FootprintsintheWind.com

Fun is another word for love, yes?

:- Doug.

If it’s not worth coming for a full day, why waste an hour of your life?

:- Doug.

A guy walks into a crowded mega-church. In circles above his head he is swinging a leash and dog collar, calling loudly, “God! Save the True Believers and 0nly the True Believers!”

The preacher says “Friend, we thank you for your prayers. But what’s the leash and collar about?”

“Preacher I’m astounded you do not know! That’s where we True Believers keep God.”

:- Doug.

Thank the winds for bringing us fresh oxygen.

:- Doug.

Friend, into Your Expanding Intricate Now.

:- Doug.

G is about including us all, not about one side winning, beating another, leaving another behind. After all we are on a more or less round ball, in a sea of stars expanding out endlessly in all directions, so where can we ever find any sides?

Of course, only in our own minds. Smaller they are than the really real. Leave room for what G opens.

:- Doug.

Friend, You are ever a mystery to me, complex and complexifying, gathering, imagining, inviting. Inviting us to do the same—as an act of love, of service to one another. Service to one another, loving, is how we grow larger. Yet larger is not the object, rather the fun of it all! G is fun? Of course! Life is about enjoying one another, about living the life.

:- Doug.

Open Space is co-mentoring at its best.

:- Doug.

We each need to do our work in the world through others.

:- Doug.

It’s the challenge
which makes family difficult
& games & life & love fun

:- Doug.

Body
Mind
Spirit
Bigger
Still?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1394

What is white
Must come down

Please pass it on.

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Give your self
Every day
To those with whom you play
To those you’d invite to play
To the playing
Then when you’re having most fun
Some day
You’ll be lucky enough
To fade into all your playmates

:- Doug.

Playing is conversing
Conversing, playing
—Giving over yourself, fully—
If you are to have the fun
If you dare

Giving over yourself
Is not losing but finding
Your self in the other
in the one arising out of the two of you
The one: of whom you are

:- Doug.

How does a doctor heal a broken arm? The doctor does not; the bone does the healing. The doctor applies something to allow the growing parts stay together long enough to do their work. Similar to conversation.

:- Doug.

Aren’t we about making whole, repairing the world, at least of our family, bringing parent and child together? And isn’t that difficult, dangerous work?

:- Doug.

Coherence or fragmentation?
For which do I open space?
Which is better?

Don’t I have the right
to leave your room?
Fragmentation, yes?

Do I want to force
someone to my way?
Coherence, yes?

The meeting’s over
A handful of us is still here
Coherence

The water cooler
the hallway innovation
Fragmentation

:- Doug.

On a deepening
roles are wasted
useless really
it’s only relationships
& the relating among them
that takes us
On a deepening

:- Doug.

Holy Holy Holy
when the angels sang it
was Other Other Other
G is not like us
Today
We treat the other
—differently-abled,
-colored, -bred
-religiously raised
-sexually oriented
as less than us:
well, then let us sing
Holy, Holy, Other
accord them their rank
and respect
as holy
divine
perhaps
remember to them
we
are other
like gods to them
how would we be found
to treat our children?

:- Doug.

Little bird at my feeder
Seeing you I wonder
Does G too say
“Feed me, feed me”?

:- Doug.

When the spirit of deepening conversation
works us
we serve, we fly ahead of the wind

:- Doug.

It is not possible to reach the deepest depths of G or even of a person. These depths are being created all the time, and ever can we go deeper.

:- Doug.

From the mainland to the island
we build a bridge thinking
we connect them
while under the waters’ surface
they are one

:- Doug.