Tag Archives: mountains

Country

Country: (n) a state or nation

I just downright don’t like the premise.

For you see, a quick look at the map of the world certainly does not distinguish insurmountable barriers that would dictate as many funny wisdom on words that begin with a Ccountries as we have conjured through our typography.

After all, most rivers don’t forbid people from crossing.

Mountains have been known to be climbed.

And nowadays, oceans are crossed with barely enough time on the airplane to serve soft drinks and peanuts.

Why do we need a country?

Why is it necessary to isolate this land mass as having this particular group of people, which follows a predetermined philosophy or form of government, and declare their sovereignty to such a degree that they are willing to go to war over violations of air space?

Perhaps it’s wise that the only way to truly cure insanity is to voraciously point it out whenever you encounter it. Otherwise, pretty soon it starts making sense to you—and by that time, you’ve hopelessly lost your ability to change the world.

I love my country.

But not because it’s located in the continental United States.

Not because I think Americans are exceptional and better than other people in the world.

No, I love my country because we espouse the principles of equality and freedom, which were hatched in the mind of the Creator when He first sat down and considered His opening line:

“Let there be light.”


Donate Button

Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Blaze

Blaze: (n) a fiercely burning fire.

Dictionary B

There is a consensus in the human species.

All of us desire to be considered forerunners, creative and pioneers. We express this by proclaiming, “Show me the trail and I will blaze away!”

Thus the general misconception.

There is no trail in place. That’s why it has to be blazed.

Yes, things have to be set on fire–and then all of the burned-off foliage must be cleared away to provide a path.

  • We keep waiting for guidance.
  • We keep stalling, hoping obvious conclusions smack us in the face.

And what we see is a forest, which we declare to be trees, not resembling a road.

We play it safe.

In the pursuit of “obvious” we are always robbed of opportunity. For open doors are not really open at all, but merely doors that no one has actually tried.

At present, there are no trails in politics, none in religion, nor in gender relationships.

What we see before us are walls, mountains and intimidating jungles. To turn them into trails will require some blazing.

It will demand individuals dressed in buckskin instead of three-piece suits.

It will take those who use the fire, endure the fire and then remain to progress the cause … after the blaze.

 

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

Jonathan’s Latest Book Release!

PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stagnant

Click here to get your copy now!

PoHymn cover jon

 

 

Arid

dictionary with letter A

Arid: (adj) A climate having little or no rain; too dry or barren to support vegetation.

Green grass is beautiful. No doubt about it.

Yet eventually it requires your intervention with a mower.

Mountains are stunning in their visage. Yet somehow or another, they compel you to climb them, which is annoying, to say the least. They can also become quite frigid when the calendar says tepid.

The ocean is gorgeous and powerful. But whether you like it or not, sometimes in its more stormy brawls, it intrudes on us “land-lubbers.”

On the other hand, the desert is nearly perfect. Because it lacks vegetation, does not require water and is ancient in its days, it really doesn’t request much from the surrounding mortals. Yet in its simplicity, it reminds us that:

  • we live on a planet
  • we are part of a cosmos
  • and if we don’t allow the moisture of experience and compassion into our lives, we, too, can dry out and become arid.

I know it may seem strange, but I do love the desert. However, you have to be careful because it is so hot and dry that you may become unaware of your need to hydrate.

So as long as you remember that the desert can live without water but you can’t, you can stroll around and enjoy the complexity of rock formations which have been beaten by the sands of time and the mood swings of Mother Nature.

The desert reminds me that the earth does meet the heavens–and we are all intended to live as one.

     

    Donate Button

    Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

    Aquarius

    dictionary with letter A

    Aquarius (n): the eleventh sign of the Zodiac.

    “This is the dawning of the …”

    The next part of this lyric from the song in Hair is “…Age of Aquarius.”

    I happen to really enjoy that production and the tune, even though I grew up in a religious environment which believed that all astrology was “of the devil.”

