Tag Archives: children

Decrease

Decrease: (v) to diminish or lessen

I was a god.

A ruler by passion, muscle and erection.

Nothing seemed to matter other than me.

I forced myself to be humble.

I pretended to have brief spurts of weakness so as not to frustrate those who were trying to keep up.

I tried to run my life by my emotional and spiritual sensibility, but my energies far surpassed my willingness to be cooperative.

I was a man, a husband, a lover—a domineering force who tenderized my efforts through a studied understanding.

People called me dad. I was their father—and able to father more.

I was the one who lifted things.

I was the one who solved problems that involved movement and pounds.

I was strong.

And then one day—and it seemed like just one day—it changed.

The young men born into my house were suddenly surging.

  • I was present but not omnipresent.
  • I was potent but not omnipotent.

I saw them growing—each finding his place.

I spied them bringing intelligent people into their lives.

I was becoming a symbol, a memory—a standard.

It was time for me to decrease in my importance and allow the world around me and those I loved to increase in their decision-making will.

At first, I resisted—and when I did, the young ones were compelled by the natural order to pull away from me, to make their mark.

But when I realized that my decreasing gave license to their increasing, it brought me joy to know that somewhere in the vast unfolding, I still offered value.

I am no longer a god.

I had sons.

They brought daughters who birthed children.

I had to decrease so they could increase.

But in doing so, I found my better place.

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.

Daughter

Daughter: (n) a female child or person in relation to her parents.

 I think I spent more time studying daughters, even though I only had sons, than I might have if my children had been girls.

There is a tremendous responsibility for a man to understand a woman.

That’s why it is so sinister for the sarcastic theater and the socially stunted church to make relationships between men and women seem so unlikely and unfulfilling.

Six sons came through my house.

Three of them were my natural children and three were my godsons.

I immediately realized they were not getting adequate training on their relationships with the female gender by hanging out with friends, watching television or attending school.

For some reason, we are completely satisfied to make male and female conflict a part of our culture, holding gender equality at bay.

I don’t know what I would tell my daughters about boys. But I do know what I told my young gentlemen about women.

I explained that it’s set up perfectly.

I mean, the way a woman is constructed is ideal for interaction.

It is polite to start at the head and go to the toe.

In her head is a brain.

Get to know it. Study it. Have sympathy for the struggles. Help her ease out of her culture, where her upbringing was short-sighted, and allow her to do the same for you.

Next are the eyes.

How do they see? Is it a small world? A big world? Or a dangerous world?

The lips.

What does she speak? Do you easily discern her messages? Or are they too garbled and unclear due to her training? Help her find her voice.

How about those ears?

Women, like men, have not been instructed to listen. They envision a verbal conflict with the opposite sex, so they are prone to close off their hearing. Learn to hear each other.

A chin.

It’s easy nowadays to see that chin sink over the simplest of offenses. For some reason, depression has become synonymous with “deep thinking.” Foolishness. If a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man, they help each other keep that chin up, and eyes on the goals.

The heart.

Fortunately, it’s near the breast. I always told my boys to consider that the appreciation they have for the female breast is also expressed through a respect for her heart—her feelings.

As you can see, as you ease down from the top, love has a chance to grow. So by the time you get to the flesh and the sexuality, there’s a purpose for it.

On the other hand, if you start there, you will wade into emotions you don’t understand.

As for the legs and feet, they take her where she decides to go. She should have her own determination, based upon the joys of sex, which were enhanced by having an understanding of emotions in learning how to “face” one another.

I never had a daughter, but I probably would tell her much the same.

We are not as different from each other as advertised.

What keeps men and women apart is a calloused indifference—because we think we know everything.

Crush

Crush: (n) a brief but intense infatuation for someone

I have always wanted to sit down and rehearse the little speech.

I’m speaking of that gentle wording necessary to let someone down—someone who has a crush on you, who perhaps is too young, or it’s inappropriate in some other way, or maybe you just don’t share the infatuation.

I’ve considered my speech. What would I say?

Certain lines I would want to put in:

“Golly, if it was just another place, another time…”

“I love you too much as a person to just like you as a girl…”

“You’re the best, and someday you’re going to meet someone, and they’ll know you’re the best, just for them…”

Of course, if the person was persistent and found my speech adorable, then I have a whole different list:

“Because of a war wound, I cannot return your affection.”

“I snore—and not just when I sleep.”

“I am betrothed in marriage to a Bolivian coffee worker.”

I always thought it would be great for someone to have a crush on me. To have her think that everything I did was magnificent, and that my only competition is Jesus or God.

What a great blast of blarney.

I’ve had a crush or two and discovered very quickly why they call them crushes. When I tried to move on them and express my feelings, I ended up…

Well, crushed.

I think every one of us, once in our lives, needs to be the center of another person’s undying, wistful, overwhelming lust for us.

We may find this temporarily with our partner, husband or wife. Ah, but eventually it comes down to the point that we both know where the socks are supposed to go in the drawer.

Goddammit, I want someone to have a crush on me.

And I don’t want her to make it up now because she feels sorry for the loser.

I don’t want pity crushing. I can see it coming, so don’t fake.

Most of the people I had crushes on in my life have moved on, and probably don’t even remember who I am.

Because of that, I can tell my children and grandchildren that they counted as one of my girlfriends.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Cruise

Cruise: (v) to sail about on a pleasure trip.

