Tag Archives: lungs

Air

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Air: (n) the invisible gaseous substance surrounding the earth, a mixture mainly of oxygen and nitrogen.

I am a better person when I think about air.

I am more valuable to myself when I appreciate what I breathe and cease to act like a spoiled brat, contending it’s insignificant.

I remember the first time I went to a hospital and required oxygen. I didn’t know I needed oxygen–the doctor explained that the air I was breathing and how I was processing it was not producing enough restorative energy to make me feel good. It sounded stupid. That is, until they hooked the oxygen up to my nose, and within five minutes, my head cleared, I found myself breathing deeper and was completely in the midst of a rejuvenation.

Little did I know how much I needed more air … until the lack of air left me verging on a quiet desolation.

Now, I realize we can become silly or obsessed with appreciation. But candidly, I think very few of us risk that posture. We are much more likely to become jaded and sarcastic.

I don’t know how God came up with the right mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and other inert gases to place within the breath that fills our lungs fifteen to forty times a minute.

But the stuff works.

Stop and think about that. How many concoctions do we use every day that only partially fulfill their promise?

But air just keeps delivering the goods … and has eight billion satisfied customers.

Addiction

Addiction: (n.) the condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing or activity: e.g. an addiction to gamblingdictionary with letter A

Being mortal, flawed, and yet inexplicably granted intelligence, I often find myself wanting to attribute all negative vices to others while retaining virtue unto myself. It is one of those conditions in the human race that we often refer to when awkwardly explaining our inadequacy or even calloused behavior. In other words:

“You’re addicted. I’M passionate.”

“You are disemboweled and disenfranchised by your actions. I am in the pursuit of diverse choices.”

Sometimes the best way to assist others is to find similar difficulties in ourselves. For instance, I don’t understand why people want to put a stick of tobacco in their mouth and light it up, setting their lungs ablaze. They are probably just as baffled about why I continue to eat when the meal is already completed. Yet I would be willing to justify MY actions as “harmless” while condemning theirs as evil.

No one in this society will ever be able to have mercy, and therefore grant finance, to aid those who are addicted until we are willing to admit the addictions that have crept into our own activities and our willpower.

Candidly, I don’t eat because I’m hungry. So when I see an advertisement on television, explaining how some pill or exercise will curb your appetite, I just laugh.

  • I eat for kicks and pleasure.
  • I eat because it comes to my mind that there is some food in the refrigerator yet unconsumed
  • I eat for entertainment.
  • I eat for reward.

In so doing, I allow food to dictate some of the policy of my life. It is the definition for addiction–at least in my opinion:

If any activity begins to put together your personal calendar and you find yourself shifting your efforts in favor of those choices, then you’re probably dealing with some form of addiction.

There are three things necessary to take care of addiction:

1. A climate where confession is greeted by appreciation instead of judgment.

2. An understanding that willpower is never enough without the support of others.

3. Failure is inevitable, success is rare and the race will go to he who endures to the end.

Addiction CAN be beat, but it will do well when the dictionary does not tie it to drugs and gambling, but instead, points it out as human selections of all sorts … gone awry.

 

Acephalous

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Acephalous: (adj.) 1. no longer having a head: e.g. an acephalous skeleton 2. having no leader or chief: e.g. an acephalous society.

Sometimes the ancient philosophers put together some really interesting ideas. For instance, the notion that human emotions are located in the heart is kind of perfect. Because after all, the emotions are often caught between the head–where the brain is–and the body and genitals, where we live only a physical existence.

I think it’s also significant that the spirit of man is a breath. That’s what the Bible says–that God breathed into man the breath of life. So I guess spirituality is like our lungs.

So you can see what happens if you have a mindless society. People who are unwilling to think things through, and the emotions not having any breath from the lungs of spirituality, pump blood directly from the heart down to the genitals. After all, there’s no path north. Why not go south?

Of course, I realize this is all speculation and none of it is actual physiology, but the human heart is where we live. It is where we keep our treasure. Yet that brain sitting up there is where we make new decisions based on renewed concepts to use our bodies more effectively.

So if the heart doesn’t get breath from the lungs, sending that oxygen up to the brain to fill it with greater promise, then the body and genitals pretty much run the show on their whim. This is why we are ridiculously more upset with “sins of the flesh” than we are with “sins of the heart.”  Yet every sin of the flesh found its beginning in the human emotions.

We are a mindless society–headless, if you will–because we refuse to deal with our emotions and do not pump them through the breath of our spirituality to give some fresh air to our brains. So often we end up dictating the decisions of our lives based on regions below.

Unfortunately, attempts to use JUST the brain without accessing the heart and lungs make us light-headed and we pass out. (You can see, the analogy seems to keep going on and on, and you can probably find greater examples than I have in this small essay.)

Do not extol the value of education if you refuse to deal with the human emotions, and if you do deal with emotions, you should allow for the breath of spirit. Otherwise, we will be walking around as a self-fulfilling prophesy, with the little head ruling from below … and the big head completely decapitated.