Tag Archives: hell

Applicable

dictionary with letter A

Ap·pli·ca·ble (adj): relevant or appropriate.

Sometimes I feel like a helpless city with no defenses, being bombarded by a society which senses no responsibility for viciously attacking in the pursuit of gaining its will.

It doesn’t matter what the issue is–every advocacy group is obsessed with its own form of tunnel vision, and contends that if you do not agree with them in every principle, that somehow or another you are suffering from a phobia against their cause.

No one is stopping to ask an important question: what principle is really applicable to the ongoing sanity and peaceful coexistence of human beings?

Let me explain.

I have lots of foibles. I suppose some people would even consider them sins. I am fat, bald, somewhat lazy and silly. There are individuals who would take any one of those and isolate me off in a box for direct FedEx shipment to hell. I have no malice toward them. I do not wish that they, too, would experience a fiery end. I just think their cause is overwrought and is trumped by a greater good which is often ignored in the pursuit of these pundits proving their point.

I just believe that the only applicable statement for those dwelling on Earth and confined by mortality is “no one is better than anyone else.”

  • So on the issue of abortion, I have empathy for both mother and child, so I grant freedom for choice and discovery of restraint.
  • How about racial issues? Since no one is better than anyone else, having God color you in with a different hue doesn’t seem very important.
  • Homosexuality? Since I probably will not be joining you in your bedroom, I would rather appreciate your company in the fellowship hall.

Life is not nearly as complicated as angry pollsters and protesting advocates try to make it out to be. I cannot judge you because if I were judged by the same standard, I would be weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Therefore what is applicable becomes that which is relevant. And what is relevant is that I have no control over your happiness–only the ability to hurt you and take away your joy.

So I shall not.

“No one is better than anyone else. ”

That is applicable.

Everything else is merely conversational, aggravating bullshit.

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Apiary

dictionary with letter A

Apiary: (n.) a place where bees are kept.

This is really unfair.

I guarantee you, I will not remember this.

Am I the only person who thinks an apiary is a place where you should keep apes?

How am I supposed to remember that an apiary is where you keep bees? A word picture won’t even help me. My God, the horror of blending a monkey and a bee.

And even though I’ve seen people who tend to these little buzzing wonder-units, it does baffle me. Because they make honey but they will sting–so much so that if you don’t have that funny wire mask on, and the white suit that makes you look like the Marshmallow Man, you’re always in danger of them…well, getting a bee in your bonnet.

But then the shocking news came to me that bees were beginning to die off, and that if they continued this extinction, pollination could cease and therefore crops would not grow and we will eventually all starve.

God, I wish my pollination was so powerful.

So I really have mixed feelings about bees.

I know they’re important. I know they make something sweet in life. I also know they sting.

But I understand that if they do sting, word has it that it can be fatal to them. Maybe something God should have instilled in the human being–some sort of system whereby you get three mouthfuls of gossip and then your head falls off.

I am not the kind of writer who will close this off with some silly reference like, “Whatever bees will bees.”

I am well beyond that.

  • I am astute.
  • I am articulate.
  • And I have enough fear of the works of Shakespeare to avoid such trivialities.

Oh, what the hell.

Whatever bees will bees. 

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Annual

dictionary with letter A

Annual: (adj,) occurring once every year: an annual conference

My first personal encounter with the word “annual” was in relation to a book in high school, filled with pictures of friends, which were frozen and sealed in the volume, precious and everlasting in the moment, yet eventually merely a source of taunting as age betrayed the visuals.

Yes, that’s the problem with the word “annual.”

I am somewhat convinced that the best way to destroy a human being is to introduce two words into their lives: next year.

Once we become convinced that we are the masters of our fate, and put things off into a new calendar, we have given ourselves permission to be distracted and defeated by the circumstances which stand in the way of such distant planning.

Matter of fact, I recently had a conversation with a gentleman who told me he was writing a book. When I asked him what he planned to do when he finished, he replied, “I don’t really know. But it’ll be a year or so before that happens.”

It’s amazing how 365 days can give us both solace and also thrust us into a perpetual hell of procrastination.

Can you imagine if Jesus had said, “Give us this year our budget and quotas…” instead of proffering the notion that twenty-four hours is the preferable span for achievement?

In fact, He suggests that thinking about tomorrow merely t

For after all, there’s nothing more sad than running across a poster for the “First Annual” something or other, only to realize that the “Second Annual” never happened.

I try to love everybody.

Those I am not capable of loving to the full degree necessary, I benefit by staying out of their way.

The only people I truly avoid are those who are confident … that next year will be better.

 

 

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Annals

dictionary with letter A

Annals: (pl. n.) a record of events, year by year.

Baffled.

