When someone dies, the phone starts ringing….
When somebody dies, the phone starts ringing. But when somebody lives, what attention do we pay?
:- Doug.
Archive for January, 2012
Not to be used, not to be served, but
Not to be used, not to be served, but met: the people, the books, the beings in your daily rounds.
:- Doug.
Do you feel addressed by these words? By
Do you feel addressed by these words? By me or by divinity? They came to me by intimate address. Respond!
:- Doug.
You can always be heard
You can always be heard; you can always hear: there is nothing outside of G*d.
:- Doug.
Do you work for someone?
I strive to work with people, neither working for people, nor against them.
:- Doug.
Tightly woven
The whole cloth is tightly woven, so you cannot tease out on thread without pulling on all the others. My whole work, our whole-making work, is conversation.
:- Doug.
Thousands dying this year of this
This year, thousands will die of not hearing. Hearing one another. Hearing is more than listening, more than preparing your response. This year, thousands will die of not being heard. Being heard is essential to continuing to live.
:- Doug.
Why we are frustrated with one another
We’re frustrated with one another and so we shout at “them.” We’re frustrated with one another because we have forgotten how to dialogue. We don’t know how to hear, how to meet.
:- Doug.
Reduce President to one 6-month term?
Let’s reduce the President’s office to one 6-month term: let’s have citizen Presidents. No one has to give up her or his job for an impossible time. It is honor and duty, like jury service. Perhaps this way we can have a true presidency of the people and some consistent tapping into the wisdom of the people. Perhaps we can do away with the constant media haranguing by the people who make lots of money if their way is implemented. Perhaps the ideologues will have only sand in which their tires may seek a purchase. Perhaps something like this can give us back our country and our world.
:- Doug.
There is seldom any “too”
There is seldom any “too:” most of life is just as it is and just right.
:- Doug.
Our whole work
Our whole work is conversing, engaging, encountering, meeting: our whole work is bringing us to whole, our whole work is whole-making, whole-realizing. Our whole work is conversing.
:- Doug.
What is your whole work?
What is your whole work? What is your work that is whole, complete, that pulls from your heart and essence and does what is right and good for your world? What pulls people together, what uses their leadership and skills, their loves and whatever grabs them and gets them moving? What is your whole work?
:- Doug.
Wholeness is not a matter of doing
Wholeness is not a matter of doing, but of being, but not only or merely passive being, active too.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1218–I fell into a hole
Footprints in the Windsm # 1218
I fell into a hole
For a project & on a mission
To get some wrenches
Striding through the door
My forward motion
—Turned straight down
Surprise, lost, unknowing
Words insufficiently strong
For my disorientation
My world, my purpose—disappeared
Scraping shin
Striking ribcage
Pain shooting from here from there
Not even time to ask What’s this?
My attention—wrenched—
In less than a trice
Only later was there time
To recall I’d opened
The hole to shut off the water
Please pass it on.
© c 2012, 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
This Now
God is this Now. God is the eternal, the out of time, not the one who is out of time, but the very out of time.
:- Doug.
The warmest coat
The warmest coat, the warmest blanket has lots of openings to hold air and warmth. Letting air into the compost heap feeds the working. The most creative gatherings open space for creativity to work, heat and flourish.
:- Doug.
Open to the breezes of your times
Open to the breezes of the times, of the people who touch you and who are touched by you, of the timeless all there is. Open to free yourself, open to invite all, open to come whole and come home. Open!
:- Doug.
Your people’s magic held back–by you
People have more magic in them than we can guess. Your guessing, your presuming holds them back, and so holds us back. Stop guessing!
:- Doug.
Leading in the 21st century
I suggest to you that leading in the 21st Century is not oriented toward 1950s militaristic command and control; rather it is more collaborative, finding the gifts and strengths of each person, to where everyone is leading in something. So what are your issues and opportunities to more completely engage your people, to engage their deepest and highest longings?
I suggest that it looks something like Open Space, draws some principles from this way of being together in the world.
:- Doug.
