Tag Archives: prayer

Blow

Blow: (v) to create an air current.

Dictionary B

Although I was greatly impressed with the poetry, I have to admit that when Bob Dylan proffered the idea that the answer is “Blowin’ in the Wind,” I was incredulous.

I do believe the Earth speaks to us.

I think there are obvious ways of thinking and acting that overall prosper a bit better than others. But God gave us a brain because emotions wear thin and souls can be too ethereal.

There are those who make my acquaintance who must “feel” everything to believe it’s real, and I have many friends who are convinced that prayer is the only way to receive lasting peace and tranquillity.

Yet I will tell you–that brain sits up there, begging to be used and certainly needing to be renewed with fresh insight every day .

I like the word “blow” because it has so may different representations.

It can be a burst of wind.

Or it can be an admission that we screwed up. “I blew that.”

It also has one or two naughty implications, which keep it even more intriguing.

But the answers we seek are probably not going to blow in our direction. They will require us to take a breath of air and release it, giving our brain enough oxygen… to blow forth some innovation.

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Bleep

Bleep: (n) a short high-pitched sound

Dictionary B

Often the solution is worse than the problem.

I listen in horror as commercials on television tell me the side effects of drugs that are meant to be helpful.

I frequently find myself with my mouth agape as I try to comprehend how politicians intend to take their limited “party view” and make it expansive enough for a diverse nation.

I am baffled by a church that insists that prayer in any form is a replacement for personal touch.

And I just cannot fathom why the censors on television believe that “bleeping” profane words actually eliminates their impact.

We children of Adam and Eve certainly can be pretentious. This is probably why Adam and Eve chose the Tree of Knowledge over the Tree of Life. We would much rather present ourselves as intelligent instead of possessing a hunger for the journey.

I do not know what we should do with the slang and colloquial profanities that permeate our society. But bleeping them does not lessen their obvious content–matter of fact, it creates a game, causing those who listen to speculate.

So somewhere along the line we need to work on the human heart, which is where all speech finds its birth.

Otherwise, we’re going to need someone to constantly follow us around, bleeping as we go.

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Beneficial

Beneficial: (adj) favorable or advantageous; resulting in good.

Dictionary B

  • There is what I want.
  • Then there is what I need.
  • Finally, there is what I lack.

These three do not intersect at any point.

For instance, as a chubby tubby, I want ring bologna that has no calories.

On the other hand, I need a balanced diet with an occasional piece of ring bologna thrown in–with calories, but forgivable.

Yet I lack the will and discipline to achieve the balance.

The true journey to wisdom is understanding that these three parts of us can only be fulfilled by tapping into the beneficial portions available.

I can establish what I want.

I need honest friends to help me discover my direction.

And I do require prayer, repentance and sometimes a bit of consternation … to be convinced of my lack.

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Bemoan

Bemoan: (v) to express discontent or sorrow over something.

Dictionary B

“Tell me how you feel.”

I hear these words spoken to me from time to time by individuals who think they are trying to tap into my inner soul to garner the essence of my honest emotions.

I don’t have honest emotions–I have temporary emotions.

Things cross my mind or fester in my heart and for the time being seem to be very important, yet dissipate quickly, like a springtime sprinkle of rain on a car windshield.

Yet if I opened up to you about these sensations, you might become convinced that they really had great significance.

They don’t.

Then I’m stuck with you considering me weak, turmoiled or limited in my ability to problem-solve.

So how can I be a candid human being and also adequately cautious that I’m not casting the pearls of my passing bemoaning in front of pig-headed evaluators?

For everything that scratches my itch or itches my scratch is not really important enough to share for the public purview.

Therefore, every time we run across a difficulty that temporarily sidelines our ability to reason, it is not necessary to put out a press release.

I call it the “two-hour rule.” If two hours of passing time, careful consideration, prayer, sense of humor and intelligent thinking it over don’t alleviate the situation, then maybe I should take a moment and air it out.

But the last thing in the world I want to become known for is being a soul who bemoans every time I lose 75 cents in the snack machine. 

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B. C.

B. C. (abv.) An abbreviation used with dates of events that took place before the birth of JesusDictionary B

After human beings were created–or evolved, depending on your persuasion–it did not take us long to find ways to screw one another over, while sealing the decision with a word of prayer.

The true danger with religion is that it allows its converts to pursue evil while not tolerating any transgression in others. Matter of fact, we become obsessed with how vacuous of righteousness the people around us are, as we tout our two or three good deeds as evidence of our superiority.

