Tag Archives: earth

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.

Day of Judgment

Day of Judgment: (n) Judgment Day.

I was recently accosted by a religious fanatic.

He explained to me the error of my thinking.

For I personally favor believing in God without needing a devil, enjoying Earth, not worried about heaven, and dying without expecting too much.

This particular advocate for the Good Book was completely frustrated by my ignorance and heresy.

Here’s what he told me:

“You can’t have God without the devil. You can’t have heaven without hell. And you certainly don’t have redemption without sin.”

He was pretty sure he was right. He was more than willing to offer me many examples to prove his point.

He reminded me of a man I once met at a shopping mall, who wanted to sell me a magical pan. He knew everything that pan did and was even willing to demonstrate its uniqueness.

But at the end of the whole experience, since I really didn’t need a pan and wasn’t planning on using it, I walked away as he spoke to my retreating form. “You just don’t know what you’re losing!”

When I think of the possibility of a Judgment Day, I consider that judging, which I have been taught to avoid, will apparently, in that last hour, be levied against me.

And what will God judge?

My motivations?

My energy?

My persistence?

My intentions?

My results?

My Biblical prowess?

Or my church attendance?

Then I asked myself, what kind of individual would be interested in that kind of stuff?

Also, what kind of heaven would that individual really have to offer?

So I set it to the side.

If there is going to be a Day of Judgment, when I arrive, there won’t be any time to cram for the test or make up credits.

I will be who I will be.

I will know what I know.

And I will be evaluated on what I held dear.

 

Daunting

Daunting: (adj) description of a task which is disheartening

 I do not begrudge someone ascending Mount Everest.

More power to you.

I’m certainly glad if you hit home runs.

And feel free to win the Heisman Trophy as long as you don’t kill your wife and her guest.

But physical achievements are not daunting efforts.

As long as you train well, prepare your body and understand the task set before you, you have a fighting chance to achieve your goal and win.

The true daunting tasks are to bring about the peacefulness of the Garden of Eden in a world which is gradually deciding that generosity and kindness are unusable virtues for battling greed and hate.

With the rest of my journey on Earth, I have decided to take on three daunting tasks:

  1. To fight gender inequality by continuing to tout how similar men and women are instead of insisting that we are radically constructed to be at odds.
  2. Destroy racism by pointing out the bigotry introduced to me, which I am dismantling, encourage those who will join me and joke around with those who won’t.
  3. Live and promote a faith which is grounded on Earth and survives through the fruit it bears instead of the mere promises of eternal life.

Everything I sing, everything I write, everything I produce, and every conversation will be laced with these three adventures.

It is my belief that “daunting” is achieved by beginning the denting of the walls that separate us.

 

Cup of Tea, One’s

Cup of tea, one’s: (n) Something that is in accord with one’s liking or taste.

If I were flying through space—maybe even at light speed—on a craft from another world, with creatures from another dimension, who for some reason had abducted me to study (for inexplicable reasons) and we were about to land on Earth and my tutor from this alien world, who had gradually won my confidence, turned to me and tenderly said, “Since we only have a minute, tell me the most important thing to know in dealing with Earth and Earthlings,” I’m sure a million things would come to my mind—or maybe just a thousand in lieu of my limited capacity.

Things like:

“Don’t spit on the sidewalk when you’re meeting strangers.”

“Brush your teeth after eating garlic pizza.”

“Don’t stare directly into a woman’s bosom.”

Or:

“Avoid eating off of trucks near parks.”

But after a few seconds, I probably would land on the truth of truths—the statement I would need to tell my little friend (yes, that’s right, he’s only four foot four, but is quite muscular) so that he would be able to function and get by on our little establishment.

Here you go:

DON’T BE PICKY.

You will be tempted. You will want to crinkle your face, show disapproval, and there will be those who will even say, “If you don’t like it, let me know.”

They are lying.

