Category Archives: Uncategorized

Attached

Attach: (v) to join or to attribute much value to.dictionary with letter A

I had just finished up sharing at a book convention.

I was sitting quietly by myself, listening. I like to do that.

After speaking for a brief season, I feel it is my responsibility to shut up and let information come my way instead of streaming out of me.

Not far from me, two men were having a conversation. Actually, one man was talking and the other man found himself inundated with lots of opinions. The talker was expressing concern about the deterioration of the U. S. government and the dangers of the coming “New World Order.”

He was reciting his data.

Do you know what I mean? In other words, it was a meticulous collection of syllables, forming words and phrases he had overheard and was now passing along as if they were part of Holy Writ.

The other man, in the receiver position, was trying very hard to be polite around this yapping friend. I thought it was a very interesting profile for this evangelistic doomsayer to take after he had just left an atmosphere filled with creative ideas, new books and exciting storylines.

I knew better than to offer an opinion.

This man was attached.

Just like the beautiful girls in high school who were already dating the football players, I was fully aware that this man was unavailable. He had married himself to an emotional and psychological encounter with another. Perhaps the relationship he was in was abusive or limited, but I wasn’t going to be able to seduce him away from this lover. He was attached.

I merely sat quietly and thought to myself, “Please be intelligent. Stay unattached so you’re accessible and not committed to too many causes that are destined to go the way of the 8-track tape.”

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Atrophy

Atrophy: (v) gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect.dictionary with letter A

He requested to sing a song.

It was a tune he once intoned as a younger man when he was healthier and well-voiced. I was sitting at the piano and he eased his way to my side and asked me to play the selection for him.

I paused. In that short span of reflection, I was thinking about how embarrassed my friend would be when he realized that all the talents of his youth had taken a southerly route and atrophied.

It is a cruel reality: that which we ignore or fail to use simply decays and disappears without giving us notice.

Fearing that my friend, who was ailing and aging, would make a fool of himself, I tried to change the subject by playing a different song and moving things along. He became insistent, nearly incensed.

  • He wanted to sing the song.
  • He wanted to prove that he “still had the chops.”
  • He wanted everybody in the room to know that he was virile and alive.

There are three things that are immutably true. They are clichés, so people often either ridicule them or ignore them.

  1. If you don’t use it you lose it.
  2. The victory goes to the perseverant.
  3. If you want to get to Carnegie Hall–practice.

They seem almost silly by themselves, but when applied together, you realize that the most important thing in life is to never stop until you’re dead.

Atrophy will set in.

I stalled, but eventually everyone insisted I play the song so that my friend could perform.

As he began, his voice cracked, forewarning of disaster, and when he went up for the high note, there was a horrible squawk.

He felt foolish–it ruined his day.

Even though people told him it wasn’t that bad, and insisted he was brave for trying, I made note:

Don’t do anything in public that you aren’t able to perform in private.

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Atrocious

Atrocious: (adj) horrifyingly wicked or of a very poor quality dictionary with letter A

There are two words that should be used sparingly: atrocious and what I consider to be its opposite–glorious.

There aren’t many things in life that are atrocious, and equally true, a limited amount of glorious.

If I were to speak anything into a microphone that would announce a truth to the whole world, it would simply be, “Calm down.”

It’s never as bad as you make it, nor as good as you fake it.

So I will list for you today the 5 things I think are atrocious. I welcome you to disagree with me, hoping that in the process you will be able to discover what is wickedly horrible.

My 5 atrocious things:

  1. The seeming total loss of common courtesy.
  2. The creation of heroes whom we later decide to destroy.
  3. Insisting that politics is doomed to be unethical.
  4. Religion with no heart.
  5. People who give up too easily.

There you go. If you combine those 5 things together, I believe you will end up with the aching boredom which permeates our society, often creating a frustrating void.

These are atrocious–at least to me. What do you think? Do you have a list?

Maybe someday I will get to “G” in the dictionary and I can give you my “glorious” list.

But probably not in this lifetime.