So it is no accident that the modern era of time is marked by the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth, who made it quite clear that religion was bowling us over, and that our only hope was to embrace our humanity with humility.

Many found his message obtuse.

Arguing with him and criticizing his personal habits soon was not enough, so an assassination plot was devised to rid the earth of a reasonable nature.

Fortunately, better thinkers won out, and today we have his message of “loving our neighbor as ourselves” available, though you often have to be patient to unwrap it from miles and miles of theological tape.

But in the long run, human beings will only survive if they become concerned about the survival of other human beings.

For the phrase, “every man for himself” immediately leaves out women and ushers in a less noble idea of “last man standing.”

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Battery

Battery: (n) a container consisting cells, in which chemical energy is converted into electricity and used as a source of power.Dictionary B

Click.

Actually, there wasn’t even a click. It was just a sense of suspended animation while I held my car key in the position which normally ignited my engine, but this time–no fire.

The radio did not work.

The lights didn’t work.

The car was suddenly cast into the role of being a one-ton paperweight.

All because my battery was dead.

It didn’t give me any warning. Oh, I suppose I should have been keeping up with its passing birthdays, but I didn’t.

So I, who just short moments earlier was in the midst of a deep discussion about some procedure to raise at the upcoming meeting, suddenly became a dumbfounded, indigent traveler, with no idea on where to go or what to do.

Fortunately, somebody gave me a jump to start my car and I drove down to the local Wal-Mart to purchase a battery.

Because here’s the truth: there’s just no goose without the juice.

Nothing happens without the energy.

As I watched them put my battery in, I waxed philosophical. (I occasionally do that, fostering an annoying practice which somehow refuses to leave me.)

  • I need a battery for my emotions.

I must remind myself that to feel things–otherwise I am not capable of being in relationship with other humans who, like me, are creatures of emotion.

  • I need a battery for my spirit.

Something other than prayer and Bible study, that proves that I am loved and there just might be something out there other than stars and molten lava on dried-up planets.

  • I need a battery for my brain.

Without that battery I cannot create the jolt which stimulates new ideas rather than pumping out all the training of my youth.

  • And God knows, I need a battery for my body.

Often the fuel I send to my cells better prepares me for a nap than a walk.

It only took them ten minutes to give my car the boost it needed to be a car again.

It made me wonder what I could do with ten minutes.

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Barn

Barn: (n) a large farm building used for storing grain, hay, straw or for housing livestock.Dictionary B

I grew up in a small town of 1,500 people.

One of the nice things about living in a village is that if you own one thing that others don’t, you are cool–and if by some miracle you have two, then you are rich.

I was on the junior high school basketball team.

A friend of mine lived right outside town and had a barn adjacent to his house. His parents had built, in the hayloft, a basketball court, complete with two hoops and a lovely wood floor.

It was magnificent.

I’m sure if I saw it today, it would appear rustic and dank. But to us, born in a little burg, it was Madison Square Haygarden.

My friend had never invited me up to play basketball. Other members of the team had been numerous times, but I was never included.

It hurt my feelings.

So one day when I was at his house, I just popped off with the question. “Hey, why don’t we go out to the barn and play some basketball?”

My friend was nervous but agreed. So we climbed up the steps, onto the court, and were bouncing and shooting away, when suddenly the floor just beneath my feet broke through and I fell straight down through the hole, catching myself by my armpits.

There I was, legs dangling to the floor beneath, wedged into a small opening, unable to get myself out.

Finally my friend was able to gather three or four other guys, along with his dad, to pull me out of the crevice and set me back onto firm lumber.

My friend then explained that this was why he had never invited me to the basketball court–he knew I was too heavy and might break through, but kept praying the whole time that everything would be okay.

It wasn’t.

I learned two valuable lessons that day:

  1. If you’re going to be fat, sometimes you’ll be left out of the skinny games.
  2. Prayer doesn’t always keep you from falling through the cracks…and dangling by your pits.

 

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“The best Christmas stories I’ve ever read!”

From the toy shop to the manger, an advent calendar of Christmas stories, beginning on November 30th and ending on Christmas morning.

We need a good Christmas this year.

Mr. Kringle’s Tales will help you make it so.

Buy today.

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Backbiting

Backbiting: (n) malicious talk about someone who is not present.Dictionary B

“Gnashing of teeth.”

