FootprintsintheWind.com

There is more to the world than what I see. There is more to the world than what any one person sees. If we get together, we can see more. There will be differences and those differences must be lived out. They will add to the richness of life for all. We need to move beyond irritation, beyond live and let live, to moving around in this bizarre, bazaar world. What is there to do with this mess but live, love, squabble, laugh?

:- Doug.

The job of peace making may be more difficult than the job of war making.

:- Doug.

The wind is blowing the clouds apart, opening to me the smiling blue.

:- Doug.

These years, I am learning the craft of poetry.

:- Doug.

Not all questions get answers.

:- Doug.

If we allow our polarizations
to breathe in our presence
we will find polarization is safe
in our hands and the content
of our views matters far less
than our coming together.

We fear polarization because
we have never looked on
its other side and
seen it is in us.
Fear not; take
my hand, let us
walk round and see.

The object is not to heal
the divisions among us
nor yet to blend us into
one bland pablum
—there are so many of us that
seething creativity is sure—
the object is to bring
it all in
to whole
For it is all us, human

:- Doug.

We cannot make peace
by talking
only by hearing

:- Doug.

It’s a whole, but it’s not systematic.

:- Doug.

If we’re different
We have something together
Boys and girls
Black and red

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 697

The sign on the highway says: “Advertise here. I’ll make you money.” But I don’t want to be money.

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

If we’re missing real life, we’re missing G*d.

:- Doug.

It occurred to me that my previous proposal was Swiftian. And then another proposal occurred to me, based upon the notion that Jonathan Swift was not genius to be held up for all to admire; rather he is an example of what humans can do: be humorous, purposeful, pointed. So our literature classes could be a whole lot less lecture and discussion and even reading, and a whole lot more imitation: You have now read two Swift pieces, now try your hand at a half dozen satires of your own. See what you can pick up of the art. See what you can now observe of Swift’s practice of the art. What does he do well? What do you do better? Learn in your fingers as well as your head.

:- Doug.

Our very presence demands of others: to meet us; to allow us to be human; to allow us to have needs and value.

:- Doug.

Here is something telling about our current approach to air traffic safety. The latest plot was people planning to carry liquids which could be made into a bomb; the response was to ban all liquids on flights. We get disrupted and reminded of the terrorists every time we get on a flight—so they have won the attention they desired. The result of their terrorism is—to terrify us. It does not matter if they make a large killing—they have disrupted many more lives with the headlines they have won, and the fear they have injected into our lives.

We are trying to lock down the doors to keep out fear.

It will never work.

If we want to prevent all terrorists from boarding flights, then there is an easier solution: forbid all humans from boarding flights.

:- Doug.

The way we move beyond debate is to look for larger vistas, patterns and rhythms, to open our ears and hearts to other melodies, starting with the people here in this room.

:- Doug.

Our conversational partner is our
Adversary
There to tear us to shreds
So we cannot return

:- Doug.

Remember being a kid, lying on your back, watching the clouds drift and change shapes? Isn’t that part of the job of humans—adult humans—on earth?

:- Doug.

Business books often seem to feature fours. Even Ken Wilber. Four kinds of people needed, quadrants for this and for that. It is as if we are unable to think beyond two binary dimensions and their interplay. Or we think our readers cannot. We perhaps need to raise questions and ways of thinking that are beyond the two factors, ways which take not just 3 or 10 or 10,003 factors into account, but realize that they might interact not just mathematically but exponentially and beyond; requiring many minds to be able to wrap around them enough to ask wise questions.

:- Doug.

It is not that front line people have nothing of value to add to the conversation: after all, they are human beings too. It is that what they have to add adds a level of complexity with which the “decision makers” are not prepared to deal. See this key: prepared.

:- Doug.

My work is how life lives together.

:- Doug.

There is a huge world
out there we say
of which we are a part

Another like it but larger
—our imaginations—

Three small portals
Allow us passage between
ear—mouth—ear

:- Doug.

We are all part of something
Larger than us
And continually run to small
At least we can turn our eyes
Or maybe stand out on the porch
In the storm

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 696

G-d rested on the seventh day
—and not forevermore—
creating—loving—in our day—
manure producing fragrant flowers—
creative transformation—death
of death—unfolding love—
which day—or more—is this—the eighth?

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