I like that word.

Because when I admit I’m baffled, I’m not saying I’m angry, frustrated, or out to get anyone. I’m just literally confused by the information that’s been provided to me.

I think it’s necessary to become baffled; otherwise, you start accepting what’s around you as normal, rather than looking back in the annals of history, the annals of intelligence and the annals of progress, to remind yourself that this present fad will pass away, lending itself to the possibility of sanity.

Yes, I recently became baffled when I realized that most of my friends whom I’ve known over the years have become more stodgy as they’ve become older instead of pursuing the path of wisdom–garnering the very best of what we’ve learned and bringing that package to the new possibilities before us.

Let me ask you:

  • Why do we line up to imitate the parents we used to rebel against?
  • Why do we suddenly become the gossipers we used to despise and make fun of because of their nasty tongues and bitter faces?
  • Why do we insist that those who are younger than us are somehow stupid or are pursuing destruction, when that is exactly what we were accused of by the stick-in-the-mud adults around us when we were coming of age?

I know we extol the value of mathematics, technology, reading and science, but somewhere along the line we need to hire some good history teachers to remind each and every generation of the ridiculous trends that nearly took us into the pits of hell, burning away our opportunities.

The annals of history are not the memories of old people who have now died and are decaying in graves, but rather, the memories of fresh, young faces who believed they could live forever, and made some poor choices along with their good ones, and found out much too late that life is short.

So I would say to all my friends:

Ease up. The greatest thing you can acquire as you get older is an open mind. Maybe all the extra oxygen coming into that wider space could prevent some dementia.

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Ankh

dictionary with letter A

Ankh: (n.) an object or design resembling a cross but having a loop at the top instead of the top crossing arm; used in ancient Egypt as a symbol of life.

Insanity is tricky.

Sometimes it’s obvious. A five-year-old boy who slaughters cats and dogs probably has some problems and is on his way to being a serial killer.

Yet some insanity temporarily is considered to be current practical thinking, or even spiritual.

This creates a dilemma. Folks who are considered to be spot on do temporarily lose their minds in preference to gaining popular favor.

Several examples come to mind:

  • How about all the people who wrote astounding essays on the value of slavery for the plantation in the Southern states?
  • Those who contended that Prohibition would eliminate drinking and alcoholism in our country.
  • A contingency who had great faith in the existence of witches in Salem, Massachusetts.
  • Politicians who tried to negotiate with Adolph Hitler.
  • Good god-fearing Americans who waved flags in support of the Vietnam War.

Well, I could go on and on.

Case in point: at a certain juncture in my own personal history a friend of mine gave me an ankh. It was beautiful and I thought it was so cool that I wore it around my neck constantly, only to be attacked by friends of the Christian persuasion, who contended it was an Egyptian demonic symbol and that I was welcoming evil in my life by donning it as an accessory.

They were quite insistent. For some reason, the cross coming to an oval at the top apparently created an opening for the entrance of evil spirits.

I did not believe any of this.

But because I didn’t want to lose friends, appear too different or create some sort of Stargate for Beelzebub into my heart, I took it off and threw it away.

I’ve always regretted that. Matter of fact, I used that experience as a point in time where I decided to start thinking for myself, tapping my own spirit and common sense.

For I will tell you: it is rather doubtful that any object in and of itself perpetuates evil.

As history reveals, it takes short-sighted people to truly usher in … the essence of hell.

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Alfredo

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alfredo: (n) a sauce for pasta incorporating butter, cream garlic and Parmesan cheese.

There are very few surprises.

Well, I guess the fact that avocados are high in calories is a little alarming, considering how little taste they offer for the load. But generally speaking, you can taste–or really just look–at a dish of food and know that it is killer with everything that produces the fat and sugars which make us bounce out of the room in our “rotundness.”

Such is alfredo sauce.

It’s almost comical, isn’t it? It seems to me that the times in my life that I’ve eaten fettuccine alfredo, I have found myself screaming at the world around me, “What the hell! Leave me alone! I’m gonna go out with a fork in my hand and a smile on my face!”

  • Butter. Come on. Can anything be more symbolic of excess?
  • Cream.
  • Parmesan cheese.
  • And then, on top of that, to create a noodle that is larger and wider than spaghetti–a four-lane carb–to make sure you don’t lose one single drop of this exorbitantly-caloried sauce, is a proclamation of insanity portrayed as a declaration of eating independence.

I once walked by a plate of fettuccine alfredo–without consuming it, merely viewing it–and went to the scale, having gained three pounds. My eyeballs had absorbed the richness through visual osmosis.

