Just picked my font--the first major decision on the whole blog. Well, other than picking the format that took me several minutes of deep concentration. Times, a serif font, is supposed to be easy on the eyes and I love the word serif. This format looked plain and I figure fancy I can add later.

"Barefoot on the ground"? Silly name--where else would you call it barefoot? Bed, bath, shower, pool--that's not barefoot, that's normal. In the trees might be a judgment call on whether barefoot has any significance. When I was a kid bare feet were what you mostly wore in the summer.

Not any more. "Where are your shoes?" is the question I get asked if anyone notices my bare feet outside the door sill--and sometimes even in the house. "Put your shoes on, Sally," is what J. E. says and he should know better, having grown up in he South and gone barefoot as a boy, but he doesn't.

When Moses met the burning bush on the mountainside, the bush that burned without being consumed, the bush from which he heard the voice of God, the voice that named itself I AM THAT I AM, he was commanded to take off his. "For where you stand is holy ground."

Why barefoot? Maybe because nothing comes between you and where you stand, no protection from rocks and thorns, the grit of sand, cool, sweet soil, thick mud that oozes up between your toes, shit you may not have seen--what is, is. Seems like what I AM THAT I AM would go with that.

So, touching the ground is the way to experience the holy?

Wow, that's deep. And probably only the millionth preacher type to say some thing like that. The verses come around in the lectionary and you have to find something to say. There's ten to twenty minutes to fill on Sunday morning and mostly the congregation expects you to fill it even if chances are they doze a little or they work on the week's To Do list--or just drift to that bird outside th window.

Somewhere I read and I wish I could be accurate enough to Google the quote, that Jesus came to teach us that everywhere we stand is holy ground.

Now I'm not sure about the God or Jesus thing--though I like the poetry of I AM THAT I AM--and it sounds more like the Buddha to me, but I do believe that everywhere we stand is holy ground.

So that's what the hell this is, or will be--my attempt to be barefoot on the ground. Meandering, distracted, wondering, and wandering, tripping over rocks and bones, stepping in the shit and oh so endlessly writing about it. Join in if you like--it might be nice to walk along together or bump into each other.

Or not.

The really good thing about this is it's not required reading, I don't expect a paper on it--and I'd really prefer that you don't grade me.