Even though all human beings insist on being picky, we all certainly hate picky people.

It seems to be the standard we set for ourselves and others—allowing for taste and appreciation—but we tend to become snarly when someone opts to pass on something because it’s “not their cup of tea.”

When this happens, we swallow our discontent but walk away thinking:

“Hmmm. Like YOU drink tea.”

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Cultivate

Cultivate: (v) to promote or improve growth by labor and attention.

It is unfortunate that most religious individuals are so busy toeing the line—seeking God, criticizing sin and thinking of heaven—that they miss out on much of the beautiful poetry and insight contained in the Bible.

The Bible is like every other book I’ve read: there are parts I like, characters I enjoy, story lines I follow and truths I garner.

Within the Good Book, there is the parable of the farmer who plants seed in the ground. Then he sleeps—but he rises night and day to discover that the seeds have grown, but he does not really know how.

In the midst of that parable, this line appears:

“The Earth produces by itself.”

It’s so true.

We, as humans, actually rebel against the obvious, which steers us toward being kind and generous.

We have to be bratty to not see that the Earth itself teaches us to recognize one another in fairness and justice.

And we have to be total ignoramuses to resist the inclination to love rather than kill and destroy.

Our job is to plant seed.

After this, the Earth itself will show us how these efforts need to be cultivated:

  • What needs to be done to become an entrepreneur
  • What is required to be an excellent parent.
  • And the next steps needed to cultivate any venture and take it to a new level of growth.

Sometimes in America we forget to cultivate the way the Earth tells us. Then the weeds start showing up, and we begin believing that the weeds are in control.

Too bad. It’s a simple little system.

Plant your seeds.

Rise up and be astounded over the growth.

Then let the Earth itself tell you what to do next.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Credibility

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Credibility: (n) the quality of being believable or worthy of trust

I suppose the most logical suggestion for gaining credibility is just refusing to lie.

Seems sensible. Here’s the problem:

You can’t get anyone to believe that you’re not lying.

And the more you insist you’re telling the truth or emotionally distraught you become, the more you look like an even worse liar.

Credibility is achieved by allowing the ideas you’ve fostered to prove themselves.

To have this happen, you must be willing to silently let time pass. That way, when it ends up that the things you spoke were accurate, faithful and honest, the human race around you can slow up long enough to respond, “Hey—you were right.”

If you don’t gloat over your veracity, they will gradually—and I say, very gradually—begin to assume that you are some strange alien who has come to Earth to expose the poison of “fibbing.”

But gaining credibility is never something that can be claimed, insisted upon, lobbied for or voted into office. When people realize that your “yes” actually means yes, and your “no” holds firm at no, then maybe—yes, maybe—they will start giving you points for credibility.

 

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Coworker

Coworker: (n) a fellow worker; colleague

Do you like funny statements?

I often find myself giggling over ideas that are presented as truthful, or at least positive, which have no basis in reality whatsoever.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

One that really tickles my funny bone is the notion that someone is “in charge.”

Helpless we arrive, dear friends, and helpless we live—and in between we do our best with what we’ve got.

So if you’re at a job somewhere and everyone’s jockeying to be the big boss, you might want to calm down and realize there are only two advantages in being the big boss. They are:

1. More money

2. More blame.

Wait—I guess that second one is not an advantage.

Because as long as you’re a co-worker, you can share the money with everyone else and also share the blame. But when you become the boss, the reason they give you extra dollars—if they do—is to prepare you for the realization that if things go badly, you are the one who will be holding the bag.

Life would be so much better if we stopped trying to boss each other around or act like we’re the boss of politics, or the boss of God, the boss of our families or the boss of our jobs.

The best bosses in the world act like coworkers.

Matter of fact, when you get right down to it, that is the message of the New Testament from the Bible. God got tired of being the boss and getting all the blame, so He came down to Earth as Jesus, to be a coworker with us, so we could share in the profits, but also evenly distribute the responsibility.


