Deadhead

Deadhead: (n) a person using a free pass

Just to be candid with you, when my children were growing up, I often called them “deadheads.”

It was that glassy-eyed look, which they would sport when arriving for breakfast, believing that if nothing was happening outside, then nothing need happen inside their own heads.

I taunted them about this profile because it does not disappear simply because you cease to be an adolescent.

For if you believe you’re going to respond to what is happening, but stay disconnected until you have confirmed there is activity afoot, you will not only fail to be ready for the opportunity, but will find yourself resentful that you weren’t given more time to prepare.

The secret to life is no secret.

It’s completely obvious.

The whole temperature of Planet Earth is geared to three different emotions, and our job is to know when to use them:

  1. Care
  2. Aware
  3. Dare

Often we arrive and somebody is already hurt. There’s pain in the air and suffering has made its mark. Being able to dip into a heart filled with grace and provide care is ushering heaven to Earth.

Sometimes there’s a chance to do something truly significant, but it is buried under inconvenience or arrives on a day when we have already determined that “we’re too busy.” Yet, for those who are aware and have tuned their ears, eyes and passions to possibility, these little treasures can carry us into the future and place us in great positions.

And we must realize there are occasions when fear, anger or bigotry has shut down the world around us, and it is time to step out of the box of conformity and do something unexpected—and provide immediate benefit.

Can we dare to do it?

So to avoid being a deadhead, you must travel with care, aware and dare tucked into your saddlebags, so you are ready to set up camp and start the fire.

Dead to the World

Dead to the world: Sound asleep or unconscious

“In the world you have tribulation.”

It is a statement attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, but it easily could become a populist favorite.

It’s an elongated version of “life sucks.”

Of course, if you understand the mindset of Jesus of Nazareth, he looked at the world and its philosophical approach as a comedy of errors performed by a calamity of fools.

Is there such a thing as the world outside the world?

Or is this world inside the world we live in?

I think the world is best defined as human beings trying to complicate matters in an attempt to look smarter.

Every time I hear someone say they’re going to organize their affairs, I realize what they’re trying to do is actually complicate them. Organizing should make you end up with less difficulty and smaller problems.

But that’s not the way the world thinks.

So if we’re going to hold a Presidential election, we require sufficient strife, controversy, scandal and brattiness to hold the attention of a public which has been taught that if there isn’t a struggle, then it really isn’t accomplishing anything.

I remind myself daily to be “dead to this world.”

  • Not sleepy, even though that’s nice.
  • Not checking out.
  • But being careful not to check in too frequently.

If you stay on the fringe, you can see the scenery.

That’s what I believe.

The deeper you move into the center of the circle, the more encircled you will become.

The world can be defined as life inhabited by grownups who remember that their parents looked miserable—and they are honoring the tradition.

Feel free to die to that kind of thinking and be resurrected to the joys of individuality, which may make you less famous, but will also prevent you from becoming infamous.

Dead

Dead: (adj) no longer living; deprived of life

This can’t be the definition: “No longer living, deprived of life.”

Simply stated, the definition of “dead” is “not breathing.”

For I will tell you—I meet people all the time who are no longer living and certainly seem to be deprived of life.

But they’re still sucking up air.

And they’re often taking that air to spray the contents of the room with negativity, prejudice or snobbery.

Long before we die, some die.

And if we’re still alive when we stop breathing, there’s very little about us that can truthfully be dead.

If our name evokes a smile, if reading a bit of correspondence we sent brings a tear, and if our picture on the wall hearkens to jubilant times, it’s hard to pronounce us dead.

No tomb exists for brilliance.

So what kills us?

What causes us to give up on living long before we give up on breathing?

On the other hand, what would prompt someone to desire to stay alive to the centennial birthday, just to bitch and complain about living conditions?

So I don’t know whether elongated breathing time is a blessing or a curse. If your life is miserable, it is extending the misery, which may just be simulating spending three days in hell.

And if you’re overjoyed—on your way to make love and change the world—and you get hit by a semi, your breathing is snuffed but your living soars on.

I have no desire to be philosophical in this matter and I’m not trying to root out an existential truth to make you think I’m deep and cerebral.

I just choose to believe that dying happens when we stop breathing.

But we can never truly be dead if we have a grasp of greatness …

… and a sense of the significant.

Deacon

Deacon: (n) an appointed or elected officer of a church

I can’t remember who told me this, so I apologize for not being able to attribute it to someone directly.

But in describing the chain of command, this individual told me that it is divided into three sections:

At the bottom is de-shit-cleaner.

Next up, de-shit-kicker.

And at the top is de-shit.

Perhaps a little over-simplistic, but in every organization, there seems to be someone who believes themselves to be in charge, another individual who determines themselves to be the enforcer of the rules, and then, a person or people who spend all their time cleaning up the messes and making the daily bread bake well.

This latter would be the deacon of a church.

A church is like any other corporation—in the sense that it has a mission which is often sullied by repetitive duties.

It may be fine to be the priest, delivering the sermons or the elder, telling everybody where to stand and where to go.

But someone has to unclog the women’s toilet at least twice a month.

Someone has to gather up all the bulletins left behind by parishioners, who swore they wanted to “take it with them.”

Someone has to check the hymn books for crayon marks from bored children.

Someone has to break up the rift between two sisters in Christ who have, for some reason or another, just discovered they can’t stand one another.

There is a deacon in every situation.

It is the person who knows that worshipping God does not make people godly.

They are still full of themselves, mistakes, carelessness and apathy—as they head out the door and wiggle and wobble back to their private retreats.

De Facto

De facto: (adj) actually existing, especially when without lawful authority

There aren’t enough moms and dads in the world for all the children born to this planet.

