Tag Archives: despondent

Cabin

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Cabin: (n) a small shelter or house, made of wood and situated in a remote area.

The human brain is not spacious.

Matter of fact, it’s pretty cramped.

When you add the clutter of prejudice, misconception, disappointment and selfishness, it can be extraordinarily confined.

That’s the way it was with my dad.

My dad never got a chance to find out if he was a good man or a bad man because he was surrounded by men just like him. Therefore he compared himself to them.

They were all frightened of change.

They were all nervous about not having enough money.

They were all intimidated by despondent and dissatisfied women.

And they were all looking for a retreat.

My dad went to Canada–sometimes twice a year–to hunt and fish, but mostly to try to find something in his brain that was his own.

My mother didn’t mean to be intrusive. She always felt she was being helpful. The problem is, helpful is rarely achieved if no one is asking for help.

My dad was not unhappy, he just wanted to be left alone. So he built himself a cabin out on a small piece of land that we owned outside town. It was rustic, it was small, and had very little in it–except my dad, when he wanted to be away from everybody.

My girlfriend and I occasionally slipped out to the location to “play doctor” which eventually led to “hospital.”

But every time I came into that room I could feel his loneliness. I know it sounds poetic, or even misplaced, but there was a quiet in the room which was disconcerting instead of reassuring.

The day he died, people gathered at our home to consume all the casseroles which had been brought in by well-meaning relatives. I slipped away and drove to that cabin, walked in and sat down on the cot that was in the middle of the room.

I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps I thought I would feel the spirit of my dearly departed father.

All I felt was the loneliness which was now even more lonely, because its only visitor had finally escaped.

 

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Anti

dictionary with letter A

 

Anti (prep): opposed to; against

 

I usually don’t date my material by speaking on contemporary issues, but rather, addressing broader subjects to have lasting appeal which salves the ego of this writer, who believes his material might survive his own mortality.

But I do wake up this morning feeling the need to share my heart on the death of Robin Williams.

I am certainly against it.

You could say that I’m anti-Robin Williams’ suicide.

Matter of fact, I had a chilling thought go through my mind as I rose from my bed this day: less than twenty-four hours ago, Robin was still alive, though conflicted in the process of determining to cease his journey.

What could have been done?

You see, there’s the problem. Because the news cycle feels the need to make a lot of money, movies desire sensationalism and religion works feverishly to frighten converts and potential clients into salvation, we have so negatively charged this planet with an anti-contentment of despair that it is very difficult for some people to pull out of the nosedive of depression before they crash to earth.

Am I saying we are all to blame for the death of Robin Williams?

No. He alone is the perpetrator of his own disaster.

But I am saying that God has given us many sensitive souls who are fragile in nature, and are susceptible to fits of fretting, in order to warn us when the temperature of hope has plummeted to the point where we begin to freeze out the possibility for true joy.

When someone has the gift to make people laugh, but he, himself, is so despondent over the conditions that surround him that he takes a deadly journey through drugs and anguish to finally end his own life, we must realize that a fragile soul like Robin is here to warn us of our own tendency to be dark, depraved and faithless.

  • Somewhere there has to be a light. Otherwise the darkness is no longer considered to be bleak.
  • Somewhere there has to be a pro to every con or we become convinced that life is a perpetual misery waiting for a terminal conclusion.

I wake up this morning praying for my brother Robin, because I still believe that a merciful God will show kindness to such a loving soul who just wasn’t well-suited for the “anti-everything” climate which permeates our society.

I refuse to be against anything right now because it’s too damn easy.

 

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Aglow

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAglow: (adj.) glowing: e.g. his bald head was aglow under the lights.

I can’t hear the word “aglow” without thinking about the Women’s Aglow, an organization that sprouted up in the 1970’s, for ladies to come together to celebrate their lives and faith.

I was most fortunate to take my fledgling musical group to perform at many of their functions.

There is nothing quite as righteous as an excited woman–and I mean that in all aspects. In like manner, there is nothing quite as devastating to view as a despondent one.

So to walk into a room with two hundred and fifty females of all ages who are emotionally vulnerable, spiritually charged, mentally alert and physically well-endowed was a little piece of heaven for this young man’s entire being.

I will tell you–I like women. But it’s not merely because I happen to be attracted to them from a physical point of view. No, I like them because they are quite capable of achieving “aglow.”

Even though some of my male counterparts would insist that the “she” part of the human race is “naggy” or bitchy, I have found that they have gained the freedom to express their hearts more readily instead of burying it underneath their gall bladder, inviting an early coronary.

What does it mean to be aglow?

  1. I am willing to share my emotions, whether they are right or wrong.
  2. I am eager to believe that I was created instead of hatched or cast down from the tree by a surprised, disgruntled monkey family.
  3. I like to think, I want to think, I will think.
  4. I am proud of who I am physically–or willing to do what’s necessary to make it better.

Without women being aglow in our society, we would just have men being “agrowl.”

Now if we can just teach some fellows to light up something other than their cigars …