Missing the Mark – Page 2 – Bartels' Universe

June 20, 2020

Someone(s) and Dancing

# 06-20-2020 The fourth …

Scope, Scale, Context, Capacity.

All grounded in mutual regard. 0A488EB3-CA09-436F-BBE7-E465A2BEF082

The fourth force. The counter prevailing.

Prevailing.

Counter prevailing.

When the argument is ‘against’ then the focus is not clear. In the fog of non-clarity… What-izing, Who-izing… the only clarifier is that of mutual regard. In the intensity of the fog… mutual regard is lost… as in a “White Squall”… all vision is blind.

When the argument is ‘for’ then the possibility of collaborative prevailing and counter prevailing may share places in the dialogue. For, the fourth wall is that of mutual regard. The dialogue, becomes grounded in mutual regard. A foundational part… that of mutual regard.

Someone died. Someone might die. Someone didn’t get paid, What is the Someone? Who is the Someone?

Someone Died
Someone Might Die
Someone Didn’t get paid
The Someone is?

The counter prevailing view… as Someone.
The prevailing view… as Someone.

An Institution or… Institutions… as Someone.
An Institutional response… as Someone.
A political party… as Someone.
A Reactive response… as Someone.
A family… as Someone.
An Invasive response… as Someone.
A Reaction to invasive activities… as Someone.
A Disaster response… as Someone.
A Dominant position… as Someone.
An artist… as Someone.
A Minority position… as Someone.
A person… as Someone.
A club… as Someone.
A religion… as Someone.
A social view… as Someone.
The Federal Government… as Someone.
An individual… as Someone.
A segregated group… as Someone.
The State Government… as Someone.
A declaration of separation… as Someone.
The homeowner… as Someone.
A musician… as Someone.
The Municipal Government… as Someone.
The lighting and landscape district… as Someone.
A general plan… as Someone.
A Park… as Someone.
A road system… as Someone.
A resolution of an agency… as Someone.
The economy… as Someone.
A declaration… as Someone.
A sacred space… as Someone.
A regulated body… as Someone.
A sacred place… as Someone.
A taxing scheme… as Someone.
The Court… as Someone.
A bank… as Someone. The act of suppression… as Someone.
A regulatory scheme… as Someone.
A game… as Someone.
A win… as Someone.
A watershed… as Someone.
A loss… as Someone.
An elected body… as Someone.
A team… as Someone.
A river… as Someone.
An official… as Someone.
A belief… as Someone.
A band… as Someone.
A physical moment… as Someone.
The sewer… as Someone.
A subset of government… as Someone.
A neighborhood… as Someone.
A landfill… as Someone.
A cemetery… as Someone.
A land… as Someone.
An earth… as Someone.

Taken with NightCap The perspective of … someone-hood. The many someones who… because one has died, one might die or one did not get paid… ardently establish rules to make sure that, this set of outcomes … never happens again. All in a frame of independent action. Layer upon layer… of uncoordinated, independent action… What-izing… What-ism… Who-itzing… Who-ism.

Each layer, rational in its perspective… without collective connection … for, it is reactive to the horror of death, potential death and non-payment. A cacophony of layers… rational in selective scope. … rational in selective scope. Someone-izing… Someone-ism.

The two certainties in life… legislated against… Death and Taxes… for if a tax is a fee for license to be allowed to … a demand for payment… not paid … then we have taken the regulatory scheme and made it the snake which eats itself. The layers of scheme… eating the whole… until, as with all structures of creation… we pass away to dust.

When systems are on the same plane as that of creation… the humor of the grand joke… begins to make my sides ache with laughing. For, if I do not laugh… I must weep.

A9995280-2D4B-4A93-A9C2-836729BB72B3 First we, the makers of all of these schemes, must parse the proper levels of belonging and then … in the competition to belong, either up or down the hierarchy of someone… the personhood aspect is hidden in the great list of someones.

And, even the application is hidden for it is a parsing… the parsing is part of the someone-ing. The, in the parsed someone-ing, there is the possibility of an additional segmenting to be more clear about the various clauses and … that which creates an equitable application of the scheme to those who would engage the service for which the scheme is protecting the someone from death, the possibility of death and the possibility of not being paid. For a small fee… not a tax, for that would require a vote of the ‘someones’ and ‘they’ might not understand the incredible need… for protection from death, the possibility of death and the impropriety of non-payment.