It is one of those phrases from the Good Book, referring to people who get so angry that they would just like to bite somebody.

So to make sure that we don’t come across like wild wolves, we have come up with more civilized ways to gnash on people, without extracting blood.

But here’s the fact: nobody is willing to admit that they gossip.

So how can you tell if you have fallen into the nasty tendency to become an emotional vampire?

  1. If you’re discussing with another person and the person you’re discussing walks into the room and you tell your friend to “hush up” so you can get back to it later.
  2. If you have to preface what you say with, “I don’t mean this in a bad way…”
  3. If you finish 20 minutes of railing against someone and then decide to close it with prayer.
  4. If you make sure that you attack weaker people so that they have no power to strike back against you.
  5. If you use Biblical or psychological terminology to reinforce your theory of someone else’s perversion.
  6. If you make any kind of pact of silence in order to ensure that your victim is not aware of your true feelings.
  7. If you feel a little greasy and stinky when somebody preaches against gossip.

Gossip is the true sign of insecurity:

It’s projecting onto others our failures.

It is the absence of letting our true yes be yes and our no to resound as a no.

 

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Apple-pie order

dictionary with letter A

Ap·ple-pie or·der (n): perfect order or neatness.

When I read today’s definition, I realized I had no recollection or information on this terminology, and since I am a writer on the Internet, I am fully qualified to expound on it in great detail.

For I will tell you–I like the phrase “apple-pie order,” and I realize that it is never used in our generation simply because we find that a certain amount of disarray is necessary to convey our individuality.

If you want to lose friends and not influence people, just suggest they initiate organization. It is the classic definition of “buzz kill.”

Because even though people cannot argue with your assertion that a certain amount of prioritizing is essential, they feel very American and freedom-minded by continuing their chaos in bliss.

What is the apple-pie order of life? Does it vary from one situation to another? Or has the evolution of the human experience shown us exactly how we work best?

I think that we, as human beings, are heart, soul, mind and body creatures.

When we make our decisions based on our bodies, we normally end up in some derivation of excess or hedonism.

If we decide our life goal based on what we think, we borrow too much from our training and parents’ philosophy and never gain our own sense of purpose.

Even those who feel they’re very spiritual by promoting prayer and God-seeking in the forefront tend to sprout too much piety and not enough practicality.

So we must begin with the heart. If we don’t deal with our feelings and rectify them with reality, they will hang around and kick us in the butt if we turn our backs.

So I think the apple-pie order when attempting to place things in a realistic framework is to start out with:

  1. What do I feel about this?
  2. Is there abiding knowledge or wisdom on the issue?
  3. Can I think of a way to take what I’ve just discovered about my feelings and universal truth and come up with a great idea?
  4. Can I motivate this old bod that I’ve carried around and encourage it to perform the functions that make me appear adept instead of inept?

So it turns out that the apple-pie order is so much like the dessert itself: it works better if you take some time to seek out an a la mode.

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Anything

dictionary with letter A

Anything: (pron) used to refer to a thing, no matter what

If you’ve ever parented teenagers, this response is probably one of your pet peeves.

If you ask them a question of any sort, they will either ignore you or reply, “I guess anything’s OK.”

I grew weary of this.

So one night when I asked my teenage sons what they wanted to have for dinner, and they replied, “anything,” I complied.

I went out to a neighbor’s trash can and pulled out the cast-aside leftovers of their previous lunch–some half-eaten sandwiches already drawing the interest of a couple of ants, the skeleton of a fish, and believe it or not, some broken pieces of pumpkin shell.

I found two bottles of partially consumed Coca-Cola, put it all on a platter, set plates, silverware and called them to dinner.

At first they were in such a state of oblivion that they didn’t recognize the placement set before them as being basically inedible, but perched in their chairs and reached for their cell phones.

So adding to the comedy of the moment, I asked one of them to offer grace. It was at this point that the child felt the need to look at the food, in order to determine the length and intensity of the prayer. Amazingly, he did not gaze at me in horror, but rather, looked at the spread before him, perplexed, shook his heads, and began to pray:

“Thanks for the food and the hands that prepared it, and for this day. In Jesus name, amen.”

Finishing the prayer, they both stared at the food–or shall I say, the “remains of the day”–and then looked at me quizzically, asking, “What is it?”

I smiled, grabbed my fork and spoon and touted, “It’s anything. Dig in.”

 

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