Tag Archives: religion

Clump

Clump: (v) to form into a clump or mass.

There is an unwritten command to never challenge contradictions–especially if they are well-populated or in some way garner profit.

Yet it is what maintains the presence of a universal ignorance, which on occasion, rears its head and growls at humanity because we refuse to rectify the obvious.

The objection should be simple.

For instance, we maintain that human beings are individuals unto themselves while insisting that we have a predilection to “clump together.” Our excuse for this anomaly is that there are times when we want to be autonomous, and other occasions when being part of a group is essential to our well-being.

This paradox is supported all over our society, from religion to politics, entertainment to business, simply because there are so many adherents and it allows us to make a lot of money from lifting up one culture above another.

No one stops to ask if clumping is good for people, or under what auspices linking together is positive, and when it is running for the corner of the room to avoid responsibility.

When should I clump?

Should I clump because I’m in a room with people of German descent?

Should I clump because I’m around a congregation of believers who favor my view of the Eternal?

Should I clump because I have a penis instead of a vagina and find those who share that appendage?

Should I clump because I like romantic comedies better than adventure films?

And once I decide on clumps I want to pursue, how do I escape them to gain my own uniqueness and flavor?

Maybe there’s only one clump–the human race. And we escape the human race by temporarily splitting off to our own thoughts, which prepares us to come back and be more gracious to one another.

 

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Cloying

Cloying: (adj) an excess of sweetness, richness, or sentiment.

When we need something and we can’t find what’s real, generally speaking, we have to settle for the best fake available.

I remember the first time I ate imitation crab meat. I had eaten real crab meat before. The imitation did not taste the same. But when I considered the price difference, I allowed that phony crab to attract me–in its cloying way.

It is my great exasperation that we are getting so accustomed to cloying, tugging, pulling, phony emotion out of awkward situations, that we will begin to believe that the original, natural form of feeling is implausible.

After all, since human beings are heart creatures, they need to feel.

Even though there are philosophies, political parties and religions which try to remove sentiment from the equation, we still end up with stiff cardboard cutouts, who every once in a while have to fake paper-thin emotions.

When does it become cloying?

It’s cloying when I realize I need to feel something but don’t, so I insert it anyway–instead of feeling something and needing to express it as soon as possible.

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Clown

Clown: (n) a comic entertainer

There are actually three types of clowns, offering varying degrees of danger.

Yes–clowns are dangerous. They forewarn of outrageous comedy but soon become common, needing to push the envelope, opening the
door to all sorts of excesses.

Clown 1: Often referred to as the “class clown,” although he or she can be quite classless.

This is a person who feels it is their job to bring a giggle, even if a sigh or tears is required. He or she is quite angry if you suggest that the insertion of levity is poorly timed. And God forbid that you would ever try to take away their First Amendment right to be funny. After all, what gives us the authority to determine what is comical as opposed to offensive? (Wait! Isn’t that what being mature is all about?)

Clown 2: The Classic Clown, wearing a red nose and floppy shoes, to warn those around him or her of a calamity of errors, which is supposed to be interpreted through the slapstick antics, as side-splitting.

Physical comedy is an instinct to laugh at another human’s pain. When stated that way, people wrinkle their brow and suggest that you’re an old fuddy-duddy.

Clowns have to work too hard to get the job done. This would be similar to a fire-fighter attending a backyard barbecue just in case a three-alarm blaze might break out.  And finally…

Clown 3: These are the people in government, religion and business who have discovered they have gotten away with some egregious action, and nobody has stopped them, so they continue their path of errancy, adding on boxes of insult to the shipment of injury.

“Since I got by with THAT, and nobody challenged me, I wonder if I can do THIS.”

These clowns are particularly annoying because they don’t sit in a classroom, nor do they wear fright wigs. (Well, at least most of them don’t.) What they do is fit in–while not fitting in at all.

They take a code of ethics and turn it into a paper airplane, which they toss through the air to prove how free-wheeling they truly are.

They question values which have proven to be gold, and pretend they are nothing but yellow bricks.

As you can see, all three clown roles seem to have more drawbacks than positive contributions. Yet we continue to allow them to exist under the canopy, “we all need to laugh.”

Actually, we all need good cheer, which means most of the time, if we’re going to mature, we should be laughing at ourselves, not at the pratfalls of others or the decimation of common sense.

 

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Civil Disobedience

Civil disobedience: (n) peaceful form of political protest.

I often wonder if there’s any truth to the notion that to keep from being an asshole, you sometimes have to be one.

It would be terrific if I could voice my opinion and be heard. But normally, by the time the question arrives on my doorstep, someone’s
already passed a law or determined the answer. They’re just asking my opinion to pad the poll.

Yet I must tell you–sometimes there are things that are so important that we need to stray from the broad path and stumble down the “strait and narrow.”

We may disagree on what the subject matters may be, but they never have anything to do with human morality. By the time I discover what is moral, the opportunity to do anything about it is usually far past, and I am standing on the sidelines, insulting others through my judgments.

Powerful issues always revolve around one central theme: Since God gave humans free will, are you going to take it away? Are you going to infringe upon it? Perhaps put a time limit on it, or the need to buy a license?

Civil disobedience is a decision to stand up for free will.

