Wonder, touch, surprise,?
Where is our vulnerability? Where are we raw? What do we not know? Does it help us grow? Where do we find wonder, touch, surprise?
:- Doug.
Archive for December, 2005
May you never hunger, Lord
May you never hunger, Lord
May you never thirst
for human response
for human love.
At least from me.
:- Doug.
Whenever two or three…
Whenever two or three are gathered–in the right spirit–things change. Spirit here means a state of mind and a state of heart open to others, open to possibility.
:- Doug.
Oneness and Manyness
The oneness of Heaven
the manyness of Earth
exist in
the foreverness of Now
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 623
Footprints in the Windsm # 623
The teacher, the insight, and the prophet serve a higher calling if they require of the hearer interpretation. A minimum of two understandings should be presented, forcing the hearer to examine his or her life. In that examination is found unconscious and collective wisdom, creativity, and choice. Get the person into his or her life. Stimulate wonder. Call imagination to action. Go out of and beyond ourselves.
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
What’s working? How can we make more of it?
To our good friends–
Read an e-mail from Michael Herman last night in which he describes his first meeting with Harrison. Michael asked How do we get people to self organize and change and grow? Harrison answered with: “Well, I don’t. I go in and ask what’s working. Then I ask how we can make more of it. And that always seems to work.”
I do like the man’s way with words: laid back, friendly, slightly unexpected, unbalancing.
I like this very much. I like the short and simple “What’s working?” That could almost be a greeting, instead of How ya doin’? or even Hi! Simply, What’s working? Obviously there is a context there too, for Harrison is there because they have called him in for organizational work of some kind. So they expect to get down to business. Yet, I like it….
How can we make more of it? is interesting. It may not even be a How question so much as an opener to Yes: Is this what we really want? At the least, it assumes that we think this is good. The first question, What’s working?, assumes that what is working is what we want to be working, that the working is going in the right direction. Then this question asks how did we get here, what did we do to make it work, and yes, it is a How question because it jumps people right into mechanics and past the question of Why do we want to do this. It assumes that it is good. Assuming something is good is the same as saying it is good by definition: we have put off any real conversation about it.
Make more of it is a good turn of phrase. It is a different metaphor, kitcheny. Make more of it also suggests that we increase the good of it. We tell the story more, we turn it into something larger, like esprit de corps, or culture, or even advertising copy. We catch more wind in it, as in a sail.
It could be Can we make more of it? That raises the question more directly: Do we want to? Make is also the How question, again. Useful question, but is it premature? Should we be asking, What do we want to make more of in this world? That might be too broad a question for starter conversations. Need to be open-ended, but with a handle. What’s working is an appreciative question, turning our attention to the good, to even look at the bad and see why that is working, and working us. It gets us to appreciate–to put the value to–what we see and experience. It invites us to meet. And so How can we make more of it? may be a good way to invite the various conversations and meetings which say, We have a role in this, We can change this, We are the ones for whom we have been waiting.
I like this. What’s working? How can we make more of it?
:- Doug.
Opening the present
See what comes, be present, listen, listen for the mystery. You are ever present: we are asked to open. You are ever the present we are asked to open. Herein is something profound, a mystery: you are a gift, a grace, and we must do nothing, yet at the same time we are asked to open when you knock, change our hearts and minds and ways (metánoia, repent), meet you, respond to you. It is not something we can make logic out of, only somehow embrace.
:- Doug.
Together questions
To our good friends–
Whom can we be together?
How can we together make this a better world?
What work do we need to do to make this world better?
:- Doug.
Divorced
We have become divorced from our power. We think it is with government, scientists, big corporations. We have forgotten.
:- Doug.
Meet their eyes, softly
Meet their eyes, softly.
There’s a beauty in the wrinkle of the eyes
that still know how to crinkle, in the eye
of the youthful as well. In the sad and
mournful, lost and lowly, despised and
despising if
we take the risk to meet.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 622
Footprints in the Windsm # 622
What do we want to bring into the world together?
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
