Monthly Archives: August 2020

Decisive

Decisive: (adj) characterized by displaying no hesitation; resolute

Did you ever notice that we never characterize someone as being decisive if they end up being wrong?

Somewhere in the process of mulling over choices, enough time needs to be taken to increase the possibility of a successful conclusion. On the other hand, if too much time is taken, the juncture of greatest possibility may pass, and the person who failed to step into the historical hook-up ends up not being decisive.

It all depends on three words:

  • Power
  • Purpose
  • Pounce

First, you have to have the power to make the decision.

If you don’t, it’s called an opinion. If you’re not allowed to have an opinion, it’s viewed as an annoyance.

The purpose is the rational common sense that makes the insight viable and necessary for this time.

Without the purpose, we are not just purposeless—we actually end up merely “less.”

And finally, pounce.

The pounce is the exact moment to move on an idea—when to step out and make things happen, doing it with such enthusiasm that there’s no doubt that you and all your teammates have full confidence in the determination.

Without these three working in harmony—like an aging women’s trio from a Southern Baptist choir—the destiny of any project is going to be flawed, leaving the participants wondering why they were so enthusiastic and what in the hell happened.

So don’t favor your power if you can’t generate a purpose.

And don’t over-talk your purpose unless you’re prepared to pounce.

Decision

Decision: (n) the act of making up one’s mind

The most important question:

Is there a need for a decision?

I think we are so intent on pursuing a life of worry that we turn everything into an event, a curse or a challenge.

It’s just not so.

Not everything demands a decision.

For instance, loving your neighbor as yourself is not a religious maneuver or a gesture of mature human interaction. It is Earth 101.

There’s nothing to decide. We’re not awaiting your contemplation on whether you accept the blending of humanity into one single race instead of color-coated. No decision is required. Follow the path and sing in harmony.

It’s not necessary for you to muse your approach in dealing with others on an emotional basis. Smiling, in its varied forms, is the only facial expression that is acceptable when human beings greet one another.

Having a “game face” or insisting that a neutral expression is safer does nothing but confuse the parties, making those you meet feel they have to make a decision about you long before they actually get to know you.

There are a few things that demand a decision. How about this one?

Would you make a decision on your responsibility to decide? That would be nice.

Don’t pass around the ownership of your life to other people like you’re playing tag. Everything that happens in your three-square feet of humanity belongs to you.

No debate—just a decision to protect your parking space.

I contend that we will grow emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically when we make a decision to nurture our emotions, our spirits, our minds and our bodies.

Decimate

Decimate: (v) to destroy a great number

The horror of eight million dead Jewish folk.

The prospect of millions being killed in a pandemic outbreak.

These are large events that leave us breathless with their destruction and evil.

But there are other ways to decimate.

Perhaps most common is that moment when most assuredly tenderness, kindness, empathy, reflection and mercy are required. But instead of supplying just the right portion of beauty, an extra thought, another consideration or a bit of nervousness forbids the outpouring.

I will not go so far as to say that losing small moments of grace and gentleness eventually cause horror and mayhem, but I do believe that this journey—this life—this expanse of time we’ve been granted—is meant to hone all of our senses to any possibility where sweetness can be added to the sour and deep-rooted, heartfelt appreciation might be inserted with a wish.

Let us not decimate that which brings life.

And life is abundant when joy is full.

Deciduous

Deciduous: (adj) shedding the leaves annually, as certain trees and shrubs.

After years of consideration, mulling it over and wondering, I finally have come to a conclusion. Of all the things I might be on Planet Earth…

Human is the only one I can even come close to handling.

I would certainly hurt my back if I tried to be reptilian, making my way through the dewy morning grass.

I would never outrun the bullets of the NRA if I was a deer, moose or a bear.

I’m afraid I would be tempted too much to go for the hook—the easy prize—if I was a fish.

And then there’s deciduous.

I think I would be scared shitless if I was a tree or a bush, and my leaves fell off once a year. Can you imagine it?

Let’s say you’re just sitting around and it’s early September, and suddenly all your hair, fingernails and portions of your skin just scaled from your body and fell to the earth. You would have to assume this was a serious condition.

