Ever makes new nows
G*d’s work is ever to make new nows, giving them to all without price. You are invited: take hold.
:- Doug.
Archive for July, 2008
I hold this possibility for South Bend
I hold this possibility for South Bend: A small group can change our now.
:- Doug.
That our lives may live
Conversation is intercourse which can lead to pregnancy and birth of new life. Conversation is necessary that our lives may live.
:- Doug.
Conversation is required
Conversation is required: We cannot be family or community or nation without conversation. If we do not truly meet, the shells of these things exist, but the reality of them has long since departed.
Conversation is required of us if we are to have a now distinct from the past.
Conversation is required of us if we are to live life (cf Isa 55:3).
:- Doug.
We do not “know” how to converse
We do not “know” how to converse. We have to create it anew each time. We have to create it anew this time.
This means for one thing that we have to invest ourselves—giving all.
This means second that we have to invest ourselves in receiving the imperfectly communicated ideas and soul of the other, sweating out what they mean.
This means third that we have to invest ourselves in sweating out what we together might mean, be, and do.
:- Doug.
Open to their own imaginations
To open people to their own imaginations, to what we can do together, requires conversation.
Not includes, requires. We must not just communicate, but we must meet, we must create, we must give birth: to life, to love, to do-be-doing. There is a distinction between conversation and communication. Communication assumes a message, a sayer and a hearer: the message already exists. But in conversation of an intercourse nature, it is possible that something new will be birthed. The something new might be an idea, or it might be three new persons.
:- Doug.
Only a G*d who is free
Only a G*d who is free
Of the strings
Placed by the puppets
On the puppeteer
Is truly free
:- Doug.
Questions leading to a better now
Some questions which can lead to a better now:
What are you still surprised to hear other people see as your gift?
What do you see as the possibilities for our community?
What are the choices our community faces today?
What surprised you that you were able to pull off, and what contributed to that?
What gifts are you surprised to see in your community?
Who are those on the margins ready to make this community better now?
:- Doug.
Forms and rituals as if
Forms and rituals are useful to us, to bring us into the presence through the door of “As if.” There are other doors: other people, nature, days, stars, birds, frustrations.
:- Doug.
Genesis 1 as work for the week?
What if Genesis 1 were a liturgy of the week for us? The first day of the week we create light: what is the role of light and dark in our lives, in our daily rounds? The second day we create water and skies in our lives: how do things flow, what do the waters cover, to what do they give birth, when do we feel like we are being drowned, from what do we see ourselves emerging, what gives us breath, what do we see in the skies? The fifth day—Friday?—we bring forth creepy, crawly things upon the land and birds in the air: what are those in our lives and how do we respond, do we reject and run away and put away, do we love and welcome and embrace all of us, do we wish we could fly? And so it goes with all the days until we rest: do we rest and ponder what we have created, do we play, do we work, and if we work do we get to feeling good about it?
:- Doug.
Outcroppings!
From single cell
To Behemoth
Life! Instances of Life!
Outcroppings of Life!
Underneath it all
—one Life!
:- Doug.