 

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Atop

Atop: (prep) on the top ofdictionary with letter A

What is atop the consciousness of our society? And should we care?

Are our children really affected by the passing fame and fancy of those who are pushed upward and given prominence?

Here’s what concerns me: Whatever is atop demands that we gaze up at it.

I don’t know how many times we can lift our heads towards the sky and be disappointed before we stop believing.

What is that number?

Can you lift your head to God, asking for help, only to have your hopes dashed by circumstance, without believing it’s a game?

How many heroes are we supposed to look up to, who end up being charlatans or criminals, before we concede that homage is useless?

It would be nice to put something atop our social order that would survive at least 72 hours of viable praise before the 24-hour-news cycle dismantles it.

Otherwise, I think we’ll become a generation of people who are jaded or fakers:

  • The jaded being the souls who once believed and now are agnostic
  • And the fakers being those who once truly believed and now are pretending to do so.

 

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Atonement

Atonement: (n) reparation for a wrong or injury.dictionary with letter A

If I save somebody’s life, how important will I be to them after a couple of weeks?

They could always make reference to the fact that they value my gift of salvaging them from death. But we really wouldn’t be able to hang out together. It would be awkward, wouldn’t it?

But if we became friends, then the sphere of influence would be greater. He or she could come over to my house, barbecue, watch a movie, laugh, talk about family or commiserate about the job.

But somewhere along the line, this new friend would have to go home. He or she would not be allowed into my inner sanctum of privacy and thoughts.

This is why we get married–so we can have someone who saves us from our loneliness, becomes our best friend, but also becomes entwined with us emotionally and helps us make decisions which steer our mission.

I know it is the great jubilation of the Christian faith to continually discuss the atonement from sin by Jesus dying on the cross.

But once the realization hits you and you’ve achieved salvation, to have it constantly brought to your remembrance and hung over your head is…well, as I said, rather awkward.

Somewhere along the line this savior needs to become a friend. Then he can hang out.

He can become part of the everyday life that forms the blood and tissue of your being.

And if you take the time to learn the philosophy of this savior–the impetus that caused him to want to be your redeemer–then you can actually marry yourself to his principles and create a lifestyle rather than just an atoning event.

I think church fails because it tries to turn an atonement into a friendship.

  • Atonement is beautiful.
  • But friendship is better.

And allowing yourself to come into covenant with the Golden Rule is what is truly life-changing.

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Atonal

Atonal: (adj) music not written in any key or mode.dictionary with letter A

His name was Jim.

He was a huge lug of a man–more or less a teddy bear stuffed in a human skeleton, sporting incomplete sideburns.

He wanted to sing. Jim had never sung before.

There were two reasons for that. Growing up as a rough and tumble boy, he felt it was “sissy” to sing, but secondly, he could not carry a tune.

I was young, optimistic and also thought it would be great to make a few dollars giving singing lessons to Jim, with the aspiration that by his sister’s wedding, he would be able to share a song at the reception.

I thought it would be no big deal. I believed that anybody could eventually follow a melody if they just concentrated hard enough on the structure.

Jim was atonal.

Jim understood that there were tones, but his voice was either in rebellion to them or had prematurely gone deaf.

So I worked with him for at least two months, and even though I greatly enjoyed the influx of cash to soothe my weary budget, I eventually had to sit down with him and explain that even though God gives gifts sometimes, that we must be the ones to mature these offerings, to make them acceptable.

When I shared this he looked at me blankly. So realizing that I was not making my point very well, I bluntly spurted out, “Jim, you just can’t sing.”

He was curious if I meant that this was a temporary problem which could be alleviated through further practice. It was time to use even more candor.

“Jim, you will never sing. As a matter of fact, it’s God’s will that you stop trying.”

For a moment his feelings were bruised, but then he started to giggle.

After the giggling subsided, he looked at me with his eyebrows furrowed, and challenged, “Does this mean I get my money back?”

 

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Atom

Atom: (n) the basic unit of a chemical element.dictionary with letter A

How many atoms, conglomerated together, are necessary to create visibility to the human eye?

