Tag Archives: divine

Appetite

dictionary with letter A

Ap·pe·tite (n): a natural desire to satisfy a bodily need, especially for food.

I stumbled across a conversation on the Internet between two women, arguing with one another about food.

Each of them had posted a picture of herself, so I had a quick visual of the combatants.

The extraordinarily slender woman was piously offering advice on better food choices that her “friend” might want to select to escape the rigors of obesity.

The “friend” in this case, who was a plump lady with a big smile, lamented in her diatribe about people who judge her by her appearance, offering way too much advice on how she could become more attractive and meet their standards.

It fascinated me in this day and age, when people are so convinced that we are “born a certain way,” that we excuse all of our prejudice against one another based on the necessity of consuming food.

For I will tell you this–because I am a fat man, I know more about calories, good food choices and what is healthy than twenty skinny people. I can tell you exactly how much I overeat, and how those particular carbyhydrates or sugars affect not only my plumpness, but also my mood.

There is no chubby person in America who couldn’t apply for a license to become a dietitian.

The sooner we realize that our appetites are primal, if not genetic, the better we will be able to address them, bringing them under our scrutiny if not our control.

I have the metabolism of a sloth, so I also have to fight to escape having the exercise regimen of the same creature. In other words, I would much rather hang from a tree by two claws than fall to the earth and run about hunting bananas.

Add to that the fact that I do not eat because I’m hungry. I tend to eat because the refrigerator has not yet been emptied. It seems to be my mission.

I don’t expect someone who’s thin and burns calories by looking at a book to comprehend this dilemma. But I do think one of the more cruel aspects of human prejudice is to squint at the weaknesses in others as we smirk at our own.

Appetites are what confirm that somewhere along the line we had a merger with the jungle. Addressing them, acknowledging a problem and controlling them is what confirms that we have a divine lineage.

 

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

Antidote

dictionary with letter AAntidote: (n) a medicine taken or given to counteract a specific poison.

Sometimes I do dorky things just to make sure that people don’t believe I have become divine overnight through a particularly good sleep cycle.

Actually, it is my penchant in life to attempt new things, which always opens the door to the possibility of playing the fool.

I went with my wife and children to Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, where my mother-in-law had retired.

She did not like me.

I don’t know whether it was something actually problematic between us, or if she felt the need to act out the typical plotline for a sitcom between son-in-law and mother-in-law.

She had a house on the beach. So one morning I took the children out to enjoy the ocean, only to discover that the entire landscape was covered with dead jellyfish. Unwilling to be deterred from our sea-time pleasure, and since the jellyfish were up on the shore and not in the water, I let the kids splash around while I sat, carefully watching them,

Meanwhile, more dead and dying jellyfish were washing onto the shore. I didn’t think much about it, until one of them brushed up against me, and with his last aspiration, stung me on the leg.

It didn’t hurt. Kind of a magnified bee sting. But in no time at all, the wound began to swell and I was sick.

It was a strange sense of ill will. I knew I was in trouble.

I made my way up to the house with the kids and told my wife and mother-in-law what had happened. Being a great veteran of the region and the sea, my mother-in-law grabbed some Adolph’s meat tenderizer and spread it on my wound, telling me “that always works.”

It didn’t. I was getting sicker and sicker. My mother-in-law told my wife that I was just being a wimp.

So I finally had to bypass old mom and asked my wife to call the local doctor. He arrived about fifteen minutes later with his satchel, saw the sting and reached in and pulled out one vial of what had to be several hundred of antidote.

He explained that some people are just allergic to jellyfish. By this time I was quite frightened. He calmed me down, gave me an injection, and in a matter of about an hour, I was just fine.

It amazed me that something so small could make you that sick, and that something even smaller could make you better.

I was grateful for the antidote.

But unfortunately, my mother-in-law still thought I was a wimp.

 

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Animal

dictionary with letter A

Animal: (n) 1. a living organism that feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized organs and nervous systems 2. any such living organism other than human beings

Sometimes I feel like a cop, standing in the middle of a thoroughfare, attempting to direct traffic, with two huge trucks bearing down on me from different directions, seemingly unwilling to yield.

It’s how I feel about the overbearing nature of the secular community playing “chicken” with the zealots of the religious contingency.

One group screams that human beings are “just animals,” knowing it will aggravate their adversary, as the other gathering of souls touts the eternal nature of our being and the need for God.

I have found in my life that when you maintain a philosophy and speak it aloud more or less just to annoy others who disagree with you, you not only lack the power of your own conviction, but you are infiltrating the world around you with unnecessary conflict.

I decided a long time ago that human beings are monkey-angels. There is no denying our similarity to the family of animals but there is little doubt that we have some DNA in common with the angels of God.

I don’t know why we can’t come to this conclusion:

  • I think it would be nice to have a member of the animal kingdom who has graduated to a spiritual sensibility for respecting the planet and caring for the weaker members of the jungle.
  • Simultaneously, I think there is a certain adorable quality to us motoring a spirit but being a trifle inept in steering it.

As John Merrick, the Elephant Man put it so well, “I am not an animal.”

Perhaps better phrased, “I am not just an animal.”

There is a living, breathing soul within me that aspires to the Divine … while wallowing in the mud.

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Angel

dictionary with letter A

 

Angel: (n.) a spiritual being believed to act as an attendant, agent, or messenger from God, typically represented in human form with wings and a long robe.

Perhaps the accusation could be made that I am a soul who is susceptible to suggestion.

  • For if I watch a television show about weight loss, I become determined to pursue at least twelve hours of frugal eating.
  • Viewing a football game makes me want to toss the old pigskin.
  • And going to church makes me want to believe in a God of love, a Jesus of compassion and angels of mercy.

