Tag Archives: human

Approval

dictionary with letter A

Approval (n): the action of officially agreeing to something or finding something acceptable

It’s not easy to get approval.

Matter of fact, most human systems are set up to filter out the riff-raff, and in so doing, often discourage those who are not as tenacious as they should be, but still possess value.

This is the problem with the committee.

There are four types of people who populate committees, and are therefore in charge of approval:

1. The individual who has legitimate concern about an issue and wants to make sure good things happen.

2. The person who has an ax to grind and disagrees with most of the decisions made by previous committees and wants to be there to rectify the situation.

3. The person who can’t say no to the job but really has little interest in it, and therefore is swayed back and forth by the majority.

4. That guy or gal who feels it is their duty to say no to most things–otherwise affairs may get out of hand. And simultaneously, they hope to be known as the person who stood against something that turned out to be really bad.

I have spent most of my life trying to avoid seeking approval.

It’s not that I don’t want input and opinions, it’s just that in the pursuit of approval, the wheels of progress grind to a screeching halt and the vehicle which was taking us to our future plans suddenly is parked, looking like it doesn’t run.

Approval is hard to get and because of that, we have a tendency to be stingy in giving it to others. So my feeling on the issue is that I welcome you to have insights on what I do as long as you understand that I’m going to do something.

 

 

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Anno Domini

dictionary with letter A

Anno Domini: (adv) full form of AD. Latin, literally “in the year of Our Lord.”

I had to chuckle one day when I found my car keys after a few moments of nervous speculation on their location.

I am so damn mortal. I am peppered with inconsistencies, flaws, foibles and even little festering afflictions.

Yet sometimes I feel it is my right or even mission to shake my little fist at the heavens, complaining of some minor infraction. (Even if my objection happens to be about a major issue, my fist still doesn’t grow much in comparison to the magnitude of the Universe.)

We are told that a man was born in Bethlehem nearly 2,000 years ago. Not only did his birth aggravate local magistrates and set in motion an upheaval in the Middle East, which transported his ideas into the whole world, but we have also decided to meter time from before and after his birth.

And even though agnostics and atheists rail against the life, attitudes and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, we have no other experience or teachings that have spanned so much time and left so much influence.

  • We have Buddha and Confucius, who were predecessors, but certainly did not eclipse the influence.
  • The gods of Olympus died out pretty quickly.
  • And Mohammed was born several centuries after Jesus.

There was something proclaimed in the small 100-mile radius of Nazareth, his stomping ground, that stirred the conscience in the body human and still awakens us to the need to love one another.

Although I am not comfortable with many of the tenets of religion and theological practice, it is very difficult to doubt the impact that a carpenter-turned-preacher had on our world.

Was it his life?

Was it his death?

Or was it the fact that he simplified all the over-wrought musings of the generations of time into “loving the Lord your God and loving your neighbor as yourself?”

 

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Andrews, Julie

dictionary with letter A

Andrews, Julie: (1935 – ) English actress and singer born Julia Elizabeth Wells. She is best known for the movies Mary Poppins (1964), for which she won an Academy Award, and The Sound of Music (1965).

Progressors.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are people who arrive at just the right time in history to do just the right thing, to progress things at just the right pace. Without them, nothing happens–and if they were any more progressive, they would have scared everybody away.

There are many examples, but certainly, Julie Andrews falls into this category.

For I will tell you, if Julie Andrews arrived on the scene today, she would be rejected for her sprightly personality, her clarity of singing and portrayed as a lightweight.

But at the time she arrived with her talent, there was a need for hope, inspiration and music sung with the purity of a nightingale and the intensity of a roaring lion.

She was a treasure. And because she worked very hard at making sure she maintained her excellence, her work endures.

Oh, we may think that “a spoon full of sugar” doesn’t “make the medicine go down,” or that the hills aren’t “alive with the sound of music,” but her infectious desire to bring good cheer to the listener is very difficult to criticize or ignore.

Now, there is a problem when we become nostalgic and insist that we need Julie Andrews back.

We don’t need another Julie Andrews–we need the next Julie Andrews to progress us in our consciousness. We need talented folks who bring hope in their own way, clarity using their own voice, and inspiration sensitive to their own times.

