FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1623

This difficult time in our country’s politics—maybe especially because of two choices nobody likes—it could be the harbinger of a spiritual crisis for us as a people. Crisis as in life and death—but not simply a bifurcation point. We may have to die as a people before we find our life. What death looks like we cannot know before it happens. Nor life. But we know it is about going through the difficult, about work, about all truths, not just some, about life. Maybe this is world wide and not just our country.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

In politics let’s get away
from black and white and
notice shades of brown

:- Doug.

I don’t know what later times of aging will be for me. I only know what it is now. I am savoring slowness, reflection, and connection. I am turning to opening to what may come.

:- Doug.

Our job is to make our contribution, not count our achievements, not even get hung in them.

:- Doug.

What’s the important stuff of life?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1622

Life is not what we make of it but what we give to it, in the little moments. Sitting here reflecting, writing for someone who may never see it, is more important than all the urgent things on my to do list. This may be approaching the gift of aging.

Please pass it on.

© c 2016, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Footprints AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

What is your life about, now? What has it been about through the years?

:- Doug.

It is impossible to find the final immutable explanation of how the world works. The minds of humans are ever turning, thinking new angles, seeing new things. Ever. A good thing. Many good things. Not to be missed.

:- Doug.

Adopted. Orphaned.
We think them
the only ones
never knowing their fathers
Many of us will outlive ours
having lost our chance to
converse

:- Doug.

Only one go-round
Be merry-

:- Doug.

How often—and when—do you feel the desire for solitude?

:- Doug.

What does growing older mean to you? What are its positive sides? How are you growing, changing?

:- Doug.

What adventures have you had? What do they say about you?

:- Doug.

What did you dream last night? What all do you recall of your dream? What might it mean?

:- Doug.

We are given to pray for limited things: our task is to make something happen ourselves, not to have it all given to us.

:- Doug.

We need exemplars of what it means to age well. To be an elder for sure is to slow down, take a longer view, put the puzzling picture together. Health and mind may fail, but of that there is no guarantee. Nor is there of wisdom. We can choose what we nurture.

:- Doug.

Expanding verbal typos is a way to discovery.

:- Doug.

Alert, free inward distraction.

:- Doug.

She prayed:
I am glad I am not God
But we are gods:
The whole
world in our hands

:- Doug.

Alert, no thinking.

:- Doug.

Exercise: write about something physical you did today.

:- Doug.

Concentration can be contrary to the skills most used by a scout, a larger picture seeker, a creator. Doesn’t have to be. Can be learned. Can be turned off and on.

:- Doug.

I have a strong bent contrarian
So ought revel in
Arousing stick-in-the-mudarians

:- Doug.