in leaping between the quanta. There is no be only do. G-d perhaps is the only be, and the only do.
Lord, if I cannot put myself in a word, how much less you? We can only meet, and in the hug, I can only touch your face, but I can go in infinitely deep. This is love in a sinking in and falling and being embraced, bouncing sort of way. No struggle, relax, let go, and still strive to be adult, to participate, to meet. We need to work against our desire to capture in a word, to make slogans. Fresh dancing, new steps, every step.
:- Doug.
To engrace and be engraced…
We are created each moment
and exploded out in all directions,
flung out to the center from the center
to embrace more and more!
You are the center;
you are the start and the finish
…and the trajectory as well.
Our task is to embrace, to shade, to nurture, to reach out, to invite, to welcome, to open, to attend, to receive, to offer, to accompany, to witness, to call into being,
to embrace, embrace, embrace,
to engrace, engrace, engrace.
Our task is also to be embraced, shaded, nurtured and all the
rest.
There is no difference, no distinction.
We are immersed in love
we are to extend love.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 614
Footprints in the Windsm # 614
Jesus was not trying to make sense: he was trying to upset it. We should therefore not seek to understand Jesus, but to stand with him in improvisation.
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
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
To subscribe, send an e-mail with the word “subscribe” to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com
Breath on your face
Faith is not for developing trust–that is too weak; rather it is to bring you to meet G-d, to smell G-d’s breath on your face.
:- Doug.
Not special, but special
I am not special: the glimpses and insights I get, others get as well. We must encourage each other to honor the good we receive and are. By the same token, I am special, and so is everyone. Honor.
:- Doug.
Just to shake it up
I must not dwell on any pain, but move on to what is possible, what good can be made. All things work together for good for those who are willing to work toward the good.
This is a way of saying that I am feeling free, since reading Funk’s Honest to Jesus, to say, as Jesus said, You have heard it said of old…but I say to you…. We do need to shake up our thinking, just to shake it up occasionally, so that we make sure we are seeing what is.
Lord, we cannot shake up you in doing so. We can ourselves be shaken and when done by you that is good, no matter how it might feel. You are not angered by such, but loving. We may provoke your love, but your wrath is not at all likely. You want us to know what is, because what is is you.
:- Doug.
Weird conversation
One of the people here is having a weird telephone conversation. She just got off it, somebody trying to give her a “grant,” asking her for her bank and routing number and similar things. The person on the other side knew her home address. How people prey upon others, thinking they are getting ahead of “the game.”
They cannot get ahead, they are only putting themselves behind. Crime carries its own punishment, somehow. If only in a vague unclean feeling, or in dealing with shadowy people who will not have honor among thieves. Too bad for this lady on the other side. Lord, help them.
G-d it seems to me you are much more home-spun than we have made you out to be. The punishment is built in to the crime, the love into the suffering. It does not all even out, but goes upward: there is the hope of improvement, there is the built in desire to have each other do better. Some people have missed the import, or subverted it, but that is bound to happen, and gives the vast numbers of the peoples something to work on. G-d is a doting grandmother, unable to keep her grandchildren from the scrapes and bruises of growing up and out into the world, but there to kiss and hug and encourage in the bigger things.
:- Doug.
Face to my face
Who are you G-d? Who are you beyond what people say of you? Who are you face to my face?
:- Doug.
Who are you even
Who are you? Who are you beyond your job, your titles, your achievements? Who are you even beyond your life’s work?
:- Doug.