It’s much like America. Watching a little piece of Dr. Oz the other day as they were discussing how to take kale and turn it into chips by baking it in the oven, a commercial came on afterwards advertising the new Wendy’s double-bacon, avocado, guacamole cheddar cheese burger.

I love this country. We talk such a good game–and then we decide never to play it.

We think putting on public service announcements about childhood obesity will cover the problem as we continue to dangle saturated fats and sugary confections in front of our children like Christmas ornaments lit up by tiny little bulbs.

They tell me people in Italy eat lots of pasta, and don’t have heart trouble. All I know is, if they’re eating fettuccine alfredo, they should be prepared … well, they should be prepared … to die.

Agent Orange

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAgent Orange: (n) a defoliant chemical used by the U.S. during the Vietnam war

I don’t trust the press.

I don’t trust the government.

I’m a child of the 60’s.

What is the problem with mistrusting the government and the press? They seem to control almost everything. It puts me in danger of not trusting anything.

Matter of fact, many people my age have rejected spirituality because it appears to be a heavenly government with a press corps, promoting the Bible.

This is what I think about when I hear the words, “Agent Orange:”

As a kid I went to school, had friends, flirted with girls, tried to play football and attempted to keep my grades high enough that I didn’t get kicked out of the National Honor Society while all the time my government was spewing poison all over the countryside of Vietnam, which not only killed vegetation but also ended up destroying human life.

By the time I discovered it, along with everyone else in the country, we were already in the midst of an elongated conflict which ended up costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

To achieve what? A Vietnam which is now united under one government–basically Marxist–which after all these decades, is accepted by our nation as a friendly and fertile climate for commerce.

What can we learn from the Agent Orange stupidity that exists in all aspects of our society? What are we trying to defoliate today, which in the future will become acceptable and those who live long enough to walk in that future time will look back to wonder “what in the hell we were thinking?”

There are three things you must have if you’re a human being:

  1. A sense of history. Try not to repeat the stupid stuff.
  2. An enjoyment of the present. Today’s all we’ve got.
  3. An eye on the future. In other words, what is this going to look like in twenty years?

If we had thought that way, many of us would never have worn lime-green leisure suits … and probably would have avoided any agent that was called orange.

Admonish

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter AAdmonish: (v) to warn or reprimand someone firmly

I really do not know why this word is in the dictionary.

I suppose it’s there because we all have accidentally or ignorantly decided to admonish another human being, only to discover that we were given bad attitude, resistance and actually, more often than not, pushed them right back into their iniquity.

For after all, it is a word usually associated with child-rearing. You know–those occasions when we sit our offspring down and explain to them in vivid detail the error of their ways and the danger of their path.

But writing this essay today, I have to ask myself if I have EVER heeded an admonishment.

I have come to myself and decided to change certain behavior. But every time someone ELSE has made it his or her mission to create that change in me, I have resisted to the point of rebellion (although in the presence of other folks I might pretend I had heeded the heated advice).

But I didn’t.

Truthfully, I resented the hell out of someone treating me like I was a teenager taking the car out for a joy ride without permission.

This is why I yearned for my eighteenth birthday–so I wouldn’t have to listen to people tell me what to do. I am a typical son of Adam and Eve in the sense that if you tell me there’s a tree from which I should not eat, it is the location where I will probably decide to have lunch.

Honestly, it’s how I can tell that parts of the Bible ARE divinely inspired, and other portions are the inventions of men trapped in their own culture and time, who did their best to venture a good guess.

You can encourage people. I am not so certain you can admonish them.

You can exhort people. Admonishment will go out the back door as quickly as it came in the front.

You can steer, cheer, jeer, and leer at folks and probably get by with it. But when you sit them down and try to recreate the atmosphere that should have happened when they were children being instructed on Mommy and Daddy’s knees, you are about to unleash all the fury of their frustration.

So what can we do if we know that someone is destroying himself and is steeped in great error?

The two paths available to the wise man or woman who want to affect their world are:

  1. Set a great visible example
  2. Pray that God uses the natural order to bring truth to the forefront.

There you go.

So “admonish” is in the dictionary because we do it with our children–to limited success.

When we try to apply it to our adult friends, we have generated the definition for another word: futility.

Adirondack Chair

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adirondack chair: (n.) an outdoor wooden armchair constructed of wide slats. The seat typically slants downward toward the sloping back.

If anyone asks you, Panama City Beach is very sunny in the first two weeks of March, but icy cold if you decide to sit anywhere near the ocean. (Just a little travel tip from the well-seasoned vagabond.)

The reason I can share this is that I rented a cottage near the Gulf one year, to spend a few days writing on my first novel. It sounded so romantic and exciting, with a bit of wild abandon thrown in for good measure.

