Tag Archives: bunker

Dangerous

Dangerous: (adj) full of risk, perilous

You shouldn’t call something dangerous unless you really give a shit about people.

You shouldn’t declare some activity potentially lethal just to establish some sort of superiority over your fellow-travelers.

But every once in a while, there are dangerous things—maybe better phrased, dangerous tendencies or unhealthy trends.

I feel unqualified to speak on the subject (which I feel compelled to address) mainly because I don’t want anybody to think I’m drawing a moral equivalency or being judgmental about the issue.

I don’t drink. (I’ve established that before.)

I don’t think this does anything for me except eliminate a liquor bill from my budget and spare me a few morning headaches.

Yet I must be honest and say that there’s a dangerous complicity from entertainment all the way through religion and everything in between.

We have just made it too cool to drink.

Alcohol is too common.

It seems to have morphed from being an adult beverage into an elixir for depression, stimulation for fatigue and a truth serum to get friends and neighbors to open up.

It has also become the favored confidante of young females who portray that coming home to a glass or two of wine is the ecstasy of the day.

Unfortunately, alcohol is a drug.

Alcohol has a very bad history with humans—not that dissimilar from the Nazi Party. In the case of both, alcohol and Nazis, there is a great rally that builds up a wave of confidence, leading to faltering returns and ending up with self-destruction in a bunker of solitude.

Let me tell you what is dangerous:

  • Alcohol is an intoxicant. As long as it’s presented in that fashion, it is completely permissible and even acceptable.
  • Alcohol is not fun—that’s dangerous.
  • Alcohol is not necessary. Once again, dangerous.
  • Alcohol is not a cure for anything, but rather, the symptom of many devastating sorrows. Dangerous to the fourth power.

If I felt that young men and young women were partaking of alcohol for the purpose of social interaction, I really would have no case to make.

But alcohol is the only “spirit” I see being promoted in a faithless society.

We are heading toward forty- and fifty-year-old alcoholics, who thought they were socially drinking in their twenties and thirties until the realization of getting older drove them deeper into counseling with Jack Daniels—on a horrible cruise with Captain Morgan.

 

Bunker

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Bunker: (n) a reinforced underground shelter, typically for use in wartime.

We have begun to create bunkers to buffer us against contact with one another.

We don’t view it that way–we call them political parties, church denominations, clubs or ardent study of cultures.

But the more we try to segregate that which we believe makes us special, the less and less valuable we become to one another.

If Washington, D.C. is a bunker, and your local church is a bunker, and your community is a bunker, and your race is a bunker–then isn’t it just bunk?

Bunkers are meaningless attempts to make people unique by alienating them from one another, placing them in positions to be defensive.

In the process, we all become perniciously offensive to one another.

How do you know if you’re in a bunker?

If you have to go somewhere else to hear ideas that aren’t your own, you’re probably already buried in the ground.

 

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Attack

Attack: (n) an aggressive and violent action against a person or placedictionary with letter A

Several weeks ago I had an overwhelming sensation creep into my soul and for a brief period of time, render me baffled and helpless. Perhaps I’ve overstated the sensation, but it was certainly an eye-opening experience.

I was watching a special on Nazi Germany. I like history shows so it drew my attention. But for some reason, the layout of this broadcast took me deeply into the mind and circumstances of Adolph.

For a very brief moment, I absorbed the sensation of power that surged through his veins from 1938 through 1940, when he dominated the world by attacking all of his enemies, and for that two years, made himself appear invincible.

I thought about the parties, the victory celebrations, the awarding of medals, the touting of “the super race” and all of the bravado that went into creating the Third Reich.

He worked on a simple principle: if I can attack and win, it proves that I’m right.

As I watched the documentary, I also felt what it might have been like when this all began to unravel, and the attacker became the attacked–until he finally found himself in a cramped bunker beneath his holy city of Berlin, surrounded by his enemies, forced to either surrender or take his own life.

It made me wonder why the premise of “attack or be attacked” is still so prevalent in our society. For after all, is there any conqueror who did not end up destitute, denied power, and usually assassinated or self-destructive?

