FootprintsintheWind.com

It is hard to be totally present. Is it possible?

:- Doug.

Where is the center of G-d? Here. Still.

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

Literacy can lead eventually to the right brain, for we learn to contact the right brain through recording harder to reach parts of the psyche, the person himself or herself, for instance with journaling and mystical writings and poetry. This is the point: harder to reach.

The left brain finds writing, particularly alphabetical, its easy playground; the right brain can play there, but needs a bit of time and perhaps effort, but can come there, too. So literacy by itself is not the problem; it is only a tool.

The keyboard has perhaps brought back the left hand into equal importance. E and S are there, I and H on the right side (the easiest Morse code letters). R, S, T are left, N is right (the letters most often called early in Wheel). The letters we use the most are equally distributed to both hands. Interesting.

:- Doug

Conversation is of G-d.
Conversation is the stuff of G*d.

:- Doug.

The most important conversation
is not with G-d,
but with your neighbor,
for this is where you are.

Later you will come to see
this is where G-d converses.

:- Doug.

We are tentacles, one for another, feeling, hearing, seeing, extending, loving.

:- Doug.

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.

Please pass it on.

© 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

Face of faces,
Meeting of meetings
G*d is

:- Doug.

Whatever you set out to do,
Whenever,
You need someone to talk with
He or she or they will companion you,
Will help you
But mainly will be someone for you
to be kind to.

:- Doug.

Tell the story larger. Wait for the invitation, then make sure you accept.

:- Doug.

Fundamentalism consists of fear
Hate is the daughter of fear
Fear is the estranged daughter of truth,
The sister of love
What is true and real brings forth
Love and beauty
But sickness and misunderstanding twists
a few away.
Beauty flowering from love hugging
Contains healing for the afflicted.

:- Doug.

Is it enough already? When will we reach enough?

:- Doug.

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.

Please pass it on.

© 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

To our good friends–

Two related insights this morning, not overly new, but putting them together brings again to a crux the issue I have been wrestling with: how to connect G*d and conversation. G*d is the G*d of conversation. That is one way.

First: There is something more and it is released in conversation: it is met in conversation.

Second:
There is much to do
Many to do it
Enough to do it with.

These are strong learnings for me. More and much. Perhaps this is one poem and then would it make sense?

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

What are the further reaches of this? Where does it want to expand? (Note, not What are its edges, limits?)

It wants to expand toward meeting the needs of persons. It wants to value each one. It wants to value all the interconnections, which is a way of saying what life is about. Life is about interconnecting, intimacy, intercourse, movement. The more of us we kill or ignore, the less life we have. Life is about opening it all out and bringing new interconnections to life. Bringing forth. Birthing. Respecting the dignity of each life and each creature. Reverencing them. All. One.

It wants to expand toward finding new needs as we expand. It wants to expand to embracing new worlds, and there seems to be an infinity of them.

It wants to expand love, to where there are no borders, no defined limits to love.

For me, it wants to expand toward bringing G*d in as a necessary part and party of the equation. Perhaps the whole of the equation. G*d = G*d + people + conversation + work + resources + imagination. Or for short, G*d = people + conversation + work + resources + imagination. This is not just what G*d expects, but who G*d is.

What are the further reaches of this? Toward bringing more people into the essential conversations of our time. The essential conversation, singular, of our time, for there is only one conversation: How large can we be? Who large can we be? It is not a matter of eliminating conflict, but of finding ways for all parties to be part of the conversation that is life itself. Life itself then is another word for conversation, and conversation is another name for G*d.

People + work + resources + imagination = conversing = living = G*d.

:- Doug.

We have told ourselves for too long that we are broken, defective, incomplete. We are none of these things. We are whole, growing more complete, able to complete us all. We are not perfect, it is true, and that is our perfection.

:- Doug.

Life consists not just in the greening shoot, but in the events which happen: the things we stir come back to touch us in new ways; others stir, and these stirrings touch us too; winds stir and touch; mountains seem to exist timelessly and they too touch and are touched. Life, thus. Where do we fit? Where do we fit?

:- Doug.

If we have a bigger picture, we can move in harmony with the real.

:- Doug.

Writing may have started by disconnecting us from the world. But perhaps only for half a time. Perhaps they were a way to draw our insides out: to go in and see the universes there; then to come back out and stitch it together in poetry and letter writing and journaling and e-mails, stitch it together with a larger world.

:- Doug.

I have brought a pad because I expect you will say something I will want to write down.

:- Doug.

This is not what G-d wants:automatons throwing aside their skills and strengths. Rather he called us friends and expects us to use our weaknesses and vulnerabilities—our strongest strengths—as well.

:- Doug.

There is something more. Every here. Every now.

:- Doug.

In conversation we are finding out who we are—creating ourselves—being created.

:- Doug.

When we do not allow ourselves to be loved for who we are, but only for fulfilling the expectations of others, we cannot develop an identity of our own. This is the tragedy of our times. We do not exist if we are not met. We are complicit in this, too. The answer? Open the lid and look inside. Let the inside out. Discover. Meet vulnerably. Pain, compassion, helplessness are among our greatest gifts. We cannot meet the expectations of others, but we can surely exceed them.

:- Doug.