Tag Archives: bullets

Cussing

Cussing: (n) the act of using profanity in speech

Since I am not God and certainly not even piously positioned, I do have sins I think are worse than others.

When I was a kid, I was told that cussing was just as bad to God as killing.

Even as a young person, this pissed me off. How could words flung into the air be anywhere as volatile as bullets taking a similar path?

I didn’t buy it.

I don’t buy into it today.

If God is just, God knows there’s a difference between “get your shit together” and “get over there in the corner where I can shoot you.”

I think it’s religion at its very worst when people start pecking at other human beings for language just because they’re chicken to live their own lives at full throttle.

So I will tell you the top five sins in my mind, counting down from #5:

5. Stealing

4. Self-righteousness

3. Selfishness

2. Lying

1. Killing

Cussing doesn’t even crack my top five.

Why?

Because as human beings, there are times we need to release our frustration—so we don’t steal, get self-righteous, become selfish, lie and kill someone.

Cussing is a better choice.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Bayonet

Bayonet: (n) a swordlike stabbing blade that may be fixed to the muzzle of a rifleDictionary B

The healthiest gift to the human race is to constantly portray war in the most hellish terms possible.

When we forget that war is hell, we start looking for noble purposes for slaying our brothers and sisters. Sometimes it takes as much as twenty years of passing the peace for us to get thirsty once again for blood-soaked uniforms.

To me, this is the message of the bayonet.

When you talk about bombs, drone strikes or even bullets, you can literally distance yourself from the atrocity of tearing into the flesh of a human being like you’re a wild beast, dislodging entrails.

After all, that is the visual on a battlefield.

People don’t die easily–they must be killed. They must be torn from their vital organs. They are disemboweled.

When I imagine war and I see bombs dropping from airplanes, I have no awareness of such macabre dismemberment.

And when I see bullets flying from the air with bugles blaring the charge of the light infantry, I’m not imagining the decapitation and destruction of human flesh.

But a bayonet is a personal murdering weapon for the soldier who thinks he has found his fortune by being considered patriotic through massacre.

A bayonet must be inserted–twisted–until the blood flows freely, seeping life from the soul you have deemed your enemy.

So in a truly bizarre way, let me salute the bayonet.

It reminds us that war is killing.

It concludes that war is hell.

 

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Aplenty

dictionary with letter A

Aplenty (adj): in abundance (e.g.he has work aplenty.)

I needed this word this morning.

Often my perspective needs an adjustment and I have neither the aptitude nor the tools.

Why? Because the momentum of my heart and soul has been stalled by my mind and body. These roommates fight all the time–and just when I think that my emotions and spirituality have gained an edge, my greedy brain and my insatiable appetites rally their forces and win the day.

It’s always over the same issue: is this going to be enough?

  • It’s why romances break up–because we begin to believe that the person we once adored has somehow become dowdy.
  • It’s how obesity overtakes our physical frame–because we’re convinced that our usual single doughnut isn’t quite enough to finish our cup of coffee.
  • It’s how many people abandon spirituality–because they expect God to make the journey to them instead of meeting Him halfway.

For me, it was looking ahead to a busy day and wondering if I had the wherewithal to cover the many nuances. Rather than taking it one step at a time, and realizing the fact that I was breathing was certainly a positive sign, I instead allowed my brain to become worrisome, which immediately made my body grow fatigued in sympathy.

I don’t know what “aplenty” is. By the time I’m convinced that I have enough, I sit there alone with my stockpile–having missed the present opportunity.

Maybe that’s the definition of maturity: keep firing your bullets and stop counting your ammunition.

 

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Antecedent

dictionary with letter A

Antecedent: (n) A thing or event that existed or logically precedes another.

I, for one, am personally enraged over the comment.

“All’s fair in love and war.”

I don’t know who had the audacity to throw love and war into the same mix and assume that they are achieved through similar motivations.

There is an antecedent to love, and certainly a different one to war. The two are not the same. And one would have to be extraordinarily cynical to believe that they are triggered by similar emotions.

Matter of fact, if you can find the antecedent, you can pretty well guarantee love, or at least something that is a delightful replica.

And if you insist on the antecedent for war, grab your helmet and grenades.

I believe the antecedent for love is contentment.

I’ve never seen two people who allow the seeds of discontentment to take root who can maintain their affection, but instead, become picky and fussy with one another.

What is contentment? Contentment is a decision to find our joy and peace of mind working with what we’ve got instead of complaining about what we lack.

The antecedent for war is jealousy.

It manifests itself sometimes as greed. Other times it parades around as ambition. But somehow or another we convince ourselves that what other people possess was misappropriated and needs to be taken away from them by force and placed into our stockpile.

What is jealousy? It is a lack of contentment because we’ve convinced ourselves that in some way we’ve been cheated or that someone we considered to be our inferior has risen to the occasion to be our equal.

As you can see, love and war have no similarity with each other whatsoever. Matter of fact, love would find it difficult to spew hundreds of bullets into the night air against unseen faces which just happen to be wearing unacceptable uniforms.

“All is not fair in love and war.”

Love doesn’t look for fairness. It works towards compatibility.

Of course, war is never fair. It’s the illusion of superiority… which always makes us look puny.

 

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Agonize

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Agonize: (v) to undergo great mental anguish through worrying about something.

Really?

I’m sorry. I always try to empathize with my fellow-men and women, but sometimes the causes and circumstances that promote frustration and agonizing concern just escape me.

Early on in my life I came up with a simple principle:

There is only one day which is totally beyond my control: the day I die. And all the imitators of that experience can be dodged, as if they were bullets.

There you go.

It reminds me of the words of Jesus when he told his friends, the disciples, that their buddy, Lazarus, was sick but that he wasn’t going to die.

The truth is, he did die.

But traveling to see him, to prepare for a resurrection, it would have been of little use to weep, fuss and agonize over his temporary termination. So Jesus told them it was “all cool.”

Now, I’m not talking about an optimistic attitude, which is often devoid of needed reality and focus. (In other words, people who always “look on the bright side of life” can be quickly dimmed by a single rain cloud.) But it is a needed perspective.

There are three forces that will work for us if we are aware of our own surroundings:

1. Mother Nature. She just has a way of doing things, and if you learn her ways, you’ve got the first four digits of the “pick six” in the lottery.

2. Fellow humans. Contrary to most of the television programs, the vast majority of humanity does not consist of pimps, thieves and serial killers. People actually do help more often than not.

3. God. God has no reason to do anything but support his children. The only thing we have to remember is, this grace is bestowed to the humble.

Agonize if you want–but I will save that single moment of uncontrollable worry for my own death, and fight it off … until it’s absolutely mandatory.