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Couching

Couching: (v) to express something in a language that is indirect or less than honest.

I have spent half my life trying to find nice ways to say things and the other half apologizing for failed experiments.

We are obsessed with the need to be coddled, even when it’s obvious that we are transgressors. We would prefer that God not refer to us as funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
sinners, but rather, “winners in training.”

We do not want our lovers to tell us that we fumble but sympathize that maybe it was a bad night and we were just tired.

When donning a new outfit of clothing, we expect praise even if the duds make us look ridiculous or over-balloon our appearance.

We are sensitive, but not to spiritual things or each other, but instead to any form of criticism.

So the entire Earth tries to couch what it says and does until it doesn’t want to do couch anymore—and then the bombs begin to fly.

We live in a world that travels from discontent to bombings, never considering that there can be conversation free of lies, deception and exaggeration, which might keep the death toll down at Ground Zero.


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Cosmic

Cosmic: (adj) of or relating to the cosmos

When I was in the first grade and they presented math problems for addition—like 4 + 3 and 2 + 7—I did them, believing that when I finished, I would know everything about mathematics.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

They didn’t tell me that subtraction was next.

They might have scared me off if they had talked about multiplication.

And, well, division is so divisive.

If they had shared that by the time I was in high school I would be studying something called calculus, which is mathematics taken almost to the realm of ethereal religion, I might have lost heart in the whole process—or stupidly, tried to jump ahead and take on “the big one.”

That’s the way I feel about people who are involved in religion, spirituality and the cosmic.

Here we have a beautiful Earth to learn, add up, subtract, multiply and even occasionally divide up into parts, and we are still tempted to study the heavens, the gods, the stars and the universal spectrum.

It doesn’t make us better people.

It sometimes makes us too high-minded about things instead of practical.

It certainly can make us self-righteous.

And in the long run, it pushes others away, who might like to have a conversation with us if it weren’t laced with “angels, planets and demons.”

There certainly is a cosmos.

But it seems to me that we should eat the plate that is set before us before we start ordering other things off the menu.

For our Earth is in great need of being befriended by those with bigger brains than the creatures who live in the jungle.

If we spend too much time looking at the stars, the Earth might turn into dust at our feet.


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Cosigner

Cosigner: (n) a joint signer of a promissory note.

The definition of greatness, and perhaps even the best description of faith, is possessing a vision greater than your substance.

Very few of us arrive on Earth with enough substance to match our vision.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

I found this to be true in my early years of adulthood. I knew what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure how to do it, so I was very susceptible to the lame-brain plans of others—or even of my own making—which might be shortcuts for achieving my goals.

All of these ideas that were hatched in front of me and inside me always entailed the need for money. It was the idea that money needed to come before I could do the work.

Whenever someone suggested that I could do the work without needing money, I rejected it because it extended my waiting period and therefore discouraged my faithfulness.

I cannot tell you how many times I went to family, friends or even strangers, asking them to cosign on a loan, a car, a motor home, or even sound equipment, because I was convinced that my need for the substance was inhibiting my faith.

Most of the time, very wise people said, “Absolutely not.”

I did not like them. I thought they were selfish, unfeeling, perhaps anti-Christ.

On three occasions, when people gave into my “pitch” and signed on a piece of paper for money or goods on my behalf, they were left holding the bag—which I believe contained turds.

Later on in my life, when I got substance, I came back and reimbursed these people. But at the time, I am sure they felt very used—and their faith was damaged because I stole their substance.

Family and friends come to me sometimes, asking me to cosign a loan or a contract. I just pull out my wallet, peer into it, and figure out which President, with his face on the paper money, I can impeach from my ownership and give to them. If I can’t afford to give it, I don’t offer it.

Cosigning always seems like a great idea—sometimes even to two people. But if you really believe that substance is needed more than faith, your lack of faith will make it impossible to please either God or Earth.


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