This leads to another application… If I, as a certain someone, believe that my payment already covers the service (someone) who is now attempting to demand payment to avoid the three awful outcomes… then, I may take the position that I am being abused … and… the abuser… also takes the portion… death, the specter of death and the specter of non-payment…

Musing on the hard work of rationalization among all of our someones…

997C78A4-AB39-42AA-B1C7-C0D7EA38E546 That rationalization of … that harmonization of… a grand invitation to meeting this moment. Driven by the unrest of so many someones … demanding voice and hearing… the veil of … demanding hearing. And, the counter… pay no attention to this voice or that voice… suppress this voice or that voice.

The yelling at a voice being suppressed. And… the challenge of beginning to be in conversation… a dialogue of voices… at a table… where food, sustenance, the sharing of and breaking of bread… sharing. The sharing of, the passing of water. The making of a table, a hearth, a welcoming moment… meeting the moment.

The quiet of a shared meal. The communion of a shared cup. The gathering in a shared song. The moment of a moment that … in diverse voice… gathers velocity, together, for…

For a different day.

Then, the mighty pen… that of declaration of ‘civil unrest’ … a ‘rioting’ of someones … against … someones. DF3C2979-310B-4071-9570-457D39553E89

April 30, 2020

Hubris

Hubris

The heroic journey. Being the hero. As Hero. As Guide.

When the guide comes to the fore, the hero fades. The work of the hero is to be … the hero. The work of the guide is, to engage the journey as well as be in relationship.

Living in a small town. A generous house that allows … music, engagement, a sunny spot to be at the altar in the world.

Hubris

When we, as an agency, begin to align with hero… we become that which we despise.
When I, in agency, begin to align with hero… I become that which I despise.

When shadow drives my behavior. Suddenly ‘winning’ becomes the goal. The wonder of winning… what is that? That place of being the ‘winner’ in this crazy trek.

I hear the speculative nature of living… It echos in my own and of all of the lives that are now in play. The teams that play at speculation are actually based upon being the house. So, when the house owns the line, the house wins. We are working with and … sometimes being… a huge group of folks who have bought into the game of ‘winning’ the big pot. Believing, in the wonder, that we, all of us, own that pot. Now the pot is turned to what is has been for a long time. A grand speculator scheme… a grand Ponzi. And, the iceberg that is the whole of creation… is slowly turning turtle. An acceleration of the swiftly tilting…

And, we, the investors in that grand scheme… we are in a funny place. The last time we rode this pony, it caused us to re-evaluate. And, since then, there has been something holding the moment. For, that re-evaluation, is now the continuing of … holding place on the turtle turning ice…

I woke … the clarity of mixing up the hero and heroic, the hero leader and guide… One leads a parade. One coaches up and over… This is not a parade of leading. It is a journey of comrades. When the comrades are calling for a hero or … seeking that hero who has show the universal feet of clay… there is the moment. My own clay feet, they are still wet from the morning meditation. Created in the past days… swiftly encasing feet, and even whole leg.

When I am vector, just as each of us is vector… Then there is something even more … Something even more. I don’t get to be both inside and outside. We are all amid. And, when the cacophony of amid, together becomes so loud… then the desire to be outside, away, different, … with and alone… in quietude and safety… and able to dance in the glorious…

To try to be both a fighter jet and a freighter at the same time. To deploy as “both/and” … is to risk something of tearing apart at the seams. The Hero/Guide is neither Hero nor Guide. The Guide is one who practices presence; the guiding in the guiding. A hero is one who stands arrayed in power and light… keeping all around safe. There is the hubris of the moment.

1CD2543C-6B94-490D-A751-D19CC95F8B11_1_201_a Seeing all of us… all vectors… all transmitters… all receptors… each in-fected; each and all. In this humbling moment. To understand that something even more is come. In that owning the all, comes the wonder of the journey. The trek. Such is the moment. Great and gracious in care. Great and gracious in care.

Funny too, to come slowly awake and be met with the reading of Easter 19. Acts 8:26-40. Funny to have risen this morning in the understanding of mis-step and mis-stake, only to be guided by a reading that created a grand joke… a humor. A wonderful tension that is both/and; just as this being human is both… and…

The wonder of the joke… both… and. Suddenly this day seems … ‘something about this day…’ A gift. In gratitude, a gift.

