FootprintsintheWind.com

What if I were a social entrepreneur? What if I sought always to give a larger gift?

:- Doug.

Remember to live.

:- Doug.

Who are the very best people I can find to help me turn the world? asked J. So he chose—or wandered into—a bunch of coarse blue collar people—ordinary people, people with “no” resources—and showed them their resources were beyond generous. They answered a call to a higher work. His work was to help them find the resources to make change.

:- Doug.

We are larger than we know
We are more than we know
We are more than we are

:- Doug.

Call the attention of persons to community. Here it is that they get their sustenance and nurture; here it is that they belong; here it is that they can find life expansive. Life expands when you help others. It is not about getting for yourself, but about about expanding life—life of the community and life itself.

Will people understand, let alone take this in?

It may be a matter of reminding people of their own stories of giving and being part of a community. Ask them for these stories.

When have you given yourself heart and soul to some one else? To a project or movement? Dropped everything because some one needed you? What did that feel like?

:- Doug.

Salesperson seeking prospects
Business owner seeking customers
Woman reaching out to her husband
We all seek each other:
Rather than money
What if we sought each other first?

:- Doug.

It is winter
When trees live in their buds

:- Doug.

The world
remember
he gave to us
to mangle
or to jangle

:- Doug.

This morning I was reading some material about consensus in church congregations. The writer said that one way to see it is as making decisions that everyone can live with—not unanimity. Another way the writer said was an interpretation of the Friends approach: as a continuation of worship, with an intention to listen for the direction of G*d.

Hmmm…G*d is all directions!

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 830

The message of advertising is, You are inadequate. The message of truth is, We are able.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, 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

Between the land of God pulls every string
And the common I pull God’s
Lives our Friend—to write our song—asks us

:- Doug.

If we seek to have abundant life
Not to puppet master abdicate
We must—full heart & brain—participate

:- Doug.

We are song
Worlds on us depend
We touch far more
Than with our hands
We sing e’en when we notice not

Birthing others—self—& G*d
Nurturing G*d—others—& self
Hearing—voicing—stilling—pulsing
Let us free play give to the Work
We: are song

:- Doug.

What conversations need to be started in our community? What work needs to be done? Who are the marginalized people who need our hearing?

:- Doug.

To be a song is profound
Responsibility
Rhythm & Wisdom
Breathed far & long writer beyond
Now? is the meeting
Who? are the people you
Will to bring forth
In place & people & time
Music is, limitless

:- Doug.

Knitting fearlessly
Meeting courageously

:- Doug.

Nothing happens when the expert from afar leaves because we do not make space to ponder, converse, and adopt. Without working space, it can only echo down the shafts of empty minds.

:- Doug.

We can do better.

How to do better? Conversation. Open space for people to take part in their lives. Our advertising tells us we have no part, the only thing we can do is to buy our way to wholeness, which ever eludes us because there is ever something on the next shelf to buy, and once we have bought something, keep our noses to the grindstone to pay for it.

There is never shown us a way out of the consuming cycle, the cycle which will end up consuming our lives.

The way is there, if we but engage each other. There is more important than buying: making good in the world, for each other.

:- Doug.