I stumbled upon a little piece of personal revelation, which after much thought, might just end up being worthy of universal application.

(Not everything I think falls into this category. Many things that I pursue pertain mostly to me, and would not be helpful or even interesting, to an outsider.)

For instance, my daily regimen in approaching healthy eating would certainly bore the most prideful listener.

But what I’ve discovered is that nothing in life has immediate appeal—nor is it dead-on-arrival.

Each one of us ends up talking ourselves into everything.

So it only stands to reason that we talk ourselves out of other things.

For me, one of those things is a cruise on a ship.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with such an adventure. There have even been television shows produced extolling the pleasures of food, fun and romance—even promising that the boat itself might just be “love.”

But somehow or another I have talked myself out of this.

I talked myself into being a musician. Honestly, there’s little that’s more tedious.

I convinced myself of the glories of fatherhood. Yet this did not happen until children were afoot.

But I’ve also talked myself out of… Let me see:

How about a daily run? I think a daily run would be possible for me if there were someone trailing me slowly in a jeep, firing a machine gun at my heels. Yes, I would need adequate motivation.

So as I think about a cruise, the following four things immediately annoy me:

  1. Walking up the plank to get on.

I don’t know why. It just seems like I’m lining up in a prison yard for daily gruel.

  1. Cramped quarters.

To make money, a cruise ship must have little cabins, and of course, the smaller they make them the more people they can put onto the ship, and therefore, the more profit.

I am a big man, constantly perturbed by living in a medium world.

  1. A constant barrage of food.

Perhaps I’m odd, but after I eat, the last thing I want to do is go dancing in the Mambo Room.

Doesn’t that sound horrible? Where is the time for digestion?

  1. And finally, the pool.

If the boat is for love, then people are peering extra carefully at one another for the potential of unexplainable romantic entanglements.

When I go swimming, I’m thinking more about cannonballs and floating. Probably not the mindset of Carnivale.

So you see, I have not given a cruise a chance—because I have convinced myself that it is not worthy of my consideration.

I probably should have done that with bologna and sausage years ago.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Cross

Cross: (n) the structure on which Jesus was executed.

Word has it the angels appeared at his birth.

There were doves flying about as he was baptized.

He certainly favored his time with children.

His whole message about life began with the word, “Happy.”

He wanted us to consider lilies.

He told stories about sparrows.

He fed five thousand people with bread and fish.

His hands possessed some healing.

It says that he wept.

He marveled.

He talked about seeds, planting, fishing.

He favored the second mile.

They claim he personally emptied a tomb—more than once.

People walked after they met him. They hadn’t done that before.

People could see after an encounter with him—some of them born blind.

He was moved with compassion.

And he had the ability of looking at the world around him and discerning how things work—without bitching.

Yet with all this symbolism—all this imagery—all this amazing storytelling, he is known for a cross.

Unfair.

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Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi: (n) the body of Christ

I suppose they thought it was extremely clever, to manufacture a rubber bodysuit—bruised, beaten and bloodied.

When they made the movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” they had their actor don this monstrosity of an outfit, believing it would convey the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

It is a classic case of over-kill.

To understand the true indignity of the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth, you must step into an operating room in a hospital and breathe in deeply. The smell of funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
blood will rattle your nostrils. It is a nasty odor, meant to be foreign to our consciousness.

Perhaps you want to go on the scene of a horrible car wreck and see the blood still pouring out of the wounds of dying people to understand his situation—there was no time for clotting because the beating continued and the blood was pouring forth, dangerously leaving the body and threatening death long before he was nailed in the hands and feet.

Perhaps if you were around someone bleeding to death and you heard their screams of thirst and realized they were in agony just from the lack of water…

As always, Hollywood dramatizes but never actually captures the drama.

The most tender, gentle man who ever lived, who healed lepers, hugged children, granted women equality and offered love as an alternative to the futility of fear, was beat to a pulp by religious people who thought they were acting in the name of God.

May we learn from that image: Corpus Christi—the body of Christ—which was ravaged by the self-righteous.

May we quietly, humbly and reverently realize how the stupidity of hatred, lying, cheating and self-promotion continues to murder him today.


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Cooties

Cooties: (n) a louse, especially one affecting humans, as the body louse, head louse, or pubic louse.

I think cooties have been eradicated.

I’m not talking about the little bug—I’m speaking of the stigma that was placed upon very young girls by very young boys at a time in the funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
past when these fellows insisted that the lasses “had cooties.”

Matter of fact, as a young boy in the third grade, I was desperately trying to keep girls from touching me because their fingertips could transfer these cooties onto, or into, my body.

Of course, it was all purely sexual tension.

Every young dude secretly hoped that some soft hand would graze his back as he ran away, and that he would embrace that early sexual sensation of exhilaration.

But what really concerns me, since it is nearly completely impossible that some eight-year-old mind was aware of a louse called a “cootie,” that there apparently was some mother or father began this rumor, trying to keep their children romantically separated.

I don’t think any eight-year-old boy went to the dictionary and said to himself, “What makes a girl so different? Oh! Aha! Here it is! Cooties!”

After it was hatched, I can see how the rumor spread—similar to the varmints themselves.

But this nasty representation of the female of the human species certainly had to begin in the mind of some mama or papa, who thought it best for their offspring to remain asexual as long as feasible.

What a waste of time—considering that within a few short months, these boys and girls would be all over each other, even if there were cooties in play.


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