Tag Archives: jungle

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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Conscience

Conscience: (n) an inner guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.

I am discovering that my mind has become a garage, where I store all the memories and stuff that can no longer be used–simply because most of them are more than twenty years old.

Therefore, they are viewed as useless.

If you don’t believe me, just bring up something from the 1980’s, and look at the confused, frustrated and sometimes angry faces of the young humans around funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
you, who don’t understand that you forgot that “they weren’t born yet.”

So I have to be careful as I mention Jimminy Cricket. I do so because when I think of the word “conscience,” he is the pesky insect that comes to mind. He insisted that we should let our “conscience be our guide.”

Well, it doesn’t take me long driving down the freeway to notice that if the conscience actually does exist, it has not been evenly distributed. There are people who are courteous, and there are folks who only got the first part of the word: curt.

So I have to ask the little cricket if he could help me understand whether this conscience thing was there at birth, or if somebody didn’t need to hover over all living souls to make sure that they grew up giving a shit about anything but themselves.

Having raised a number of children, I can tell you that they do not arrive on Earth as human beings. They are actually more of a confirmation of Darwin’s theory of evolution–they are little monkeys who scream, wiggle, piss, poop and grab for everything in sight, until they are trained to escape a life in the jungle, and can be welcomed to Suburbia.

A conscience is not something we’re born with. It’s something we are taught–and hopefully taught so well that we retain it once we are no longer able to be sent to our rooms.

 

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Conceive

Conceive: (v) to form or devise a plan

“The imaginations of a man’s heart are evil continually from his youth.”

Rather than considering this a degrading statement from the Good Book, we should understand that it is the working climate and funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
environment that exists in the interactions of human beings, as we attempt to move forward beyond our jungle roots to a lifestyle with a higher sensitivity.

What we’re working on is how we conceive things.

If every woman is just a storage house for a pair of breasts and a vagina, and every man has to be concerned about the length of his penis, as every country contends that it is the first and the best, and all religions struggle for supernal supremacy, it is a good idea to slow down and realize that since we normally conceive things in wickedness, it might be healthy to saturate ourselves in contentment and find deeper and purer motives for our actions.

We don’t have to.

We can become defensive and think that since everybody else is so rudely constructed, we must maintain our lack of civility if we want to survive.

Yet in a rock fight, the only people who escape injury are those who refuse to throw rocks, but instead, retreat to contemplate richer and more enlightened solutions.

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Combine

Combine: (v) to unite; merge.

Earth is not a recipe.

Although we often consider it to be some sort of careful, articulate blending of ingredients, forming a broth or stew, it actually is nothing like that.

I think we’re a little frightened by how chaotic life actually is.

When you have a recipe, you gather your ingredients and you put in just the right amount of each one, to create something tasteful.

That’s not life. All life does is combine.

It doesn’t care if things agree and is indifferent to whether the enjoining of elements will end up being palatable.

It throws everything together, provides resources and stands back to see what will happen.

Those who pursue the comical belief that “everything has a purpose” and “God has a wonderful plan,”should go into the jungle, stand there, and just stare in every direction.

Thousands and thousands of forms of life, not to mention vegetation, combine to form what appears to be a huge single view with no apparent connection. Often the most intimacy in the jungle is burping after eating someone.

Although it frustrates the conservatives with how openly things combine, and it enrages the liberals about the inequity of the plan, favoring the fittest, the Universe doesn’t seem to care.

Matter of fact, on the day you’re born, the cosmos peers at you curiously and says, “So you’re here. Good luck. Please understand, it’s nothing personal. But we must get rid of you.”

 

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Cloister

Cloister: (v) to seclude or shut up in

It is the universal discovery–or perhaps better stated, pursuit–of every human being: will we discover the better use of our brain before we
 uncover the more pleasant use of our genitals?

It has caused parents to hide, protect, imprison, box up and threaten their children for generations.

We are so afraid that our offspring will do things just as stupid as we did–so we figure the best path is to place them on an emotional or even physical desert island, “far from the madding crowd.”

Unfortunately, other parents have the same idea, so one way or another, our children find one another, and learn to clump and hump.

What is it we’re so afraid of?

  • Unwanted pregnancy.
  • Our children marrying before they get their driver’s license.
  • Little Billy or Sally spending their whole lives on welfare, wondering whether six children is too few or too many.
  • Or perhaps having so many lovers that they eventually just dry up and blow away in a whirlwind of fornication.

Even though guiding children–and ourselves–is a very good idea, cloistering has never worked. The human animal always escapes the care of the human spirit, to roam the jungle, panting for danger.

So what should we do?

No one knows.

Good parenting has nothing to do with pursuing a path, but instead, looking down the available paths … and avoiding the dead-end streets.

 

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Claw

Claw: (n) a horny nail on the foot of a beast

“Claw your way to the top.”