Acts 8:26-40
An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

April 26, 2020April 28, 2020

A Sacred Sunday Morning

# 04-26-2020 A Sacred… Sunday Morning…

The air smells like the Russian River in summer. The compressed heat, cool for the moment, ready to turn on the after-burners… in a while. In a while. In the yard, the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow blooms in profusion. The Jays play and cavort. Their tilt head look of … “… and what do we have here?” As they dance along my walking route.

BAA10EEA-18B6-4A95-ADB1-87DC3A990951_1_201_a The ancient bones of the house gift the upstairs bathroom with the smells of long ago, my youth, as a child visiting the grandparents. Bones that in human years are ancient, in house years are ‘pretty old’, in relationship to all time… a blip… perhaps a half a blip… for the moment, ancient feels a comfort.

Faces and voices zoom down the hall. The office is full of project. The slow recycle of paper, ancient in relation to projects. Twenty five drafts of one chapter of a paper that was written, now four or five years ago… dusted in the filing cabinet. The final paper, part of a public document, a policy document so… it will live in the minutes of a meeting in front of some body… as long as that body is a functioning library of its work… how funny to have stuffed the drafts in a file and … kept, because, well you never know. The knowing that went into the paper has moved far down the river. And, as I was reading the framing from that then, I was and am struck by how far my thinking has come since that day.

Foundations crumble. Those ancient stalwarts who, with voices of thunder, call out importance. Foundations crumble. In the crumbling, so many opportunities to build anew. In the cacophony of the crashing… a path revealed…

Reading again, an old favorite author. A little story of plague. The moments… recognition, standard engagement, a breach of the standard, a collapse of the rigor, sudden emergence of possible path, complete fatigue, demoralization, overt anger and 1CD2543C-6B94-490D-A751-D19CC95F8B11_1_201_a demands for the crumpled frame to provide as advertised…, the ironic turn of phrase that castigates ‘other’, frustrated words of human frailty, demand for help, wailing for help, voices of ‘help thy self’, many voices speaking, many voices shouting, in many corners, graceful care, one, two, three… in overwhelming corners, graceful care… And then, a sunrise where, all is changed and in the sun breaking through the passing storm, those voices, still in great Greek Choir raised… now is the new day. In that new day, a cycle of integration, yet again. This, the great run on… it is not a closure, it is an integration.

When a great strife has painted the whole of the earth… then there, in the cracks, the new integration comes again, and again, and again. The moments… and again.

In the thinking chair, in the black and white… knowing the colors and seeing the great relief in the black and white… now the integration. Changed yet still many voices… Experts humbled, workers raised up, information aplenty… and now, as a symphony… from cacophony, the score invites a conversation. In that conversation, each day, a new integration. Enough. And enough…

July 27, 2019

That reflection, that learning time.

Equality held in the grand sea of equity.

Great sea… great sea of equity…

Singing…

To understand that there is no noise to cut through. There is only a communion and community to engage. In that frame, to understand the wonder of connection. That connection of a moment of common. Sinner and saint… A tussle of … putting down the tussle and engaging that communion of human-ness.

So, in the face of the bully, what does that look like? In the face of fear, what is the connection? In the face of the violence of attack, what is that sea of equity? This thing I mull… The push that is just a bit too much of friend or stranger, sitting in judgement of a moment… In the face of that moment what response.

I can only speak from moments of experience. To speak caution to power. To suggest frustration to one who seems to desire to cow engagement. To experience the grand drama of that power, dramatically framing the caution as threat or the frustrated leaning in and putting the sense all on … In each case, the leaning back, apologizing … Then, in this quiet moment… realizing, in hindsight, the caution and framing of frustration were clear in then and now. The issue, to understand the moment of crossing. To know that standing in the shadow of that power over or the desire to make an unworkable situation work … anymore… is not to the good of … so to say what needs to be said and own the shift. That is the ‘what’ in the face of that moment and, only for that moment. The challenge is, of course, that the moment of engaged … echos, ripples, and the the waves upon the shore … blow back into the pond, into the sea… the sea of equity.

Still, the caution of that moment, the acknowledgement of frustration, the blow of the winds of change… all of that still echoes. In the sloshing sea of equity.

May 19, 2019May 19, 2019

Signal Path… Logic Path

A signal path is that set of connections to allow the origin to get to the receptor.