This was before computers and word processors were portable and could be taken out into a thatched-hut cabana for creative purposes, so I was using an old manual Royal typewriter. The little machine was quite quirky, having a nasty disposition which caused it to occasionally refuse to register the “e” key. I didn’t care. I was a writer–and I was near the beach, transforming my thoughts into storyline.

Three things immediately came to the forefront:

1. Manual typewriters were invented in hell, to the devil’s glee–especially when you’re sitting out in a cabana with the cold wind blowing through, icing your fingertips. Now, I might agree that a certain amount of pain is necessary to stoke the furnace of composition, but I draw the line at frostbite.

2. The second problem was that my cottage was much warmer than my workplace, so my mind kept floating back to the grocery provisions stocked in my refrigerator, the television set sitting idly by, awaiting my return, and the room heater that took away the chill and made me toasty. So to keep from going back to being the non-creative lump considering the virtues of daytime TV, I would frequently step out of my cabana into the sunshine and perch myself to thaw out in one of those Adirondack chairs which peppered the surrounding sand. Thus, my third problem.

3. The first time I sat in the chair I was fine, because I didn’t allow myself to get comfortable. But the second time, the sun was so warm and glowing that I leaned back into the chair, sliding into that slope described in the definition, and I dozed off. When I awoke, I tried to rise to my feet to go back to my writing, and I realized that my posterior region seemed to be a perfect fit into the slat at the bottom of the back of the chair. I had wedged myself there–seemingly, permanently.

I and the chair were one.

At first I laughed, thinking that if I just wiggled or squirmed, I would be able to free myself. But no. In a matter of moments, terror gripped my soul. Try as I may, I was unable to unplug myself from the chair. Should I scream for help, only to be emotionally damaged for the rest of my life if someone actually had to uncork me? Should I stay there, hoping that after a few days, weight loss would trim my backside?

For some reason, it occurred to me to do the twist. Remember that dance? You wiggle your hips back and forth like working a hula hoop. It took about fifteen minutes, but finally my left cheek freed itself, and then, by brute force, I was able to rise to my feet.

I have never sat in one of those chairs again.

I’m sure for normal people, who do not have a rear end that parks quite so well, they are absolutely comfortable and adorable.

For me, they are ... the quicksand of furniture.

Action Figure

Words from Dic(tionary)

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Action figure: (n.) a doll representing a person or fictional character known for vigorous action, such as a soldier or superhero. The figure is typically posable, with jointed limbs.

I think one of the most creative cartoons ever devised was Transformers.

These were robots that could morph into other objects, weapons, or even flying machines to fight their enemies. Not only was it represented well in animation, but they actually came up with action figure toys which were equally as entertaining for the young set–or even those a little older and graying, like me.

One Christmas, one of my sons asked for Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime was the ultimate Transformer–the good guy of all good guys. His enemy was Megatron.

Of course, that particular Christmas I could not locate Optimus Prime anywhere–but was able to easily find Megatron, who ironically, was quite marked down.

Megatron was cool, but was also the bad bot. I did not want to pass on the impression to my eight-year-old that I was purchasing the “Dark Lord of the Transformers,” perhaps inkling to him that evil had the power to triumph over good.

So I decided to order Optimus Prime and put a certificate under the tree, explaining that the present would arrive at a later date and hoping that would be sufficient to create some sort of enthusiasm.

Little did I know that a family friend, who thought he was being a magnificent unseen uncle, purchased Megatron on sale and gave it to my son. So what I feared came to be: my son had all of his little Transformers who were nice fellows, but no match for the massive and sinister Megatron.

I tried to get him enthusiastic about the upcoming arrival of Optimus Prime, but he was just TOO thrilled with his new bad boy of rock and roll.

I was worried.

I know it sounds silly–but as I listened to him playing through the door on Christmas Day, I sensed there was a battle going on in his soul–good versus evil.

Finally I decided to go in a talk to him about his present collection of action figures. I found him deeply engrossed in a skirmish. So I sat down for five minutes and explained to him that even though Megatron was big and strong, that he was not to be honored just because it SEEMED like he had more power than all the good transformers.

My son listened carefully, even though he occasionally was distracted and gazed over at his new, shiny toy. After my lecture, I asked him if he understood and “would he please explain it back to me.”

He patted me on the leg and said, “Daddy, don’t worry. You see, here’s what I’ve figured out. Megatron is strong, but when all the good transformers work together as a team, they can beat him–because then they’re stronger.”

At this point, he turned and ran away for his next in-house Armageddon. I sat for a moment and just shook my head. How did this little boy come up with such a profound statement? And why is it that we grown, intelligent, well-educated people can’t figure that one out for ourselves?

Yes, if all the good guys would just get together, evil wouldn’t have a chance … in hell.