three coins
three coins
same worth:
grief & amazement
empty-making & whole-making
surrender & becoming generosity
:- Doug.
Archive for June, 2011
Footprints in the Windsm # 1161–To my grandson
Footprints in the Windsm # 1161
My grandson
There is work for you to do
A large something
Hidden in your heart
Do it whether you are paid or not
For spirit—yours and all—depends upon it
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
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
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Go away, Holy Spirit
Go away Holy Spirit
if you would fill us
we cannot be filled
full as we are
empty us of our holy thoughts
make us
wholly empty
of what we think is right
& to holy humanity
to whole holiness
open us
:- Doug.
emptying the pond
We empty the pond not
to fill it anew but
to dig it deeper, wider, to
open it to the
oceans
:- Doug.
of the hum
We humans
—Are of the humus
Composed of the decomposing
—Are of the hum
Composed of work and music
:- Doug.
Look for action, movement
Look for action, look for movement: here we can dive from a high cliff into deep waters.
:- Doug.
empty wallet gifts
From my empty wallet there is naught to give. So I offer you wrinkled ear and fragment of poem, cool water and a well still and deep.
:- Doug.
To seek contexts in which to open
I promise to seek contexts in which I can open up in a way that is meaningful to the others nearby, not to force my point of view but to impart my self, to surrender up my self, to be generous.
:- Doug.
Surrender and generosity
Surrender and generosity are the same being, just in different garb. To be generous, we need to give of our substance and essence, what we cannot afford. This is the definition of surrender. So our task in life is to give all of ourselves to the point where we receive all of ourselves. We cannot learn who we are save by giving up our clinging to who we thought we were. We are born in the interchange. If we stay a tight ball we stay small. Open and be large.
In my own life I see the need of sharing my soul work with those nearby on the path. Not to teach or recruit. To “impart as much as you can of your spiritual being” (Schweitzer).
:- Doug.
Paying for what we cannot buy
We can pay for something
we cannot buy
that man could have become mayor
if he’d been willing to relinquish his anger
:- Doug.
All about conversations that cook
All about Conversations that Cook: We simply throw folks into a cauldron. They sizzle and they bubble and they boil. They come out savory: engaged and creative and getting things done—because that’s who went in.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1160–The purpose of gathering is to see the beauty
Footprints in the Windsm # 1160
The purpose of gathering is to see the beauty and set it free.
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
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
my unknowing must trouble me
Friend, my unknowing must trouble me. Just now I wanted to pray for clarity of sight, and yet this we are continually denied. Maybe it is best, for then we can create the sight, the vision, and that is exactly what we need at that instant. Instantaneous vision, momentary sight.
To see the whole picture clearly means to stand outside time and see how time fits with space. For that we have only glimpses and imagination, and it is up to us, to the extent it concerns us, to create that junction and the place and time toward which it is moving.
:- Doug.
After you have transcended/How do your feet smell?
After you have transcended
How do your feet smell?
Can we know from this side?
Some transcendences come slowly
Some in great leaps over only
A generation or two—with a lot of
Sweat and blood
And unknowing
Ours a responsibility for
Creating the sight and the nature
Precisely how and when we need it
:- Doug.
There once was a couple….
Once there was a couple who sought to make their Wills. They thought about their children’s loves and skills and difficulties. They thought about their house of worship. They thought about all the things they did in the world: work and play, service that was for them enlivening, things they wanted to see happen for their grandchildren’s grandchildren and for the world. Then they wrote and wrote and wrote. Love letters. About dreams and making whole. They forgot about making “Wills,” they no longer wanted to dump things, but to put their lives whole to work. Only the lawyer called their dream letters Wills.
:- Doug.
What is the music we are?
What is the music we are?
Our poems write themselves out of that
Our dances come from there
Notes that reverberate out of our gut
Rather than in our ears
And jangle our hands and feet
This piper is inside us all
:- Doug.
You maple leaves are dancing
You maple leaves are dancing
the sky loves the green of your dress
—and laughs
:- Doug.
Thieves: How do you steal
Thieves: How do you steal
Away?
By giving me your litter
You steal from me—my energy
To pick it up
My time
Where is
Away?
If giving can be stealing
Can giving away feed us?
Must pay always come
From the ones served?
:- Doug.
