FootprintsintheWind.com

The reason the listening stick is so powerful is that it probes the depths—grief, pain, what’s not working, what’s needed, who we are, what we love most.

:- Doug.

Finding our way
across an opening abyss
taking spirit by the hand
—or the other way around—
is the work of conversing

:- Doug.

Opening space
For Spirit to breathe
Conversing is

:- Doug.

Ask the participants how to grow love from conversation: They will grow our spirit and imagination. That’s opening space! Set the direction, invite them to invite larger, to put meat on the bones.

:- Doug.

What are the possible links between POST and a compassionate community?

:- Doug.

Say less to say more
The way of love
Which has not need of words

:- Doug.

Where is love in POST? Where is love in Conversation? Where is compassion?

:- Doug.

Looking forward to seeing my grandchildren this evening, telling stories, playing. Young life! Possibilities and potential!

:- Doug.

What is the American mythos around collaboration, neighbors and conversation? Barn raisings, potlucks, The Alamo, Paul Revere, 13 colonies, the revolution. What else can you add?

:- Doug.

This is God
you are the face of God
the face inseparable

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1366

Our society is in pain
& since our society now practically spans the world
the same pain is expressed everywhere:
violence, robbery, murder, rape, war, terror
we scream, we yell at one another, we see the other as threat
we try to force the other into our mold, into the old ways
all explodes—
and yet…
we are in times of great flux
the perturbance is getting larger, the swings wilder, the ride more frightening
even the ground, the oceans and the weather are shifting
the old, the reliable, the comfortable are going away
(are we too?)
something new (which we protest) is approaching
birth

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

God is coming down
to meet us, soak us
drop by drop
thousands by the second
a car splashes gallons against our windows
a father walks in carrying a multi-hued finger painting

:- Doug.

We are a gathering
of friends
on this ball
in the middle of space
surrounded befriended embraced
by a host
of each other

:- Doug.

What do you mean, Doesn’t believe in God? Meaning God as we define—image—God? Doesn’t have faith means what? Faith in our list of things to believe, that is, to do?

:- Doug.

Is prescience the same as wisdom?

:- Doug.

To love your grandchildren is to accept them and to challenge them. One without the other is insipid and unloving.

:- Doug.

I can’t tell you everything there is to know about POST because everything has yet to be encountered.

:- Doug.

When we invite people to the center to write their issues and opportunities, we are loving them with both faces of love—acceptance of their human lostness—and challenge to see their divine potential. In the paradoxical space between this softness and this hardness, we stand.

:- Doug.

The work of conversation is inventing persons.
My work is inventing persons.
Your work with me is inventing one another.

:- Doug.

We are ever powerless and powerful at the same instant. Powerless to change the past and powerful to create the future. Powerless to change another, powerful to change ourselves. Powerless at 66 to become a professional basketball player, powerful to tell wondrous tales to grandchildren.

:- Doug.

You’re here asking a question. I hold up your courage for all to see. For in asking you open yourself to the potential for an answer. Then you will find yourself on the spot.

:- Doug.

What is your potential yet to be realized?

:- Doug.

Everything is in between, that is, in motion, becoming.

:- Doug.