Mainly, some of these folks who could have filled the job became weary in well-doing and fainted from the responsibility.

On this Father’s Day, I was hooked up on a Zoom call with all my “children.”

I actually fathered five boys.

One of them was killed through a hit-and-run car accident, and one was lost through a miscarriage.

But along with my three “birthers,” three other young men crossed my path. They were in the clutches of a father who was ill-suited for the position, and in danger of passing the destruction in his own life into theirs.

I had a choice.

Was I going to intervene and help the mother of these children escape the bondage, and welcome them into my household?

Or was I going to keep my nose to myself and continue my journey with my own offspring?

Life is having the humility to know that you’re insufficient while living in the arrogance of “what the hell.”

Because if you’re humble all the time, you will passively talk yourself out of anything that isn’t red-letter law. And if you’re just arrogant, without humility, you become just like the father who brought these children into peril.

So today, as I talked to these now-grown men who passed through my house, who now have families of their own, I recognize that I have become “de facto Dad” to a whole horde of people over time.

Maybe in a perfect world, they should have been with their biological parents, but since perfect never shows up…

 I did my best impersonation.

DBA

DBA: (adj) Doing Business As

Over-prepared.

I have been guilty of this.

I have what I consider to be a healthy sense of gloom. (I’ve never bought into doom, but gloom catches my fancy.)

So if I’m going to a meeting, I always take too much information.

If I’m being interviewed, I have been known to over-answer the question.

And in the process of doing this, I cast a suspicious light on myself, because folks wonder why I’m yammering so much without being probed.

For instance, I recall the first time I went to a bank to start an account with my music group. I was unnerved. Well, maybe not unnerved, but kind of a mingling of overly careful and defiant.

I had read what the bank required in order to open an account called DBA—”Doing Business As.”

In other words, it was me doing business as the name of my music group.

It was really quite simple.

Matter of fact, we were halfway through the process of signing up with the bank officer when I started jabbering.

I offered that we were just getting started.

I detailed examples of how much money we made—or how little money we made.

The process, which was really rather uncomplicated, became bizarre because of my off-putting approach. Then the bank officer, feeling a bit uncertain due to my jittery profile—which now included some sweat at my brow—called over his superior to handle the matter.

I was screwing this thing up.

When the senior officer arrived, he sat down and realized that I had just painted myself into a corner of flummox. He turned to me and said kindly, “Calm down. People get DBA accounts all the time—and most of them aren’t criminals.”

I laughed.

It felt good to laugh.

Matter of fact, laughing may be the only remedy when we have allowed ourselves to go bonkers over nothing.

Dazzling

Dazzling: (adj) something or someone who impresses deeply; astonishes with delight:

Imagine there are two meters.

One meter measures evil; another, good.

With me so far?

As you look at these meters, you notice there are settings.

On the Evil Meter, there is a top range of really, really bad—and a bottom range of “forgivable.”

On the Good Meter, there’s a top range which is “miraculous,” and on the bottom, “considerate.”

Now.

Is it possible for you and I to understand that how we set these meters depends on how well we get along with other people, and also our outlook about life on Earth?

If I set my Evil Meter too hot, I will find many things distasteful and ungodly, and end up coming across like a judgmental fool.

And if I set my Good Meter to only accept miracles that come from the Throne of God as being the definition of good, I will ignore many kindnesses that pop up in front of my eyes.

It is important that at the end of the day, if asked by our friends and relatives, “And how did you fare?” that we come back with that glorious word:

Dazzling.

To find our journey dazzling, we must calm down our Evil Meter and turn up our Good Meter.

We must be much more likely to find possibilities and blessings than we are to dig up fire and brimstone.

Of course, we’ll be accused by those who are very religious of being liberal, foolish or too easy to satisfy—but these are not the folks we’re out to impress.

We are working and discovering how to find a life that pleases us, pleases others …

And therefore pleases God, Himself.

Dazed

Dazed: (adj) to be stunned or stupefied

Perhaps the worst piece of advice I’ve ever received is, “Keep your cool.”

The words would be unnecessary to share if I weren’t in an environment where I had been dazed by a predicament or circumstance that left me reeling.

We Americans are very big on “cool.”

Often we even avoid apologizing because it doesn’t seem cool.

We certainly shirk our duties because we’re afraid it will be made obvious that we aren’t cool.

But as human beings, the chances of us being cool—especially when we want to be—are slim.

We’re just not cool.

Some people would take offense over this. I understand that.

It might even seem uncool to admit that you’re not cool.

But there is so much going on in the world today—twists, turns, tragedies, disasters and sometimes just a spirit of meanness—that if you have an ounce of sensitivity, it will pound on you.

You will feel dazed.

Often the word “confused” follows.

There is the unnecessary step.

I don’t know if I can pull off “dazed and cool,” but I certainly don’t need to be “dazed and confused.”

There is no plot against me.

There are no hellish demons chasing me, trying to destroy my life.

But there is a very specific natural order—and a scientific kingdom that needs to be honored to survive the pathway of Earth journey.

Mingled into all of it is a little word called “chaos.”

And even though chaos makes everything balanced (because it truly does rain on the just and the unjust) it can unfortunately leave us so dazed that we’re confused.

There is a maneuver I’ve learned.

When I’m going along with my plan and it begins to fall apart, I sit down.

If there’s a chair nearby, that’s fine.

If not, any piece of ground will do.

Because the worst thing to do when you’re dazed is to pretend like everything’s fine. That’s not cool—it’s dangerous.

And when you’re sitting, you’re much less likely to have your head whirl in confusion.

I may never be cool, but I don’t have to be confused.

When I become dazed, I’ll just find a place and sit for a spell—until the brain clears and sense returns.