It wouldn’t even cross your mind that once the process was done, you would later regain fresh foliage.

No, I’m completely safe, sound, if not content…

Being Homo Sapien.

Decide

Decide: (v) to conclude a question, controversy, or struggle

Shamefully, I am sometimes reluctant to share the mystery and tenderness that faith brings to my heart.

I don’t want you to think I’m religious, so I flirt with blandness.

I’m not proud of this.

But I’m fully aware that fanaticism is the true death of human creativity and the joy that makes this journey reasonable.

So where do you share?

What do you feel?

When I saw the word “decide,” a chill went down my spine.

There are thousands of songs that have moved me over the years, but there’s one that always brings me to tears, even when I just think about it. It might be the gentle breathiness of the atmosphere at the end of a church camp, or the times I was live in concert in front of thousands of folks and the song was sung.

It still gets me.

The music—and especially the lyric—personify the hope that lies within me.

“I have decided to follow Jesus

I have decided to follow Jesus

I have decided to follow Jesus

No turning back

No turning back.”

 

Decibel

Decibel: (n) a unit used to express the intensity of a sound wave

Crossing all generations, cultures, genders, sexual orientations, kingdoms, all religious affiliations, pizza topping preferences, and conjoining into common ground is the international and universal pickiness about sound.

As a musician I’ve dealt with it all my life.

Let me start with three immutable facts.

  1. Music should be heard and not seen.
  2. As volume increases, so does passion.
  3. No composition was ever put together for the sole purpose of remaining in the background.

Even if it was written for a movie scene, the composer dreams that someone will single it out for an Oscar nod.

Yet after years and decades of traveling and performing, I will tell you—there is no setting on a PA system that is low enough to satisfy the tender ears of everyone in the room. Matter of fact, I finally had to forbid sponsors and audience members sensitive to decibels to be anywhere near my sound check—otherwise, all the amateur auditory engineers would be in my ear, telling me how my music was too much for their ears.

Yes, it pissed me off.

If I were a bigger man, it might be better, but also, it means I might have to buy a new wardrobe.

Simply, I like to hear my singing full-throated and my band, full throttle.

Decentralize

Decentralize: (v) to distribute the administrative powers or functions of a central authority

The premise was simple:

Make sure that every Big Mac served in a McDonald’s restaurant anywhere in the world tastes equally as good.

Yet I will tell you, even if you have identical ingredients, it is still being made by people who rise and fall based on their level of passion.

  • You can organize.
  • You can inform.
  • You can bolster.

But there are certain individuals who will excel above others simply because they’ve established a standard which they refuse to abandon, even if inconvenience threatens them.

I know it is popular to believe the government can be decentralized—that we don’t need so much power in Washington, D. C., but instead, should distribute it throughout the states and local principalities.

But is it really possible that there are four hundred thousand respectable, trustworthy leaders to honor goodwill for the people?

How difficult is it to find one?

So if we can get that one example to be so shining that it encourages others to do better, then we have the makings of a possibility instead of a flop.

For I will tell you, even a leadership conference requires leaders.

And if you put fifteen people in a room, they will shake and rattle to their levels of importance and value unless you try to mess with it.

To provide for the common good means we need to have a central point where nothing but the common good is discussed, considered, honored and revered.

To expect this to be the same in Buttrick, South Dakota, as it is in Grassley, California, is not only optimistic, but maybe endangers good folks from getting good things.

Decency

Decency: (adj) conformity to the recognized standard of propriety, good taste, modesty, etc.

A young man who I sheltered and loved in my household when he was abandoned by his father asked me a question.

“What was your upbringing like?”

Well, candidly, I have written so much on that issue over the years—and you dear souls who have read me could probably write my biography without too much difficulty—that I wouldn’t know exactly how to direct a simple answer toward this beloved human of my acquaintance.

But I do think it revolves around the word “decency.”

I think my parents, for the era in which they operated, were average, except they had too many kids. If they had stayed with two or maybe three, they might have had the stamina to remain involved and finish the race with a bit of flair.

But my parents had five sons.

My dad was fifty-eight years old when I turned ten.

