is good
Meditation/contemplation can be about just being comfortable just being. Simple presence is good.
:- Doug.
Archive for December, 2006
+ group + individuality
Being completely present to a group can increase my special qualities.
:- Doug.
In the perfect place
I’m in the perfect place: not a cog on a machine’s wheel, rather a node within a living web, flashing and touching the threads growing amongst us. So are you. So are we all.
:- Doug.
Shared conscience
Conversation leads to shared conscience; indeed this may be its root meaning, knowing together.
:- Doug.
Assimilation goes two ways
Assimilation goes two ways. When we welcome someone into our home, a little of them rubs off on us, as our hospitality on them.
:- Doug.
We don’t have to suspend
We don’t have to suspend or name our assumptions as the first step to dialogue: we need merely meet one another as human beings and the assumptions will dissolve or fall of their own weight.
:- Doug.
A parable of our times
The story is told that at a certain time in a big city somewhere in the world it was traditional for poor people to go to the doors of others to seek aid. At this time a boy of about 11 years knocked on the apartment door. A father and his son, of about the same years, answered the door. The father said to wait while he and his son went to see what they might offer. The father took out some money and said, “Son, go get your favorite toy to give to the boy.” “But, father!” “Your favorite, the one you play with all the time.” “No!” “Son, go to your room and get it.” Slowly, glumly the youngster did as he was told. “Now go to the door and give him the money and your toy.” His son was at the door a long time, but the father stayed with his curiosity in another room. Finally, his son came back with shining eyes: “Father, can I do that again?”
When it comes to our reluctance to welcome immigrants to our homeland, we are this son.
:- Doug.
It is only through disturbance that we have life
It is only through disturbance that we have life. The winds, the waters bring food and drink to the trees. We measure life by breath and by movement. All these are change, disturbing what was. What is, if it is life, is no longer what we saw or met a mere moment ago. Nor can we predict its position nor direction nor speed a mere moment from now. Life disturbs.
:- Doug.
The other side of today
Since we don’t know what’s on
the other side of today
how will we choose to address the day?
As if we did know? Is that sanity?
Exploring, looking for surprises, disturbances?
Looking for how we can surprise, disturb
and connect?
:- Doug.
Rx for world changers
What do you want to happen? Why don’t you see to it? is also a good prescription for world changers.
:- Doug.
Together is generative
A Community of Practice seeks working together toward something, but the something is secondary to the together. The together is generative of many actions. First the chickens, then the egg.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 729
Footprints in the Windsm # 729
In between
is the conversation
giving and receiving
and the conversation is with G-d
and the conversation is G-d
all things are made through the conversation
and without the conversation is not anything
made that is made
in the conversation is life
and the life is the light of humankind
the light shines now in the darkness
and the darkness does not overcome the light
Please pass it on.
© c 2007, 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
Rather than evolve consciously….
Rather than to evolve
consciously
perhaps it is more important
to evolve fully
engaged
rapt
unwrapped
:- Doug.
Is wholeness possible?
Is wholeness possible? Or is everything constantly emerging, so that any picture of wholeness is history and therefor untrue of the present?
:- Doug.
Why we have to meet
There is something that arises in meeting that cannot be predicted. That’s why we have to meet.
:- Doug.
gathering, bringing
We are here
not as a gathering of individuals
but as a
gathering
—more—
we are not simply
connecting
rather bringing
a new living being
into life
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 728
Footprints in the Windsm # 728
On holidays
families play together
doing the work of family growing
playing together
on holy days
Please pass it on.
© c 2007, 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
“all walking around shining like the sun”
These days I am seeing often that all this is G*d. Not that we worship our fellow creatures, but that we see we are all shot through with G*d. As Thomas Merton puts it in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p 141, “people…are all walking around shining like the sun.” It is as if we are not subject to G*d as to some manic ruler, but caught in a web of love. This web is G*d, so we are all G*d: as the Bible says, “ye are all gods.”
:- Doug.
because of our ears
It may be that because of our ears we hear “no one comes to the father but through me” inside out. We might hear instead that since Jesus went the way of men and stands in that way, all men trod the way—no exceptions. No one comes to the father but by the way I went. These too stand in this way, beckoning: Rumi, Rilke, Abraham, Buddha, Lao Tzu….
:- Doug.