    Yes. Leave it to Satan to come up with a practice where everything is left to chance and the moving of the stars.

    So as a kid, it was difficult to sing the song, share the song or even refer to the song around grownups. They would warn me that I was welcoming in dark demons, which would later infest me with horrible attitudes like failing to pay my electric bill.

    It was difficult–because truth is much like water. It tends to come from everywhere and surprise us with how similar it is, considering its divergent points of origin.

    Some water comes from the mountains through melted snow.

    Some from the sky.

    Some from wells from deep within the earth.

    But pour it in a cup, drink it down and it’s refreshing.

    I have to be honest with you–the off-Broadway musical, Hair, did more to enlighten me, generate social consciousness and make me compassionate than any sermon I ever heard in church.

    It was raw, a little silly and laced with too much hopefulness.

    But without that kind of childlike faith, we all become cynical growling adults. And deep in my heart, I wish there was an Age of Aquarius. I dream of how wonderful it would be if the stars would shift, Jupiter would align with Mars and attitudes would improve.

    But I think I’m stuck with the symbolism–or maybe I’m Jupiter and my brother is Mars and the truth of life is still stuck in the closet somewhere … of the seventh house.

    Donate Button

    Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

    Anthill

    dictionary with letter A

    Anthill (n.): a moundlike nest built by ants.

    In the literary world, ants are always portrayed as industrious do-gooders. They’re also priggish in the sense that when characterized by poets, they are shown to be a bit snobbish about their craft, talent and provision.

    I’ve even heard public speakers suggest that a factory or a particular group of working individuals were humming along at such an efficient pace that they “resembled an anthill.”

    Yet having looked at an anthill myself and watched ants at work, I would like to make two subjective points that are contrary to the common promotional representation:

    1. Can there be anything uglier than an anthill?

    A vision in beige, heaped up in no particular style, constructed for the sole purpose of creating a catacombs of work environment for its enslaved occupants. At least when you look at a bird’s nest, it’s formed with all sorts of remnants of this and that and has some individuality. An anthill looks like the desert got the mumps.

    2. I personally have watched ants go by me–busying themselves and oblivious to the world around them–and I have noted that there is no good cheer in the little crawlers.

    Even though I am a great admirer of efficiency and work ethic, when you remove joy from the experience of human discovery, you end up acting…well, like an ant, wishing you could say “uncle.”

    No wonder they occasionally rebel and slip away from the hive to raid picnics. (There are even a few radicals who decide to start their own business of rubber-tree plant removal.)

    But most toe the line in their blah surroundings, pushing tiny morsels into the hill in order to eat, dry their sweat and go back out to find more scraps.

    So I don’t think it’s a compliment for people to tell me I work like an ant. Because if you’re going to climb mountains … you’re going to have to get out of your anthill.

     

    Donate Button

    Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

    Aground

    Words from Dic(tionary)

    dictionary with letter AAground: (adj & adv) in reference to a ship running on or onto the bottom in shallow water.

    Shallow.

    There you go. Thus the problem.

    We used to believe that “still waters run deep,” until we realized that the adage doesn’t apply to a generation of people who refuse to speak because of the vacuous nature of their thoughts.

    I am not cynical of our time or particularly gloomy about our future. Yet I do not think it is the job of people who write articles or who are creatively bent toward sharing wisdom to always kiss the rear end of the person in front of them.

    We just need to realize that we have created so much shallowness that we have run aground–and as you well know, when a boat runs aground, it can neither float nor can it sail from its perch.

    So where have we run aground?

