FootprintsintheWind.com

The poem is a way to say more of life in fewer words.

:- Doug.

We take our family as it finds us.

:- Doug.

Some say they go to Congress to have the government do what it can; others say they go to stop the government from doing what it can.

:- Doug.

Guarantees?! Can the physician guarantee she will heal you? Can the priest guarantee you will get to Heaven? Can the lawyer guarantee you will have no more problems with your fellow?

:- Doug.

Conversation is not merely words; it is larger than that, and smaller, deeper and higher and sometimes just as surface. Conversation has an arrow.

:- Doug.

I wonder if birds see the air, fish see the sea, as we see the water when we are rowing a boat, seeing or being aware of ripples and waves, of movement and riding or being buffeted by the currents? Do we see the ripples and waves of history, of society, coming toward us, or moving away from our touch? I move with the lawn tractor, barely aware yet still aware of the wind, the rises in the earth beneath us, this tractor and me: we move quickly and purposively, and yet if I had to I could not easily pre-plan my movements on the levers. Still I do not think we are aware very often of our touch on the larger eddies.

:- Doug.

Great movements
Sprout from
Small groups
All round
Doing what
They can
Together

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1122

In winter I see all the branches
Now birds in the little maple
A half dozen is all
But they flit about this tree
Some right, some left
Sitting only a second or two
Some down, some up
My thoughts dart around
This legal problem
Which evades my grasp
Do the birds flit
Or the tree?

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, 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

Are you wearing your attends?

:- Doug.

There’s inhumanity and humanity. In which direction shall we choose to face, these our lives together?

:- Doug.

Is it possible that it is not just the US which is shattering? If so, is it possible that the US could take the lead in the melting?

:- Doug.

Whom we have is us.

:- Doug.

Telling: Most of our “conferences” consist of one person telling many.

Togethering: What if we gather, think together, and do—what we know strongest?

:- Doug.

Look at some NASA photos of the galaxies and the earth. They will give you a larger perspective on what the world means and is. There are bigger ways to see G*d, too.

:- Doug.

There are those who reckon the world is held up from below by minutiae; others see it is held from about and wholeness.

:- Doug.

Our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people. When did we start distrusting the people?

:- Doug.

My closest antagonist is my wife.

:- Doug.

In the nursing home, what is your life like, what do you find are the things that most engage you? What do you wonder about? About what do you find precious few people to talk with you?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1121

As I look around this people, I see the salt of the earth. Today, the world about us is icy: together you can start the melting.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, 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

What were the biggest surprises you had on entering a nursing home?

:- Doug.

There is much to do and few workers. Yet we get done what we get done: people eat, sleep and make more of their kind.

:- Doug.

There are those who see the world as competition. I do not. To make the whole out of a narrow slice is a classic error. The part is made of the whole. I see the world as cooperation and within that competition is such a narrow slice.

:- Doug.

What is the work of a person of later years? Is it about death? And yet about life? Making it whole? Complete, full? It is ever about waiting for your time to end?

:- Doug.