Without Julie Andrews, there never would have been a Barbra Streisand, and without Streisand there never would have been Heart with the Wilson sisters or Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks, and without them, there would not have been Celine Dion, Beyoncé and Pink.

We need progressors.

And what is the goal for making this place called Earth better?

Anybody who promotes the idea that we are human … and that is not a bad thing.

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Amice

dictionary with letter A

Amice: (n) a cap, hood or white linen cloth worn on the neck and shoulders by a priest or member of other religious orders.

Always willing to admit my ignorance, I had absolutely no idea what this word was, nor do I still have much of a vision for the garment described

But I am certainly aware of the inclination of those who wish to express their position, authority, superiority or uniqueness by the type of cloth they use to adorn their bodies.

I guess it’s just a part of being human.

But I must be honest–at times it seems inhuman or unkind, to separate oneself off from others by blaring a fashion statement.

Case in point: I don’t have anything personally against the Amish nor their ilk, but I find it a bit aggravating that secretly, somewhere deep in their souls, they sense a moral and spiritual upliftedness by dressing “plain,” and proving that in so doing, God is smiling more on them than on my sweatpants.

It does not take very long to travel through the Good Book to see that Jesus was quite aggravated himself by the religions leaders, who adorned themselves in elaborate robing to demonstrate their position and heavenly placement.

On the other hand, I suppose it’s essential that military service personnel wear uniforms, to create–well, uniformity. (Yet, when we really are being intelligent in wartime situations, we have our soldiers infiltrate the local populace by dressing normally. It increases the possibility for victory via subterfuge.)

I’ve had ministers tell me that wearing a collar when walking down the halls of a hospital makes it easier for the patients to identify someone who could bring spiritual solace.

As always, for every objection you can make in life, there is someone who can hatch a story to egg you on, to defend why things are the way they are.

But for the record, you will probably never see me wear an amice.

First of all, I don’t look good in hoods. I was raised to believe this is a slang term for “criminal”

Also, if the best shot I have at impressing the world around me of my prowess is to wear a particular doo-dad or a dud, in order to be the cool dude …then I think I would rather blend into the simply-clad masses.

 

Alchemist

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Alchemy: (n) the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter. It was concerned particularly with attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find a universal elixir.

“I need more.”

Those three words form one of the more useless phrases in the English language. Yet the proclamation–or at least the sentiment–is in the air constantly.

I don’t know when we established the notion that pleading poverty, lack or futility is an acceptable profile for human behavior. What I mean is, even though we all pull up lame and make excuses, we privately hate it when it is done by others.

I have really noticed this over the past ten years. About a decade ago, I realized that whatever is going to happen in my career, dreams and aspirations has already happened, and unless I learn to take what is available and turn it into something better, I will become disgruntled.

One of the more stupid attributes of the human family is the insistence that we’re waiting for our “big break.” It’s why I would never buy a lottery ticket. Buying one would demand buying at least a dozen others in order to increase your potential, even though the odds of the bonanza coming my way are astronomical.

I want to stop complaining about what I have–and turn it into gold (or at least some yellow material that would pass.) That’s what the alchemists did. Their main claim was that they could change lead into gold. (Maybe that’s what we mean by “getting the lead out.”)

Yes, if I stop looking at the lead that comes my way and start using it more productively, maybe some gold will come out of it. I don’t know about you–I’m a little tired of seeing people turn gold into lead:

  • I’m weary of a religious system that takes a gospel of love and transforms it into a mediocre pabulum of rules and regulations.
  • I’m angered by the nobility of the American dream and the cause of freedom being denigrated down to voting, campaigns and political gridlock.
  • And I am certainly bedraggled by the hounding about “family” in our society, while we simultaneously have entertainment and shows portraying the relationship as detrimental or even destructive.

You and I have one responsibility: stop bitching about what we’ve got and try to turn it into something more.

Because quite bluntly, if we don’t understand that this is the mission of human life … we will end up leaving behind much less than what we were given.

 

Adjourn

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Adjourn: (v.) to break off a meeting, legal case or game with the intention of resuming it later. e.g. the meeting was adjourned until December 4th.

The key to organization, which by the way, is the breath of successful life, is to get your ducks in a row without making everybody around you go “quackers.”

In other words, be efficient without being a jerk.