I don’t know the answer to that.

I suppose I could look it up, but a combination of indifference and laziness seems to be preventing me.

But when you consider the power that exists in one invisible atom, which unleashed, can destroy millions and millions of visible objects, it not only boggles the mind, but alerts the brain to the beauty and potential that has been entwined into the natural order.

I can’t even imagine how many atoms form my bulbous being. The number would have so many zeroes that it would probably carry over to fifteen or twenty lines. So I find myself with all this atomic energy available to me, but rather than splitting the atom, to become explosive, I scatter my efforts and split my attention among too many meaningless pieces of drivel.

For after all, we can sing many songs about being powerful, but eventually some energy needs to pop. Otherwise, we become a laughingstock to ourselves and an enigma to the world around us.

Yesterday a friend asked me what I was working on. I think she was surprised when I replied, “Me.”

Because if I can get my massive accumulation of atoms into an understandable formula, I just might be prepared to provide the nuclear energy … to light up the world.

 

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Atmosphere

Atmosphere: (n) the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation, or work of art.dictionary with letter A

As our earth cannot exist and sustain life without oxygen and water, so the following ideas, organizations and gatherings require a certain atmosphere in order to generate life:

  • Movies–inspired entertainment
  • Government–cooperation and service
  • School–a focused relaxation
  • Church–a joyful noise
  • Business–eager integrity
  • Parenting–detached awareness
  • Sexuality–mutual respect
  • Racial relations–no one is better than anyone else
  • Conversation–breathing and speaking
  • Exercise–to one’s ability
  • Creativity–simple and daily
  • Eating–tasty fuel
  • Friendship–encouraging confrontation
  • Laughter–frequently and often at oneself
  • Confidence–inside more than outside
  • Music–heart journeying to soul
  • Sports–fair-minded competition
  • Religion–humbly helpful

These are the necessary atmospheres.

When you don’t provide the atmosphere for the challenge … you suck the air out of the room.

 

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ATM

ATM: (abbr.) An abbreviation for automated teller machine.dictionary with letter A

It is the trifecta of disasters.

  • First of all, anything that’s automated is only of value if it automates.

When it develops personality quirks and fails to deliver its automation, it is annoying beyond all curses of Job.

  • Second, it is a teller.

I don’t need machines lecturing me on my bank account, my balance or charging me fees because I find myself suddenly and haplessly in need of cash. Can there be anything worse than a self-righteous mechanism which knows too much about you?

  • And finally, machine.

There are two things I know about machines:

  1. They can be very helpful.
  2. They break down often and cease to be helpful.

So even though I am a user of these contraptions from time to time, they have also proven themsevles to be adversarial rather than being advocates for my well-being.

When I was younger, I was convinced I could trick them–to get $20 out of them when I only had $19.42 in my account. At that stage of the game the machines would not offer you $10, assuming that anyone who didn’t have $20 should not be pushing anyone’s buttons.

Being priggish, the machine would never give me $20 for my $19.42. The thought was, “Come back when you have money.”

The problem was, of course, I needed money now–so I could make more money.

The not-so-automated, over-telling, pompous machine … was unsympathetic.

 

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Atlas

Atlas: (n) a book of maps or chartsdictionary with letter A

My traveling companion is not cleared for maps.

Whenever I get the coinage together to contact Mr. Rand and see if he can get together with Father McNally and make me a paper traveling plan for my journeys, I then have to take that gift and place it in the hands of a woman who finds innumerable ways of mutilating the offering.

It’s probably because she uses the map so much, but in no time at all, they’re dog-eared, ripped, chewed up and even sometimes have pages missing, making Old Glory consist of 41 states.

I have comically thought to myself how dangerous it would have been for her to be on the Santa Maria with Columbus, as he requested a guiding chart to get him to his destination, to have her hand him a gnawed page of parchment with missing pieces.

Perhaps we would all still be in Europe and the American Indians would be hunting buffalo … if my partner had been the cartographer for Christopher Columbus.

 

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