While others debate the existence of divine creatures, or even become vehement in their attacks or defense, I find this boring. Here’s what I think:

If there are no such things as angels, then we should pretend to be them.

If there is no Jesus who loves children and touches the lepers, why not impersonate him?

And for some reason, if God does not exist–a Father which is in heaven for the human race–then maybe it might be nice, in a small way, to comfort the fatherless.

Religion, to me, is not believing in the supernatural, but instead, taking the natural world around me and trying to do something super with it.

Will I be disappointed if I find out there are no angels? Not really–because I’ve read enough about them that I can steal their profile and try, in my miniscule way, to be angelic to my fellow humans.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if it turns out that the key to life is how well we imitate good things, and that our little performances actually become the only representation of the heavenly tale? Weird, huh?

Anyway, I think angels are cool–proclaiming messages of hope, helping out folks who are hungry, having a good word for those in despair, and arriving at just the right moment to do the right thing.

Since angels are cool and I like to be cool, I will continue to take on the role to the best of my stumbling ability.

Likewise, I will be a big, fat bald Jesus to those I meet.

And if necessary, I will come down from a theological perch of understanding and offer my shoulder to those who are crying … just like any good god should.

 

 

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Ambidextrous

dictionary with letter A

Ambidextrous: (adj.) a person able to use the right and left hands equally well.

I think each and every one of us is always looking for bragging rights.

But to be honest with you, there are certain things that most human beings are unable to do.

Ambidextrous is certainly one of them.

When I was a kid I had this friend who treated girls really lousy. When I was much, much younger I didn’t mind, because I was in that whole masculine hornet’s nest of believing that females might actually have cooties.

But this guy was really bad. It’s like he wanted to humiliate girls all the time–hurt their feelings, and came darned close to being physically intrusive.

So what we did every once in a while was challenge his macho nature by asking him to show us how he could throw a football left-handed, even though he was a right-handed person.

He fell for it every time.

He was terrible at throwing a ball with his left hand. I would say that he threw like a girl, but actually, most of the chicks I knew threw better.

But we wouldn’t laugh at him to his face. Instead, we applauded each time he threw this awkward pass into the air–trying to convince him how much of a stud he was. And when he ran to get the ball so he could show off again, we took that brief moment to burst out in laughter, only to calm down upon his return, further pumping up his ego and make him promise to do it again.

I do not think he was ever aware that we were using his pseudo-ambidextrous claims to make fun of him the way he made fun of the other portion of our species–the ladies.

Just a footnote: as it turns out, as he got older, he turned into a real nerd, and was so introspective that he never actually had a date with a woman. Considering how he treated them, it was probably a blessing sent from the heavens, ordained by the Divine to protect His second and certainly more improved human creation.

But I will never forget, and can even conjure the image in my mind to this day–him lurching back with all his might and attempting to heave that ball fifteen or twenty yards across the grass.

It was hilarious.

 

Amateur

dictionary with letter A

Amateur: (n) a person who engages in a pursuit on an unpaid basis.

It’s a pretty good definition that Webster came up with.

Yet I can tell you that in my lifetime, I have performed my share of professional service to neither acclaim or remuneration.

Yes, there’s another aspect of being amateur. It’s pretty simple: a true professional is in search of his or her weaknesses, to perfect them in order to avoid both critique and lack. An amateur, on the other hand, is in search of praise in order to acquire grace for a multitude of weaknesses, pretending they don’t exist.

This is why amateurs get worse with rehearsal and professionals get better. For after all, to continue to practice is an admission that things need to improve–and if you’re unwilling to admit your mistakes, then such a maneuver seems meaningless, and perhaps mean-spirited.

For instance, I wish we did have professional politicians–for actually, the little boogers are all amateurs.

A professional would understand that a certain amount of resolve is necessary to pave the way for the ultimate discussion which will lend itself to a treaty designed to progress the cause, to avoid looking inept.

Amateur politicians come in believing they are perfect in their present condition, needing no improvement, and only manifest resolve with no understanding of the divine need for agreement.

The end result is that we have a very amateur country with amateur participants, amateur results and therefore we receive the due payment for an amateur.

What do I work on in order to be professional?

  1. I compare myself with people who are better than I am, and work to imitate their excellence.
  2. I never settle for good when great still looms in the distance.
  3. I alleviate criticism by doing my own evaluation, which is much more intense than that of my audience.
  4. I keep a sense of good cheer about transition. It is not only inevitable, but also necessary.

I will agree with Webster that normally when you have enough passion to get better at what you do, it makes people believe you’re worthy of payment.

But to get there, you have to be an amateur without dough, still doing a great show.

Accusation

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accusation: (n.) a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong.

Does an accusation have to be true?

Or is an accusation speculation by definition?

And if it is true, is it sometimes necessary to bring an accusation against someone to clear the air, to make sure some benefit can be derived from the experience?

Or does the action of bringing an accusation make you an ass whether it is true OR false?

Is there anyone in history who was an accuser who is now revered as being valuable and noble?

Is there a different route that can be taken to expose stupidity without using the act of accusation?

Is accusation what jealous people do to slow down the progress of those who appear to be surpassing their notoriety?

Is there a different word than “accusation” that would cover exposure of a misdeed?

Can an accusation be made nicely?

Can an accusation be made without pointing one’s finger?

Is it possible to make an accusation without drawing attention to your own inadequacies?

Do we believe that God makes accusations against human beings? And if He does, is it fair for Him to accuse us when He has a divine advantage?

So is there an upside to accusation?

Are we better off keeping our nose to the grindstone and pursuing our dreams without trying to critique the efforts of those pulling a load nearby?

Is it possible to ask too many questions about “accusation” before you become totally obnoxious–AND  a victim of the same action?

Accusation–it is a decision to pursue a point of attack, making sure that you have all of your bases covered for the backlash that certainly will follow.