On helping the poor
Are we assuming—perhaps—that we have the answers? Or even the questions? Why are there no clients—no poor—at our meetings?
:- Doug.
Archive for September, 2006
Ladders and when to use imagination
In order to design a ladder to get us to someplace we cannot touch, we need to engage a certain level of imagination. In order to climb that ladder across the yawning abyss, we need to put aside our imagination so we see only the ladder and the firmly planted ends of it.
:- Doug.
Pictures or going?
Why do we put such effort into sending people into space and on to the stars? Are not the pictures our robots take, and the samples they bring back enough for us?
Why is it less satisfying to see a travelogue than to visit the place?
:- Doug.
Blind spots and nurturing life
When we meet others, we both have blind spots. Between us we can point out things the other misses, have us each turn our heads just a bit so we can see more of the real. Experts as well as lay people have blind spots. The key characteristic of blind spots is that we do not see what we do not see. It takes someone else with a different vantage point calling out what he or she sees, to call attention—and this indirectly! So when we are stuck with looking at something as so many facts and figures, Dollars and numbers, or in some other concentrated way, we should be alerted. Are we not doing all this to support and nurture life? Whether it be starting a business, earning money, or building a warplane, is not our ultimate the advancement of life? If it is not, what use is it? So this needs to be part of our equation: life. If it is not served, then we need to question what we are doing.
The idea here is to be gentle with ourselves and each other. We need to call our attention to where life lives.
:- Doug.
Holes and Wholes
We want to do larger things, and those things come in I-Thou. If the human is more important to save than the horse, why is that? What do we have that the horse does not? We have intellect to be sure. But we also have dreams. Dreams and story and laughter and the ability therefore to power our intellect. Our imperfections lead to our dreams, often directly. We see things that are possible when we do not go in the straight lines our intellect draws. Drawing the really real takes curves as well as straight lines, shadows as well as light, colors as well as black and white, missing pieces as well as wholes. The rabbit hole we stumble over can lead us to whole new worlds.
:- Doug.
Who is a person?
Who is a person? A person has dignity. A person has worth. A person has uniqueness. A person is someone. On the other hand, an individual is one example of the people, a single number, but not special beyond being an example. An individual is expendable, a person is irreplaceable.
:- Doug.
Interwoven for strength
Touch, taste, smell, sight, sound, beauty are interwoven for strength. Durability.
:- Doug.
Dialogue–a skill or does it just happen?
To our good friends–
Can one become skilled in dialogue or is it something that just happens? Buber would seem to say you cannot create meeting, but you can be ready for it: wait and watch. Know what to watch for. Open and offer and be ready to welcome. Can we do more? Harrison Owen seems to say when the conditions are right, the dialogue self organizes. This suggests both waiting and preparation. The conditions of importance, conflict, diversity, complexity, urgency cannot be created: but perhaps can be heightened, can be brought to our attention. We can look for the other points of view, examine them as Bohm would for hidden assumptions. But the click, the combustion, is spontaneous. So who are those skilled at dialogue? Persons with good heads and good hearts who open them to others: people who listen for and point out similarities and wholenesses, conflicts, complexities, diversities and significance; people who listen for sparks and look for clicks; persons who trust others and self and the meeting.
:- Doug.
One reason why dialogue is dangerous
Dialogue is dangerous because
It proposes that interchange
Is more valuable than
Information, knowledge, status, or power.
:- Doug.
Dialogue is work
Dialogue is work
Not only threatening
But working through
Complex, unpleasant, knotty places
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 704
Footprints in the Windsm # 704
We need fewer transactions, more intercourse.
Please pass it on.
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What is deeper?
What is deeper? I asked a lady in my dreams. I don’t recall her answer–she was not quite as lost for words as most people at that question–but here is where my wisps of memory seem to point me: Deeper means a deeper well or pool in the person, not always the whole person, but a portal to the whole. It might be wide not deep. It touches essence. Or is touched by it. We reach bone and beyond that, marrow: the soft spot that grows the hard, strong exterior.
The soft spot that grows the hard strong exterior: accept the opening line! The hard strong exterior can become brittle and kill the soft growing creative interior with it. We must ever supply blood and food and life to it or risk death by brittleness. What shall we risk: life or brittleness? This is our only choice. Shall we risk meeting strangers, being friends ourselves, or shall we risk the hard shell of separation from the rest of ourselves?
So we have two metaphors, pregnancy and marrow. Both speak of the small soft vulnerable thing that brings the miracle of strength and the flash of life. Pregnancy is not for the weak, but it can happen to us all. Marrow is in each of us. So too is strength. That strength comes from bringing together hardness and softness, light and dark, thrusting and receiving.
What have I learned? What has been learned? Many lessons are offered each day, the curriculum is broad, the intercourse is sweet and intimate: do I accept? Do I thrust?
:- Doug.
Pregnancy and Conversation
Can conversations be pregnant and not deliver? Can a mother, pregnant, refuse delivery?
Some conversations are pregnant, and then we walk away, leaving the mother–the conversation, the situation, who is the mother?–to deliver or to abort. How often do we abort conversations, run away afraid to deliver, to raise this child?
Where is the truth, the really real, the meaning here? Do we impregnate each other? Are we impregnated in conversation? We are. We might refuse it, wear protection, and we do often. Sometimes the seed is planted when we are infertile or simply not willing to play. Perhaps we are in pain or we do not wish to engage. Sometimes we just respond to the societal influences: don’t talk to strangers. Remember, you are a stranger, too! There is much that tells us to fear, yes? And there is one who encourages us saying, and there are a few who also teach, Fear not.
And when we are pregnant, do we do what is wise and healthy for our unborn child? How shall we nourish these twins, the persons seeking to be born? Do we take in good things, love and energy, do we avoid the hate and fear?
:- Doug.
What is going on?
Good conversation can take out all of your energy
Good conversation can also rejuvenate you
What is going on?
:- Doug.
To find the common heart spaces
To find the common heart spaces: meaning, beauty, laughter and tears. This is what seeking conversation means for me, for now.
:- Doug.
Cultivation
Cultivation: that is what conversation calls for, yes? The seed is not ready grown but must do its heavy work right away: find its direction in the dark and damp, push through the compacted earth, find the sun,find something to feed upon. Then it takes months to ripen. Our tending is feeding, getting things out of the way. Some conversations we plant, some were planted by unseen hands generations ago and we are privileged to harvest and take in for our nourishment. Some grow in the wild. So we may imagine some conversations mysteriously flower, go to rich colors quickly, or that others with the same tender hand seem to die in the earth. It may be a question of the ripeness of the conversation and the persons. We need not worry ourselves but enjoy what we find and move on, planting, tending, harvesting. Or so it seems today.
:- Doug.
How would you know it?
This important thing you want to do with your life, how would you know it?
:- Doug.