This is my problem with Parliamentary procedure. For when I think of the word “adjourn,” I recall all the meetings I have attended, which have basically consisted of children trying to act grown-up by following some archaic procedure of rules and regulations which end up being the conversation of the room instead of working on the topics themselves.

Quite bluntly, in that atmosphere, the person who seconds the motion and whether they have seconded a motion before instead of waiting in line, or whether the vote was taken before discussion, becomes much more important to the committee than whether they pass resolutions.

Thus, Congress.

The thing that upsets me about our form of government is that we’re much more concerned about maintaining the traditions of our system, tipping our hats to old-fashioned methods, than we are about whether progress is being made and we’re actually addressing situations before they slap us in the face.

I usually don’t pontificate on this issue because I don’t have an alternative.

I do understand if we don’t have SOME sort of order while considering options in a meeting place, that chaos can quickly become the ruler of the day. But I am not convinced that following the rules of Parliament (which by the way, isn’t even American) has anything to do with the general welfare or the common good.

What should come out of a meeting?

  1. All ideas expressed within a time limit.
  2. Those who are uncertain of facts should be able to question them.
  3. A vote–up or down.

That’s it. The quickest, easiest, friendliest and most human way to achieve that should be pursued with great passion.

I’m just not sure that all of the rules and regulations that we follow like a herd of sheep is doing anything but fleecing us of possibility.

So for me, I’d like to adjourn Parliamentary procedure.

Can I get a second on that?

Ad infinitum

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Ad infinitum: (adv.) again and again in the same way forever. e.g.: registration is for seven years and may be renewed ad infinitum.

I’ve never been particularly impressed with the word “forever.”

To me, the weakness of eternal life is that it’s eternal. I guess the miracle of God will be His ability to explain how something that goes on and on can escape being repetitive, and therefore, boring.

This has caused me to be able to do my occupation as a vagabond artist. While others in my human family find it comforting to know where they’re going to be a year from now, I feel no sense of compulsion to dance about in the ballroom of security.

Insecurity seems to be a bad word, when actually, life itself is geared to be such. Guarantees are few, promises are many, sameness is unusual, but pursuit of identical results is universal.

Somehow or another, the key to life is not in looking for anything that lasts forever but to forever look for things that are lasting, but changing.

That seems to be a contradiction, doesn’t it? How could something be lasting AND changing?

There’s a little phrase in the Good Book that says, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Kind of makes him sound like a Grandpa, clinging to his Beatles albums.

But actually, the way Jesus is the same is that he’s constantly and faithfully evolving toward meeting human need.  And since we are going through a similar process, being creatures of the earth, he has to have a lot of mercy and a lot of good humor in order to embrace our foibles.

I don’t need forever.

Matter of fact, sometimes I think the things we want to last for a lifetime are unrealistic.

  • I don’t require a lifetime guarantee on my muffler.
  • And perhaps even marriage would be better if we renewed it every ten years.

I don’t know–such decisions are reserved for individuals much more intelligent than me.

But ad infinitum is not necessary for this pilgrim. All this pilgrim needs is some turkey, dressing, a little gravy … and some cranberry sauce.

Acknowledge

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter AAcknowledge: (v) 1.to accept or admit the existence or truth of  2. to recognize the quality of: e.g. the arts community had begun to acknowledge his genius.

It’s not easy.

Often in the process of acknowledging the truth of a subject, we have to admit that we have fallen short of achieving a parallel situation.

It’s why we’re so stingy with our praise. People have to do immensely amazing things to get attention anymore. This causes us to only acknowledge things that are outlandish. And most outlandish things are often detrimental.

So our entertainment is realistic by being dark.

Our politics touts its value by only being adversarial, with no room for compromise.

And our relationships are explosive, portraying the alleged battle between men and women.

If there’s a gauge on our acknowledgment, I think we should turn it UP. I think we should start acknowledging things that aren’t as loud and overwhelming. I think we should allow people who decide to take a quieter path to be appreciated instead of only advertising those individuals who sound their brassy horn to let us know they’re coming through.

What DO I acknowledge?

  1. I acknowledge I’m human and it’s okay.
  2. I acknowledge there’s a God who knows I’m human–and that makes Him okay.
  3. I acknowledge you’re a human made by that God, which also puts you in the okay category.
  4. And finally, I acknowledge that good things deserve more attention than bad things.

That’s about it.

