Tag Archives: adulation

Bless

Bless: (v) to invoke divine favor

Dictionary B

Somewhere in the jostling and bouncing between challenging and encouraging, we actually learn to bless people.

We rarely feel divine kindness merely by being challenged to achieve a code which lacks human sensitivity.

Nor are we truly blessed by only being encouraged to accept mediocre accomplishments as excellent.

I am human.

I need those around me to challenge me–and encourage me.

To do so, they must know my heart’s desire–what I really believe is valuable when I am completely stable and sane instead of drunken on my own excesses, or fearful within the boundaries of my insecurities.

God, Himself, cannot bless human beings without challenging and encouraging them. Yet the danger is that we will ping-pong our emotions between condemnation and adulation.

In the midst of every good deed, there’s a slip-up.

And also, in the presence of every disaster, there are pieces of truth which can be retained.

We become powerful when we learn how to bless.

To do so demands the juggling of challenge and encouragement.

 

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Announce

dictionary with letter A

Announce: (v) to make a public and typical formal declaration

I attended a wedding.

It was a festive affair, as they often are. I don’t know of anything quite like marriage, which gains such optimism and steam during the reception, only to be regaled as nearly hopeless by the time the guests reach the parking lot.

But I digress.

At this wedding, there was a flurry of toasts given to the bride and groom. In the midst of these salutes, one young gentleman stood to his feet, lifting his glass to the recently betrothed, and said, “I want to announce that I got a job on Thursday that pays 47K a year, which is a step up for me.”

There was a pause. You could sense the reasoning in the entire room.

  • Yes, this is obviously an unnecessary announcement for this moment.
  • Yes, it reeks a bit of selfishness.
  • Of course, it will keep some awkwardness in the air, until we are well into the cake-cutting ceremony.

At length, someone trickled off a limp representation of applause, duplicated by those souls most forbearing.

Our announcer was completely satisfied, smiled at the entire room, tipped his glass and drank it down.

Now, I was intrigued. I watched him for the next ten minutes as he beamed to those around him his glee over his recent acquisition, hoping to receive adulation, only being compensated with nervous nods.

Announcements are nice. Three things are important for them, though:

1. They should be on point, and not obtuse.

2. They should benefit the common good of the hearers available.

3. They should be doused in humility and a bit of reluctance, so there’s more joy coming from others than hemorrhaging off the speaker’s ego.

To conclude my story, I will tell you that the person who followed our bizarre announcer with the next toast was careful to elongate it with sufficient focus and praise back onto the blissful duo.

It’s the beauty of life.

For every fool who poops in the middle of the road, God seems to send a patient soul behind him … with a pooper scooper.

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Adulation

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adulation: (n) obsequious flattery; excessive admiration or praise: e.g. he found it difficult to cope with the adulation of the fans.

Excessive admiration.

Doggone. That got me thinking. (Actually, if you’re going to be a writer, you should do some thinking. This premise may not be obvious, especially when you view articles in print. But a certain amount of reasoning, perceiving and a few thought bubbles should precede the process of jotting down lasting words in an essay.)

What is excessive? And what is admiration?

You know, I really think this is something human beings have worked out on their own. We have this great phrase: “admiring from afar.”

Even though I get grumpy and have the occasional lamentation because people don’t inform me of what they like about me, I do realize that they tell others. Maybe there’s something in the human psyche, or our “jungle sense,” which lets us know that we shouldn’t puff people up too much lest we burst them and splatter their contents to the four winds.

So instead, we tell others how much we like them, using that old-fashioned “trickle down” theory. In other words, we hope that what goes around really DOES come around.

There are too many people in this world, though, who hear too much praise and others who are destitute of having their hands lifted and their burdens lightened.

That sucks.

I mean, let’s be honest. Are the people we see on television REALLY the “best” at anything?

Even though I write, perform, compose and so forth, there are many other individuals worthy of more praise than me. So I’m careful to deflect the teaspoon of adulation I receive instead of swallowing it like medicine or licking it like honey off a stick.

Why? Because it’s excessive.

I also do not like religious services in which God is always “adored” and great adulation is given to His Holy Name–when really, as a Father, He would appreciate it if the kids would just pick up the room.

Yes, when you’re a parent, you don’t need your children to come around with saccharine affection, hugging you around the neck all the time. It would just be nice if they would take the trash out at the end of the day.

I don’t like adulation. I do like appreciation. Whenever something is done in kindness it should be acknowledged and encouraged.

But to insist that the person hung the moon because he or she was considerate ,,, is certainly lunacy.