to put life into focus
When we honor an insight we put life into focus. Honor is given in attention; honor is given in sharing.
:- Doug.
Archive for September, 2010
Footprints in the Windsm # 1092–Good days gone
Footprints in the Windsm # 1092
We get so tied up in the problems of our days that we do not know they are our good days, until they are long gone.
Please pass it on.
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Less in proclamations
Less in proclamations
More in conversations
God speaks
Less at, more with
Could be our way too
:- Doug.
Something
We never quite know
whether we are addressing God
or our notions of God
This a good place to begin
what can we do from here?
doubt our doubts
Address our doubts
our notions of
what is beyond
Until we begin to see
edges of shadows
intimations of callings upward
Here in the larger
Hear in the larger
Something
:- Doug.
Go, poet, for the inner
Unable to find words
A poet can but point
Give clues
Yet the meaning
Is beyond finger
Beyond poet
Poem is not the end of poet
Nor of making
The thing makes
The experience touches
Poet and hearer
And worlds
Unexpected
Children beget children
Beyond our hopes
They sit in our laps
Before wriggling off
To go their ways
Go, poet, for the inner
Call forth from our compost
Rich black soil
:- Doug.
Invite you?
Is what I have been given for the benefit of all humanity? How then shall I invite you to partake?
:- Doug.
inviting mystery
Since ultimate insights come through experience it is experience of wonder, even mystery and radical amazement we must invite. All else comes behind.
:- Doug.
Not just our hands/…
Not just our hands
over our eyes
our minds
our hearts
callouses
We can see
think & feel
clearly
if we lay them aside
:- Doug.
But the trees know
There are leaves on the ground near the trees, but leaves on the trees are still green. We are not ready for fall, but the trees know.
:- Doug.
leave room for ambiguity
Mary Catherine Bateson quotes a Catholic saying: “a sacrament effects what it signifies.” We can make something holy by saying it represents the holy. This is like the ancients blessing having power in and of itself to cause what it says.
This is something that Quakers do not seem to have. Except by going into a common everyday silence, they notice the holy and make the everyday holy. So I suspect it is there. And so it is in circles: we can make sacred by pointing to the sacred. This was my experience in the first circle I attended, with the Eagle feather. Saying so makes it so, if we leave something open.
So holiness is found in the noticing, in the finding, in the openness to finding, and in the looking to find. It is not inherent in the particular items: water, bitter herbs, candles, wine.
The question of course is how to bring our awareness to holy. I suspect it is a matter of a pausing to reflect, of someone pointing out what is in front of us. We may not all or even a few of us catch it, fleeting and ephemeral as it is. The door is opened, both ways.
It seems necessary to leave room for ambiguity and evoking and mystery even in how we point it out.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1091–reaching farther than our hands, outlasting our lives
Footprints in the Windsm # 1091
There is a power in starting things. When we set things in motion they reach farther than our hands, last longer than our lives. Conversing starts things.
Please pass it on.
© c 2010, 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
Conversations we don’t want
Conversations we don’t want is how we take charge for our world.
:- Doug.
How we take responsibility for our world
Conversation is how we take responsibility for our world.
:- Doug.
Do this and you are changing your world
When you invite conversations that matter, you are changing your world.
:- Doug.
Conversation is how we make our world better.
Conversation is how we make our world better.
:- Doug.
That of which we cannot speak/…
That of which we cannot speak
No words there are for our beyond
More we are & more shall be
More we are & more shall see
:- Doug.
Of course we have learned
Of course we have learned some things. Of course we still have to deal with the desires of our old ways. This is the tussle, and we progress by a not so sure step.
:- Doug.
