Tag Archives: provincial

Crutch

Crutch: (n) a staff to assist a lame person in walking

Granted sexual energy, stamina and maybe the best physical appearance one ever sports…

The age of sixteen might seem to be the highlight of one’s life.

That is, if it were not accompanied by such stupidity.

I liked Kevin. I think Kevin liked me. We had been friends since elementary school.

But when he was sixteen years old, he broke his leg.

He was out with a bunch of friends, sledding on a snowy day, and failed to notice that his sleigh was going particularly fast and he was unable to stop from crashing into a wall.

It was a clean break.

Matter of fact, he went right to the doctor and had a cast put on (back in the day when such contraptions were humongous, resembling modern art).

Kevin was not part of the very popular crowd–but on any Friday night when a party was being planned, he was also not on the “don’t invite at any cost” list.

Then something strange happened.

His accident occurred on a Saturday, so he showed up at school on Monday, his leg in a cast, on crutches.

At first there was an outpouring of sympathy.

But then, a strange anthropology sprouted in our herd. All the other sixteen-year-old kids began acting aloof to Kevin. Maybe it was because he was always trailing us, hopping along on his crutches. (Or because we grew up in a small, provincial community and the kids thought the broken leg might be contagious.)

Whatever the cause, by the time Kevin completed his seven-week rehabilitation and returned to us wearing two shoes, he had become an outcast.

He tried desperately to return to his normal acceptable position, but invitations to parties went away.

I tried to befriend him–but suffering in the throes of adolescent insanity myself, I also retreated.

It didn’t get better when he was seventeen and it didn’t get better when he was eighteen.

That seven-week period when our comrade had a broken leg, giving us a visual of himself on crutches, sealed his image for the balance of high school.

It was so bizarre.

Kevin tried everything possible to re-establish himself. He tried out for the football team, chorus and the school play. It didn’t make any difference.

Yet I thought it was a phenomenon of being a shortsighted teenager until I grew up and realized that expressing weakness or needing a crutch of any type in the presence of your fellow-humans traps you in a box that is very difficult to escape.

So what is the best advice?

Stay away from a crutch.

Which probably means you should stop breaking your legs.

 

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Award

Award: (n) a prize or other mark of recognition given in honor of an achievement.dictionary with letter A

I went through a phase in my life when I would describe myself as “delightfully obnoxious.”

I know that might seem like an oxymoron, but I think in our journey to find great confidence which is balanced with humility, we occasionally veer off the road toward one extreme or another.

I was living in Shreveport, Louisiana, and had teamed up with a couple dozen other folk. We deemed ourselves to be artisans. (Whether we actually were is probably hidden, along with beauty, in the eye of the beholder.)

We busied ourselves with the local cable TV station, making all sorts of videos, little movies and programs to be aired for public consumption on a first-come, first-served basis.

What frustrated the Public Access station was how prolific we were. Matter of fact, one of the managers characterized it as “annoyingly prolific.”

So when it came time for the local awards show, we ended up being nominated in all six categories available. Rather than this being viewed by the provincial committee as a positive, it was instead snubbed as distasteful and overwrought.

This caused us to turn up the level of volume and amplify the arrogance.

On the night of the awards show, every member of our team showed up, hooted and hollered each time our name was mentioned, turning it into a festival of joy instead of the rigorous necessity of compliance to formality that had been envisioned.

Of course, they got even. Of the six categories, we only won a single award. But we didn’t care.

It was a fabulous night of rejoicing, and having some sense of being awarded for the hard work we had put in on the projects.

By no means do I condone our actions or our over-zealous approach.

Yet I will tell you that it is often required for passion to be accelerated to such a level that it shocks apathy into actually feeling something.

 

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Antibody

dictionary with letter AAntibody (n): a blood protein produced in response to and counteracting a specific antigen.

I know I encounter futility when I come across someone who tells me that life is complicated.

Actually, life is amazingly simple–as long as you’re willing to accept how it has progressed instead of creating your own “revolution against the evolution.”

This becomes evident to me when I realize that in order to build up resistance to disease, you actually have to encounter the vermin and have your body react with the positive energy to reject the infection, and make sure the varmint doesn’t return again.

Why wouldn’t the parallel be just as true in our emotional, spiritual and mental lives?

Emotionally, if I don’t encounter all sorts of personalities and even struggles, do I not become a hermit–or worse, a bigot?

Spiritually, if I don’t understand how my faith stacks up against other ideas, realizing where there are similarities and also aware of the differences, how will I ever have the endurance to achieve the end and be saved?

And mentally, if the ideas shared by my upbringing are not challenged and questioned, so that I can derive the best of the precepts for future use, will I not become a mere provincial buffoon?

I love antibodies.

It’s physical evidence that we have been through the battle and we have won.

Stop complicating life and realize that it comes down to simply being willing to place yourself in the mix and trust that your ideas, your spirituality, your feelings and even your immune system … are strong enough to survive the competition.  

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