Sounds dramatic, doesn’t it?

Matter of fact, if you enter the intense dialogue of a business meeting or the fevered pitch of a pre-game sermon, you might just hear that
statement presented as the best way to achieve victory.

Animals have claws.

And when we continue to portray ourselves as animalistic, we lose all the anointing of having just a teaspoon of the Divine sprinkled into our souls.

We don ‘t have claws. We have hands.

And the advantage of having a hand is that it comes with fingers which have the sensitivity of merciful touch.

We don’t have to hurt people to affect them.

We don’t have to rip into their flesh to garner their attention.

We don’t have to clasp them and violently carry them away to do our will.

We have fingers with fingertips, and the ability to reach out, caress and communicate the tenderness that’s in our minds.

Be careful with those who like to keep us in the jungle instead of allowing us the honor of using our hands and fingers to till a garden.

We are human. We don’t need to claw our way to the top.

We can gently feel our way.

 

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Caveat

Caveat: (n) a stipulation, condition, or limitation

A caveat is when we add honesty to a thought.

We come up with something to say, but rather than allowing ourselves to be misleading, we add a phrase–usually on the end–which better
 clarifies our position.

It is what makes human beings human, and therefore powerful. We are only foolish when we try to be gods or wallow in the jungle, pretending we are mere animals.

It is hope mingled with the reality that presents who we really are.

Case in point:

  • I love you, but it’s not easy.
  • I will be there, if I don’t get lazy
  • I worship God until He confuses the hell out of me.
  • I am happy until I decide I’m not.
  • I am color blind–except when I accidentally see color.
  • I am reliable as long as you check up on me.
  • I am selfish, but every once in a while, escape the prison.
  • I am getting older, but still have a few steps left.
  • I wish you the best, and I hope I’ll be there to help you get it.

Perhaps a caveat is what we should lead with in explaining our true situation, but I certainly contend that a nice little jolt of optimism sweetens the deal before we have to tell the whole truth.

 

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Brutal

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Brutal: (adj.) savagely violent.

On occasion, I comically refer to human beings as “monkey angels.”

A little bit of jungle, a little bit of heaven.

Because of this mixed breeding, the climate for our species requires a careful mingling of tough and tender.

I get in discussions with my sons about this all the time. They are convinced they can watch Dictionary Bmurder and mayhem in the movies and experience brutal treatment of God’s children, and be no worse the wear.

But the true diet for our spirit is an enduring toughness about complications and a tender empathy for our fellow-travelers.

In other words, celebrating, commemorating and being challenged by those who overcome difficulty through their determination, while emotionally impacted by gentleness among all brothers and sisters.

We’ve flipped it.

I think we try to be tough with our dealings with each other as we tenderize ourselves with decapitation, devastation and depravity.

It screws us up.

So I, for one, have no desire to become stronger by watching brutal acts.

Brutal is for brutes.

And “brute” is the part of our monkey that wants to act like a gorilla.

 

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Blame

Blame: (v) to assign responsibility for a fault or wrong.

I’m always looking for a true definition of maturity.Dictionary B

Having rejected the possibility of “old, experienced, educated or powerful,” I have decided that true maturity is when human beings finally reject the futility of blaming.

Blame–the extra step we add in the process of allegedly solving problems while actually manufacturing a maze that takes us deep into the jungle of confusion.

We exhaust ourselves trying to find out why stupidity happens by generating new stupidity through the investigation.

  • Sometimes blame is obvious. Then mercy is in order.
  • On other occasions blame is shared. At that point, some candor would be nice.

But blame is often a mystery. As the great and wise Solomon said, “Time and chance happens to all.”

Yea, we all take our turn in the fast lane–and also stalled in the traffic jam.

For of a truth, maturity is when we finally realize that pursuing the source of the difficulty often hinders the solution.

And unfortunately, it also turns us into self-righteous, judgmental black holes.

 

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Birthright

Birthright: (n) a particular right of possession or privilege one has from birth

I hate idealism.Dictionary B

It is an idea that we have relegated to the realm of impossibility which we voice anyway, even though we’ve lined up all the excuses in our minds as to why it won’t work.

Tom Jefferson said that “all men are created equal.”

A lovely piece of belligerent idealism–belligerent because our arrogance will not allow us to accept others as our equals without some sort of struggle or cynicism.

Ironically, Mr. Jefferson was probably being served tea and crumpets by one of his slaves as he penned these words about equality. Thus the damn hypocrisy of honoring principles without first finding a way to live them out.

Americans are obsessed with birthright.

We believe in our “manifest destiny” to occupy, control and manipulate. Sometimes we forget that other human souls, also created in the likeness of God, are tempted to feel the same way.

Sooner or later, it is necessary for the human race to surrender to the obvious conclusion that we are barely out of the jungle … and nowhere near Mount Olympus.

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