Acknowledging is a great thing if it brings about a sense of edification which exhorts us to higher ideals.

For instance, I know that pigs live in slop. I don’t need to have a movie made about it (no disrespect to the “swine” of the film industry.)

I would welcome a little bit more propaganda about goodness in our world …, so we can acknowledge that life is well worth the living.

Acadia

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acadia: a former French colony established in 1604 in the territory that now forms Nova Scotia in Canada. Contested by France and Britain, it was ceded to Britain in 1763, and French Acadians were deported to other parts of North America, especially Louisiana.

There is so much in that definition of Acadia which is bizarre and imbalanced–but still–quite human.

Let’s start out by saying that the Acadians were living in Nova Scotia, which translated, means New Scotland. So already they were presumptuously dwelling under the false concept that they were still in Scotland–just opening a branch. No one in Scotland wanted them. That’s why they were starting from scratch.

So then the arriving British decide THEY don’t like them. They send them to the great trash heap of all English rejects–America. These Acadians go from one community to another, and finally settle in the sediment of the Mississippi Delta–in Louisiana. The only other place left for them to go was the Gulf of Mexico, and it’s just difficult to build a cabin there.

To the credit of these former New Scotland folk, they decide not to be so picky and intermarried with the Louisiana natives, some of them being Creole. They blend, they blur, they mingle, they mix–until one day we end up with Cajuns.

And these Cajuns, who were rejected by Scotland, the British and all sorts of little, prissy towns all the way down the Mississippi River, ended up taking the best of their surroundings and creating one of the more colorful cultures on the face of the earth.

Without them we have no gumbo, jambalaya, and it would be questionable if New Orleans would be so deliciously flamboyant.

So just as my ancestors were rejected from Germany and landed on the shores of the New World, looking for a place to breathe and live free of condemnation, we need to understand that everybody who lives in America was once a reject, floated down a river or two and plopped in a place where they could be free … and pursue their dreams. Never in the history of mankind has such a clumping of losers turned into such a winning formula–making a little, crawling crustacean called the crayfish into a magnificent mini-lobster treat.

 

Absolute

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Absolute: (adj.) not qualified or diminished in any way: total absolute secrecy  2. a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things: good and evil are presented as absolutes

Absolutely valid. Wow.

I was just sitting here thinking about how in my lifetime, I was instructed in a whole bunch of absolutes which ended up being absolutely ridiculous.

As a boy I was told that black people and white people shouldn’t mix because God had ordained the more pale parts of His creation to be enlightened and the darker ones to be servants. Yes, I was tutored in how the Creative Heavenly Father color-coded His human family to make it clear how they should be categorized.

  • This was an absolute. It was wrong.

I was told by my parents and church that rock and roll was “of the devil” and no good could ever come of it because the beat of the music was purposefully coordinated to the heartbeat of the human being so as to stimulate our juices, to make us act like the natives in Africa, who ran around naked, committing all sorts of sins of the flesh. I was a good white boy from Ohio. I didn’t want to turn into a pigmy or a cannibal. So at first I avoided the demon rock and roll–that is, until I sat down and really listened to it and realized that it energized not only my physical heart, but touched my teenage searching one as well.

  • They were absolutely sure that rock and roll was evil. They were wrong.

I was told that divorce was a sin and anyone who committed it and remarried was in danger of hell because they would be committing adultery. Matter of fact, I saw many ministers and politicians who had to abandon their occupations so as to purge themselves of their sinfulness due to the separation from a spouse. But enough politicians and preachers broke the bonds of marriage that eventually a new doctrine had to be brought forth to give retroactive forgiveness for “splitting the sheets”–and now nearly all the churches in America have a ministry geared to those who are no longer matrimonially entwined.

  • This was an absolute–until it wasn’t.

So to be candid,  I’m a little fuzzy on the concept of “absolutes.” I hear people scream them at the top of their lungs today–many of them the offspring of the former “anti-mixing-of-the-races, rock-and-roll-is-hellish and divorce-is-iniquity” crowd.

I think I have come up with a simple conclusion: the only absolutes we know for sure are that we are all human, we should never judge and Mother Nature and God are much better deciders of what will continue to evolve and what the planet doesn’t need.

Yes–I guess I’m absolutely human.  That is the absolute I am comfortable in donning.