How does the “attack mentality” continue to gain support, when all of its advocates are proven to be foolhardy, buried in inglorious graves?

I don’t get it.

This is what I know: if you attack, you will be attacked.

Granted, not attacking does not guarantee you a free pass … but the karma associated with aggressively attempting to dominate another person always circles back to destroy you.

 

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Assortment

Assortment: (n) a miscellaneous collection of things or people.dictionary with letter A

Life really is not like a box of chocolates.

The premise offered by Mr. Gump is true–judging from the outside of the piece offered in the box, you are unable to tell what is inside.

But in our world, since we’re not all covered with chocolate, we have utilized prejudice and racism as a means of determining if we are going to enjoy each other’s flavor.

After all, there’s nothing worse than picking up a box of chocolates and discovering that little nibbles have been taken off of each and every piece by someone who was trying to find the perfect delicacy.

In a sense, it is impossible to look at the assortment of humankind and know exactly what they are like simply by viewing their exterior or their posterior. Yet we persist.

All white people are not anything.

I have met white people who have such thick Southern accents that you would swear they were hill folk, only to discover that they were highly educated and certainly much more intelligent than myself.

All black people aren’t “black” in their culture or thinking.

I have gone to congregations filled with people of color, only to discover that their particular rendition of life was much more sophisticated than mine.

It is difficult to evaluate human beings and the assortment they come in, by external means, though we certainly try hard to fulfill that mission.

The day will come when we realize that each one of us is born in a bunker of flesh and therefore, it is what we do inside that encasement that determines our identity.

Until then, since we are not all chocolate, we will judge each other by our outward appearance, and hopefully, gradually, inch our way toward a more God-like approach … of looking on the heart.

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Antic

dictionary with letter A

 

Antic: (adj) grotesque or bizarre

What happens when you use two words to define one word and the two words you apply–which were meant to be synonyms–have absolutely nothing to do with each other?

Because bluntly, I would have to admit that there were times in my life when people would characterize my actions as bizarre, but I would never believe them to be grotesque.

To me, grotesque means “ugly” and bizarre means “unusual.”

Unless we’re trapped in some 21st Century contention that if you happen to be a bit less than beautiful, you’re unusual enough to be considered grotesque. Is that the message?

And an antic is not an appearance, it’s an action–and I, for one, can think of at least four antics off the top of my head which were considered bizarre, if not grotesque in their time, but have proven historically to be life-saving:

1. John Brown attacking the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in an attempt to free the slaves.

If any of us had met John Brown we would have called him grotesque and certainly bizarre, with his zealous appeal against slavery and his antic of attempting the take-over of a government installation with a bunch of church friends.

It wasn’t exactly well-planned, yet the Union soldiers went into battle singing about his antic to inspire them to destroy an antiquated and evil institution of owning human beings.

2. Jesus of Nazareth calling himself the Son of God–or if you want to be really picky, not raising any objection when others did so.

How much guts would it take to have faith in someone you were sitting next to, who had just farted, as he contended that he was possessed of divine inspiration? I don’t know if I could have pulled that off.

Yes, believing in the resurrected Christ is certainly easier than following the unkempt Galilean.

3. Winston Churchill.

When Adolf Hitler had taken over most of Europe and had set his sights on the British Isles, Churchill and a few of his cronies decided to make a last-ditch stand against the tyranny of Berlin. It wasn’t popular and certainly the bombing of Londontown was grotesque and bizarre.

But the action halted the progress of the Third Reich, allowing time for the United States to rally and help chase the bully back into the bunker.

4. And finally, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,. who by the way was raised in an era when Jim Crow was not only tolerated, but was considered to be evidence for how the Old South was resolving the colored/white issue.

What a bizarre notion, to think that people of all colors should be able to ride on a bus together, when in your entire life you had been taught by your elders that separation was inevitable, if not righteous. And how grotesque it was to see little girls blown up in churches because your antics were being objected to by the white plurality.

I think the definition offered by Mr. Webster portrays that antics are displeasing and therefore perhaps should be shoveled away.

Yet without antics, we don’t have any of the practical nuts and bolts that somehow or another, miraculously hold this contraption together. 

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