And I’m not talking about a young, vibrant, television-star fifty-eight. I’m speaking of a cigarette-smoking-never-getting-enough-exercise, wouldn’t-eat-a-vegetable-if-you-shoved-it-down-his-throat and somewhat cranky fifty-eight-year-old.

I was son number four, and by the time I arrived my parents were just exhausted with the fruit coming out of their relationship, which they were finding difficult to bear.

So not knowing what to do, they did exactly what human beings pursue: the wrong thing.

Sometimes it was just too much.

Most times it was absent.

And then suddenly it would appear out of nowhere and seem phony.

Decency is difficult because it requires our full attention. The first time we do something indecent, we need to quickly confess and repent—or our hypocrisy will sully all future events.

So here’s what I would tell the dear fellow who asked me about my upbringing:

It was decent, considering the fact that it possessed neither passion nor decency.

 

December

December: (n) the twelfth month of the year, containing thirty-one days

Normally, I do not like to hear someone say, “This is my favorite…”

Mainly because if you hang around them for twenty minutes, they will stake claim on a new favorite which has jumped ahead of the old one, which has lost predominance in this brief span of time.

But I do believe December is my favorite month. (You will notice how easily I abandon my own concepts and asides.)

I say this about December because it contains both my birthday and Christmas.

This is not to say that my birthday is Christmas and therefore I am the Christ. (I did want to make that clear.)

My birthday is one week before Christmas, and I’ve always relished the beautiful time of year, and in a strange sense have felt uplifted—that the whole world decides to decorate in honor of my appearance on Earth.

But the main thing I like about December, and the reason I believe it should be the first month of the year, is that all the things that make us better people seem to stop, park and walk around for a while.

  • Commerce
  • Communication
  • Family
  • Money
  • Celebration
  • Decoration
  • Good secrets
  • Smiles
  • Excellent eating

 

And a twinge of faith growing in the worst scrounging Scrooge

It is amazing.

Is it amazing because it commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth?

Is it made special because we have decided to turn up our childlike and turn down our childish?

Is it the fact that money flows freely, budgets are met, surprises are provided and dreams are explored?

Or is it just because, in a thirty-one-day period, all these possibilities unite for a common holiday?

So whether you say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” (and by the way, the word “holiday” is a hybrid for “holy day”)…

Well, whatever you say makes little difference to what you feel.

And Christmas is a time when we allow feeling to take supremacy over thinking and doing.

Most of the time, we’re frightened to permit this.

But Christmas is feeling, dressed up in emotion, saturated with faith, and glittered with invention—proclaiming peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.

December is my favorite.

You can even come back tomorrow, and more than likely, it will hold the same noble position.

 

Deceiver

Deceiver: (n) someone who leads you to believe something that is not true 

Sin is not as nasty when I do it.

It gains a certain reasonability that I fail to notice when it’s performed by others.

I am constantly confused because I feel compelled to mingle my intentions, my heart and my history in with my present batch of foolishness, to come up with a diluted conclusion, which is also quite deluded.

I knew her for eight years.

She was a beautiful human being.

For some reason, she decided to cast her lot with me. She believed in my music and she risked the disapproval of her friends and family, all in the pursuit of a dream.

And the dream was much more than dreamy.

There were actual points when the dream became a reality—but always with a cost:  a little piece of integrity and the necessity, at least in the moment, of becoming a deceiver, to maintain the probability.

She saw me lie.

No one ever really gets over that.

If I were able to lie to a stranger, I certainly could become more adept and learn to lie to her.

She saw me cheat.

She saw my verbosity cause me to become both a tyrant and a blow-hard.

There were many good times.

But mentioning the good times in the midst of recounting the actions of a deceiver is a rationalization—like trying to hold water in a paper bag.

I don’t know why she stayed for eight years.

She must have loved the hell out of me.

Unfortunately, enough hell remained that she was forced to depart.

Of course, she was no princess herself—or she would never have been able to stay with this deceiver.

I haven’t spoken to her in forty years.

It is a very good remedy for her soul.

Because even if she knew that I am now sorry to the point of vexation, it wouldn’t change the deception that tore at the fabric of our dream.

After all, when the deceiver finishes his day, he must return to his home, lay on his bed and wonder who deceived him.