FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 854

What have I not seen? Where have I not looked? To whom have I not turned? Whom have I not heard? When have I guessed when I could still ask? Who might be larger than I thought?

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

We have more problems than we have ever had before and they are more intricately knotted than ever before. The growing sheer number of people in limited space assures us that the knots will get more tangled—and it assures us of more complex mind-capacity we have to dissolve and re-tie the knots. Must we bring more of us to bear on the extinction questions facing us? The answer is obvious. What will we do is the question of the decision-hour for our species. Will we find a way to engage all who care, all whose voices need to be heard? Three billion more souls—and minds—on this planet in the next 40 years is not the problem—it is the opportunity. The danger is, will we kill each other before, will we pollute and infect each other before we find a way to converse together, before we find a way to work for the whole good?

This is a new demand on our species—never before have we faced such a demand to converse and collaborate. This is a now demand—before our chances run out.

:- Doug.

Could we measure voices heard, minds engaged, states of passion employed?

:- Doug.

We live inside a bubble catching light
We reach to grasp—it shimmers leaping larger
“Ask me questions, play & probe—I grow
Catch me but you can’t!” calls Knowledge sporting

:- Doug.

G*d is the ground of our being, what’s common among us, the sand that tickles our toes, the juice of our lives.

:- Doug.

The dramatic increase in wars and atrocities and killings of women and children of the last century is less explainable as an increase in the evil abroad among people. More likely it is due to the compression of the masses of people on the globe. Population compression has given us two effects which have conspired to this horrific end: first an increase in science and technology, itself enabled by increased communication and desire for peer approval in the sciences and the work of science being accomplished in ever larger groups, for more efficient ways to kill; second a reduction in the amount of personal, family and tribal space resulting in increased bumping, friction, irritation and growing animosity toward anyone who is different.

If true, what does this tell us about the century we are just starting? If we stay on the same path, there will be increased population compression, less space, more bumping, more irritation, more animosity. More efficient ways to kill people—to rid us of the other.

Can we do other than stay the course?

We are all we have. Our people and others. Can we somehow figure out a way to convert the Other into others—persons, like us? Can we figure out how to live together?

I do not say we need to learn to live together. Learning suggests that we already know how to do this. Instead, there is knowledge—and wisdom—we need to cobble together, together. Together we need to work out our next steps.

Our forbears living in caves and in roving bands learned how to live with a small clan—but they also learned to see any being outside their clan as a threat. Even as late as Daniel Boone’s times, he was able to say that his neighbor was too near if he could see the smoke from his chimney.

We do not know. It is not naturally inbred. We must figure out for the decades and centuries ahead, how to live together. We must work out how to be close to people, taking down every boundary we can. We must find ways to value and celebrate and seek out diversity and new ideas, for it is here with all of us that our future lies.

:- Doug.

SGCCTW: Small groups can change the world.

:- Doug.

We have a choice: we can build distrust or trust, disconnection or connection. Our world is large enough that we can put distance between ourselves and others—and never have to deal with that person again in our lives. Or so we think. But we do deal with that disconnection for the rest of our lives and for the breadth of the world. The more distance we place between ourselves and others, the more distance there is in the world. Does distance help us with peace and justice and love and the things that really matter? Or is closeness and openness better? Can pushing away an entire country, can shock and awe as an approach to other people, help bring us together? Where is the logic in that? We must choose the better path.

:- Doug.

Life is up and down; non-life is flat
Birds, trees, animals, even fishes
Looking over the fields
You can see where is life

:- Doug.

If you seek conversation, I am here. If you seek debate, I am there.

:- Doug.

We can make a difference. For those who suffer. For justice. For the generations.

:- Doug.

This is our insurmountable heap—which we are climbing: plenty of people suffering, plenty of people to help, how to put them together? Just here, just now. Just hear, just now.

:- Doug.

Science is learning that we are hard-wired for compassion and helping. If we see another being suffering, if we hear of it, we are moved. Being moved, we are more apt to be moved more. This is chemical, this is in the brain, this is physical as well as mental. Helping once gives us a physical shot which prepares us to help again and help more.

This is one answer to how to reach people: talk about the suffering of others, talk about people who have helped and are helping and invite others to the party. Invite them to their own party.

:- Doug.

The real questions—what are the real questions? How then shall we live? How shall we provide a shelter from the weather, food, warmth, clothing? We need to do so with the sweat of our brow, and yet these things seem so little—we should be able to obtain them with only this sweat—they should not be outside the reach of any.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 853

To stand powerless with a message
Is part of our destiny
(Take courage from the prophets)

The message for our times: Trust the people
All creativity all future is here
All action all change all work
Whatever is going to get done
Is going to get done by the people

You ask
How to engage the people
Simple: Ask for help

Trust the people: ask them for help
A better world is right here

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

Is this truth?
Or a book report?
It is the truth
Of imagination!
Than brutality’s lack of imagination
More real is who is possible!

:- Doug.

The words of the prophets
Are written on the hearts
Of us all
To remain

The words do not depend
Upon the prophet but their truth
For us all
To remain

:- Doug.

Imagination or delusion?
Imagination does not know
The good that can be done—
Delusion knows
The harm it can do
Each miscalculates how it returns

:- Doug.

In
Beginning
Still
Story

:- Doug.

G*d is within the among.

:- Doug.

What is the story we are making?

:- Doug.

The music, the story, the word is all around us and we are called to attend. But some do not attend, some refuse, some have forgotten how. The story says we are possible, we can, we must if it is to be: if we are to be tomorrow. We walk through the story: asleep or awake? To sleep, to wake: perchance to dream. The crucible is the meeting where the Word speaks—the dream—the story—us: we are the fire or we are the rusting. Which shall we apply?

:- Doug.

One’s reach should exceed one’s grasp, or what’s a Heaven for; one’s touch should exceed one’s grasp, or what’s an Earth for?

:- Doug.