The logic path… is a set of decisions that may support this set …

The two are not the same. Yet, often, we use a planning logic path to describe a set of signal path connections…

Without understanding the rest of the story.

Emphasis … on the wrong tool for the project at hand.

So… surprise, the tool and the project are at odds. The administrators of the tool and the administrators of the project speak in languages foreign to each other and the outcome is a set of language where the project and process become expert at being for what it is against.

Rinse and repeat.

A mime walked into a bar and asked for a beer… the barkeep said… huh?

April 10, 2019April 10, 2019

Narrative Riptide and Shifting Tides

Listening to the narrative of so many. Voices speaking in the best and of ways … the life experience of so much narrative. Tides running this way and that… Rolling over, pulling under… the twisting rip of tide. A story made up for me … then a narrative of life experience as lived. The two, at times as a rip across a rising or receding tide.

Waking one morning, butt in chair, writing. Writing as a spilling waterfall. The fingers dancing over the keys and, as water, filling up and spilling over. Pouring as story. Pouring in narrative. Pouring down the steep mountain side and splashing in the rising and receding sea.

That same sea, slow tide rising, slow tide receding. In cycle with moon and sun… in cycle with spinning earth. Caps melting. Caps forming… a different sequence of tide. Belching gases… increase and decrease tide. The livingness of all creation… in pulse of tide. This sea narrative. This belching narrative. This caps forming and caps melting narrative. The heat of the air… making of a blast in storm… yet another narrative. A child born… a narrative. A dying down … another narrative. The experience of this or that… each a narrative. These tides of narrative… rip, and shift…

An image of sudden taking up. The story, laid down in years of telling. Suddenly in a living person, taken up. No longera story told … this moment a story lived. That narrative taken up. In the rising tide of taken up…

So, in this musing, the narrative of a breath taken. The narrative of a breath let out. The beating heart. The ticking clock… each sweep… another narrative. And all, the cacophony…

Should. Would. Could. In this moment, the still small voice speaks yes/and. A hand offered. A greeting of morning. A moment of uplifting as the altar of the world is in view. A prayer. A blessing. A giving of thanks. In these narratives… each a short story … a poem in a greater and lesser tide…

So the laying down and the taking up… in a moment of humble muse… the tides are calmed and run along in grand dance. In grand dance… even the rip is of a rising and receding tide. A rising and a receding… as a song, a psalm, a prayer… in still small voice. In a living moment. In all creation. Amen.

Lent 36

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” John 10:1-18

April 3, 2019April 3, 2019

… last moment… last day

04-03-19 … the last day.

Lent 29

“… but raise it up on the last day.” John 6 27-40

There are things which make me smile each moment when I think of them. Some, pretty things. Some not so pretty things. Some, shared moments with beloved L, N, H, M, SS, friends, lovers, kin, nature, immediate family, the music, the whole of creation, … all across the board. Some, just a passing breath, the rising of the sun, a breaking of a wave, holding a child, sitting with the dying, … Then there are the moments where, for that moment, time seemed of seems to stop. Held in forever … a snapshot… and yet, even those memory moments pass away.

It was a long time to hold this set of foundational smiles… That place of … just holding and in the holding, to realize that there are no magic moments… each moment is filled with all creation. Even those moments of missing the mark.

And, in the missing, there is a set of next steps… that place of … just sitting in moment. It, so many times, it is not silent. It is filled with the dancing roar of all creation. … perhaps even the dancing roar of a still small voice… in that all creation.

To be invited in… to that voice, those arms, that eagle’s wing, that sun-rise, that setting and dimming of the day… in the arc of a breath… The awe and blessing of the two mountain ranges in our valley… those who speak across and yet may never meet… Yet, yet are met by the valley crossing between… the whole fabric of earth… a connection. In fluid motion upon the sea of all of the rest of earth. A vision of rising to towering mountain… yet, fluid in the flow of an ever shifting creation.

At the rising… a first day. At the setting… the dimming and the last moment of a last day. And each moment between… a last moment. A last moment and a first moment.

This is not a house with doors … it is a home with many rooms. This is not a house to be possessed… it is a home to come into. It is a warm hearth … the cracking fire… warm and inviting. In the heat, in a loss, in a shift… in a dying down… it is a hearth of comfort. Even when the hearth is … only in minds eye, in a last flicker of the day… in a lenten candle, lighting the retreat cave with … a sudden light in darkness.

