Archive for March, 2013

A double blind spot

Here is a double blind spot we have in end of life care: we ask each other what our goals are. Double blind because first we assume that we know what end we want to experience; and second we do not want to look beyond this person’s death: we cut short our caring. But life and pain and good go on. What effects of a painful or peaceful death are there on family and immediate caregivers? What effects on our society and how we do this to and for ourselves when most helpless? Goals, end points to our thinking, can do us harm.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 12th, 2013 | No Comments »

Everyone dies.

Everyone dies. This we cannot cure. So then how are we to treat us?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 12th, 2013 | No Comments »

What treatment as we die?

Everyone dies. What sort of treatment are we entitled to as we die? Could this become the standard for all treatment of others?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 11th, 2013 | No Comments »

Three stages of our health in later years

There are three stages of our health in later years: Healthful years with few big issues; Years when bigger things start narrowing our possible issues; Frail times when we are in decline. Lawyers can help folks think generally and without pressure in the healthful years, think about what is important to us to guide our families. In the Years of Challenges, we can help people become more specific in their thinking and their conversing with their families. In frail years and beyond, we can help folks and families keep their resolve and refine it more, live fully to the end, and keep the family together in loving, and help their families reduce and deal with their grief.

How else might we make things better?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 11th, 2013 | No Comments »

What is the role of the lawyer?

What is the role for the lawyer in end of life times? How can we get more active for our clients?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 10th, 2013 | No Comments »

Your poem of poems

This is my poem of poems
& all this is
Your poem of poems

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 10th, 2013 | No Comments »

Footprints in the Windsm # 1311–The case of Lorraine Bayless

Footprints in the Windsm # 1311

The case of Lorraine Bayless is a perfect example: an 87 year old for whom no CPR was given holds a mirror up for us of the complexity of our end of life. We have a 75% idea about CPR (the real number is closer to 17%—for a healthy person.) Why do doctors do more for patients than they do for themselves? Because they might be sued? Why? Because in our society we think everyone can be saved and should be? Why? Always ask Why again. Because we cannot accept death? Because we cannot let go? Because we want someone to blame? Because we are angry? There are probably 101 reasons, all interwoven and tangled. This is the definition of complex. But hear this quite clearly: we do it to ourselves. We are the ones driving this. There is no one else. If we have a lot of bad deaths in our society, it’s up to us to fix it.


Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/311-0022, 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

Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on March 9th, 2013 | No Comments »

Our pain, our pain

Our pain, our pain for what is going on in the world—the elder tied to a wheel chair and left for hours to sit unfriended, the child bullied by the school system—this, this is God in action.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 9th, 2013 | No Comments »

People do things that don’t benefit themselves–

People do things that don’t benefit themselves—even put their lives at risk. This, this is God in action.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 8th, 2013 | No Comments »

New ways to pray?

With an imageless God what new ways do we pray?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 8th, 2013 | No Comments »

The sparkling snow

The sparking snow is God. The slushy muddy snow is God. Our life is God. Our movement and our stillness. God is this. God is. We are. All this is true and not true, reality and not reality. It is true and reality in the large sense, but not when we try to concretize it, make it ever this way and no other way. There is no place you can look and not see God, and no place you can look and see God.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 7th, 2013 | No Comments »

Light laden

Light and similar qualitative terms are at least laden with, if not essentially consisting of, our own meaning making.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 7th, 2013 | No Comments »

Footprints in the Windsm # 1310–Our highest value

Footprints in the Windsm # 1310

When our eyes meet—
When our ears meet—
Passes between us humanity
& here might be our highest value


Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/311-0022, 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

Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on March 6th, 2013 | No Comments »

Spirit as observable and verifiable

Perhaps spirit is something in this one story world that is observable and verifiable. It is akin to Jung’s collective unconscious, or common history, or species memory. It is a common experience of mystery.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 6th, 2013 | No Comments »

Knock on that door

Knock on that door: what you and I see as a solid piece of wood, touchable, movable and knowable, the physicist standing by us sees as a swirling mass of electrons, atoms, and quarks—indeed a mere probability of coming to this shape and these dimensions. Thich Nhat Hanh standing next to the physicist sees a congregation of clouds—raining down, feeding seedlings and trees—and the work of many hands. Reality is us seeing and instantly making stories in our heads to explain to ourselves what we thought we saw. We are ever trying to convince others (and ourselves) to accept our stories.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 6th, 2013 | No Comments »

The origin of us?

What is an origin of us? A sperm and an egg? Life itself? Upon what are we grounded?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 5th, 2013 | No Comments »

A bird has caught hold

A bird has caught hold of the suet cage with its feet, and is trying to stabilize himself (herself?) with one wing. The cage just keeps spinning: the food is always just out of reach. Eventually she gave up and flew away. This is what we do so often with beating one wing of our minds trying to figure out reality and life and God. Maybe if we let loose and let it come to us….

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 5th, 2013 | No Comments »

Let us listen to

Let us listen to
Life open
Us

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 4th, 2013 | No Comments »

Spiritual is mystery

Spiritual is mystery, pulling me beyond what I thought I knew. Mystery pushes me out of my self, making me want to be larger.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 4th, 2013 | No Comments »

The flavor of the kettle?

Jesus the stock—what is the flavor of the kettle? Holy wars, crusades, witch hunts, inquisitions, inhumanity. Great organization of a church and alliances with governments and despots. Great art and literature, soaring thought. Humane acts and mundane ethics. Gathering of the masses around their good and guilt. Much good and much evil. The aroma tells what’s in the pot.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 4th, 2013 | No Comments »

See the good to make the good

See the good to make the good.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 3rd, 2013 | No Comments »

Forgotten tomorrow

Life moves
everything is always in motion
our highest achievement today
is forgotten tomorrow
on we go

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 3rd, 2013 | No Comments »

Larger than any one of us

There is something more
Larger than any one of us
Life Love & Conversation
These have an intent for good
An intimate inclination towards us
& an engagement with us
One

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on March 3rd, 2013 | No Comments »
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