    1. By telling everybody they’re great, we’ve eliminated the word “great.”
    2. By electronically connecting ourselves to the world, we have emotionally disconnected ourselves from one another.
    3. We have replaced actions with speeches, thinking that merely stating our intentions is sufficient to prove our willingness.
    4. We foster the present bigotry as intelligent study, even though historically, every rejected piece of prejudice took a similar profile.
    5. We promote a war between men and women while simultaneously using sex to sell everything.
    6. We foolishly think there is a permanent solution to problems rather than a gradual revelation in our everyday reality.
    7. We value critique–one of the more useless human endeavors.
    8. We accept mediocrity, hoping that others will accept our rendition.
    9. We want to believe we are exceptional, even though every nationality that has pursued that particular philosophy has ended up being declared tyrants.
    10.  We think that problems can be solved corporately, when nothing ever happens in the human family without individuals repenting.

    It’s really quite simple. When you take away personal responsibility, the need for humility and you add in the arrogance of uniqueness, you get people who have a common spiel–which they use to promote a nasty disdain.

    Here’s the good news: for each one of these ten that we address and change, we can double our potential.

    God is good because He doesn’t demand much change from human beings … for mountains to move.

    Aerie

    Words from Dic(tionary)

    dictionary with letter A

    Aerie: (n) the nest  of a bird of prey, esp. an eagle, typically built high in a tree or on a cliff.

    Am I being too needy when I say that I take great comfort in the fact that an eagle is considered to be a rather regal creature, even though it is bald like me? (Of course, lacking feathers, an attractive beak, and not to mention, the ability to fly–at that point all similarities seem to cease.)

    But there is something wonderfully intriguing and even mysterious about the eagle, soaring high into the mountain, nestling itself into a home far from the jungle and the maddening crowd.

    There is something here to learn: I need an aerie–not to remove myself permanently from humanity as a grumbling objection to the insanity being proffered, but rather, a place where I can escape at times and get a little higher so I can see a little clearer and gain some perspective, instead of touting how wise I am, with the evidence of how cynical I’ve become.

    • What passes for philosophy nowadays are actually jaded observations from those who have embraced sarcasm and abandoned solution.
    • What is pushed forward as government is an exclusive club of politicians, who get together to advertise favored causes, which most importantly, contradict the views of their opponents.
    • And what is passed on as communion of spirituality is either a narrow-minded God who’s pissed off with mankind or some benevolent hippie juiced up on weed, who loves everybody, no matter how miserable they are.

    Fly a little higher.

    Find a place of seclusion every once in a while, where you can clear your head.

    In so doing, you might be surprised, like the eagle, at how God will give you new ideas … and expand your bird brain.

    Absaroka Range

    by J. R. Practix

    dictionary with letter A

    Absaroka Range: a range of the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Wyoming.

    There are folks who would insist that the problem lies in making mountains out of molehills. But equally as foolish is the present practice of making molehills out of mountains.

    There are so many beautiful things happening in our world which are relegated to obscurity because they cannot bust through the lens of the 24-hour news cycle, that these projects and people have to be dismissed as irrelevant in order to justify the snubbing.

    Can you imagine if you were the Absaroka Range? You are part of the Rockies, and if someone happens to be in Montana, waking up on a beautiful morning, you certainly exceed the status of molehill. But the Rockies get all the publicity; get written up in the Triple-A Travel Guide, and intoned in songs. No, you are stuck in Montana–considered a mere extension of the magnitude and beauty of your alleged superiors to the south.

    Remarking on mountains being made out of molehills is really just an attempt to get everybody to calm down and not be overly focused on issues which we have decided to stick on the back burner, if not heave on the trash heap. But I tell you–perhaps the greatest danger in our generation is turning mountains into molehills, pretending that huge piles of important stuff really isn’t quite as significant as it appears to be.

    These babies up in Montana are mountains. They may not get the press of the Rockies. They may be in a state that doesn’t have enough electoral votes to interest a fourth party candidate–but they’re still mountains. They still have reason to be proud. And when you stand next to them, they are just as intimidating to climb.

    So be careful listening to the common drivel of our time. It won’t necessarily survive the decade in which it is spouted. Instead, do yourself a favor and before you dismiss that Absaroka Range up in Montana, go stand next to it and let its beauty and power sweep over your soul.