For years… this place was a supposed to journey. In this set of last days… it is a welcoming home place. The doors… barely hung… now swing wide in welcome moment.

That place of last to first. That a last breath in one place dances to first breath in that place in renewed dance.

That blessing of closed eyes that open in … in link, in love, in care, in … every moment of the whole of creation. Such grace in the whole of creation. Picking up a mess… in honor of the whole of creation. In the bird song… amen, amen, amen.

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019

What do you mean?

03-29-19 What do you mean?

Lent 24

“What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?” John 8:33-47

A friend sent me a business strategy for the census to get a complete count which he calls “cage and engage” … it is the basic principle of the dislocation of the American Japanese right after Perl Harbor. It also has echos of the Reservation movement/genocide, the Armenian genocide and the Nazi’s solution to the jewish problem. It speaks to every solution model of environmental or ecological preservation. It assumes the limits of the problem and describes a deployment that fits a certain set of criteria. Instead of engaging the elements of community that havea dynamic place. It assumes that the identification of a supernumerary goal… to count every countable person with accuracy, allows the dislocation or assumptive caging… The means to get to the end. The power over… the very reason that the count is a challenge to begin with. “We” in order to help the most of “Us” … invite “all of us” to use these tools to get to the complete count. Implicit in this is the “They”. The entrance to Auschwitz… work makes you free… “you will be made free…”

The pervasive feeling of wonder… to be invited to be of the elect to make this perfect complete count happen… The wonder of delivering so much value for so many… all through the idea of cage and engage. Each of the carefully cared for engagements… the very best of engagement… and the outcome… a ‘perfect’ complete count…

That moment of mistake when … this idea, rationalizes the idea of cage. To entrap in order to identify… We laugh at the long lines of entrapment at say… Disneyland. The fun of beginning to moo… or of the slow lines to get in to a sporting event… mooing again. The concerned security people gazing… or the wending path, carefully designed by Temple Grandin to ease the anxiety as a cow or pig walks to slaughter… All carefully managed for reduction of cost and enhancement of product. The value add…

I understand the thinking of my friend. It is the cost benefit analysis that is evident in every behavior that is undertaken by institutional thinking of late. The cost and benefit to get to the wonderful ‘better world’… the magic of … “And then a miracle occurs” that creates all of this value. The miracle is the vesting of authority or system to get the caging done. Once caged, a population is easy to count accurately. The value proposition is straight forward. The act of caging can be a benign act… the incarceration to get to the better place… We, the people… in order to form a more perfect union… require of each of us… to coming to be counted… The hooking together of a set of ideas to engage a set of behaviors which, in this benign … and … the information, the data, gathered will ‘serve’ the greater good. Giving up … to get latter … the sacred deal with the higher power.

The challenge is that there are the cagers and the caged. If we all are engaged in all of us… then there is not an inside and outside the cage. This inside/outside is the tension, the problem. My friend is always outside. The problem is always inside. There is a separation of the elect and the counted… mostly because his counting is at a different level than those who must be caged and engaged. The subtle art of giving authority to the intercessor. And then, having that leadership have a different set of rules… rules of engagement. The subtlety of an equality play that makes the count equal and the access to count a binary. Those who engage the count and those who need to be caged so that the count can be imposed upon them. They who engage and those who must needs entrapped engagement.

Missing the mark by imposition of … the sin. The Mistake.

The work of the lenten moment of this morning. Humbling to see both and all. To see the both and… In seeing, to also see the subtly of and difficulty of … community in equity. Community in equity, informedwith equitable engagement. To allow equitable engagement through a path… a path … many paths. That many paths challenge. To engage complete count through many paths. So, that each may find a count place. The invasive model … leveraging community to make sure that a hearth is open for each and all.

That moment when each is a friend to … for then there is no stranger. At the well, the water of living … it is a dream inwholeness. It is a moment … an arc, a prayer, a blessing.

That hierarchy … to engage the whole of the hierarchy … there is the invitation. That each person… held in hierarchy, may come and see, may come and be, may, in communion, be counted in the whole of the host. Raised up and counted in the whole of the host. That the least and greatest … the lion and lamb are each among the “All of These.” That is the blessing prayer of this day.

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