There are occasions when it makes you very popular–and then there are moments when you’re accused of being damned.

But here’s the truth of the matter: No one is better than anyone else.

I have no right whatsoever to edit that reality.

There should never be a controversy over race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or preferences in music.

But since there is, sometimes we will be compelled to stand up for the rights of humans to be what God intended them to be … human.

 

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Christ

Christ: (n) the title, also treated as a name, given to Jesus of Nazareth

From the original Greek, the word “Christ” means “Anointed One.”

So much like religion–one definition requires a second definition.

What is anointed?

Is the Christ the only Anointed One?

Are you anointed?

Am I anointed?

Or is it a religion because there’s only one anointed person, who is worshiped by scads of non-anointed followers?

When I read the New testament, especially the Gospels, I can envision Jesus as a person. It’s when they start working hard to make him the Christ, fulfilling
Testament prophesies and legitimizing traditional practices, that I tend to duck back into the shadows.

I often wonder if Jesus would consider himself the Christ, the Anointed One.

We do have the occasion when he deflected praise for being God from a rich young ruler.

He constantly elevated the floor plan of people’s lives by telling them that “their faith made them whole.”

Is it possible that all of a sudden he turns into this opulent Son of the Most High God, who declares himself to be the Anointed One?

And it begs the question: do human beings require an Anointed One? Does somebody have to be perfect, free of sin and sent from the heavens in order for us to be impressed and impacted?

I woke up this morning to a world of white, layered in snow. I looked out my window and watched as a man in a car braved the elements, sliding his way over the ice, out onto the main thoroughfare of humanity.

That was pretty impressive. I wouldn’t call him anointed, but I did stop for a second and applaud him.

What does it take to touch us as people?

We are touched when we’re around other people who are burdened by our same difficulties, and still have not given up.

That’s what moves us.

Jesus did pretty well with the multitudes.

But Jesus Christ lives in a more uppity neighborhood.

 

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Chosen

Chosen: (adj) having been selected as the best or most appropriate.

Without spraying dark, sticky thoughts into the air, I must admit that if I knew what I know now, I might not have chosen to be born.

I don’t think I would have chosen Mary and Russell as my parents. Considering my youthful antics, they might not have chosen me.

I certainly would not have chosen to be raised in the Midwest of the United States during a season when prejudice, bigotry and self-righteousness were considered to be “American values.”

I wouldn’t have chosen to be fat. Even though some people try to gain their self-esteem while encased in blubber, the excess poundage does take its toll.

I don’t know exactly what I would have chosen–I mean, I could continue this list and probably offend everyone I know.

But I certainly would have chosen Jesus.

This is not because I’m a religious person. Matter of fact, I have been known to doze off immediately at the mention of prayer.

It’s the practicality.

It’s the humanity.

It’s the responsibility that Jesus of Nazareth placed on himself and his followers that lets me understand that he “gets it.”

He gets what it means to be a human being on this planet called Earth. I don’t know if his manifesto would work on other planets. I don’t know anything about habitation in other galaxies.

But Earth requires a certain payload to launch your rocket.

I’ve chosen that.

I fail at it, and as long as I realize it’s a failure on my part and not a master plot against my happiness, I’m usually just fine.

I don’t know what else specifically I would have chosen.

I would not have chosen a career as a writer, because criticism and obscurity are your only friends.

Would I have chosen to pen this essay? Probably not.

I got up in a rather relaxed, lazy mood, and your interest just didn’t interest me that much.

So I’ve chosen, at times, to persevere–even though the immediate benefit does not scream its worth.

 

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Chortle

Chortle: (n) a breathy, gleeful laugh.

What is your percentage?

What is the percentage of the things that happen in life that you find funny?

It’s a very important number. If you’re not careful, you can start taking everything very seriously, and end up frightened, aghast and terrified
 to “move about the cabin.”

But also, if you think everything is a joke, somebody eventually gets the commitment papers signed and puts you away.

For instance, I don’t take government seriously at all. People who encourage me to vote because “every vote counts” are always complaining to me within a few weeks after the election–because every vote didn’t count.

There is a certain number of lamentations which can be changed into jubilations simply by altering one’s perspective.

For instance, some people take religion deadly somber. But you see, since we do not know if there is anything after death, it’s really not necessary to speak definitively or act pious.

What percentage of the things that happen in life do you find worthy of a chortle instead of needing to be treated as immortal?

I certainly think that every human soul, if he or she is to maintain sanity, needs to have a chortle meter set at 51 or above. Yes, over half of the things that we muse, confuse, diffuse and refuse end up being just meaningless worry which collected on us like morning dew, waiting for the sun to burn it away.

And as I get older, my percentage of laughs has increased, and therefore, in my opinion, my sanity is bolstered.

When I heard about the “war on Christmas” I laughed. Nobody’s gonna mess with Christmas. It’s when everybody makes their money.

When somebody told me that immigrants were causing problems in this country, it crossed my mind that this might be a color issue, colored by how these individuals view coloration.

Sometimes I giggle to myself because I don’t want to hurt the feelings of those who have brought a whole platter of difficulty and expect it to be honored.

What is your percentage? Are you prepared to go crazy with every piece of lunacy that leaps at us from the moon?

Or have you set your mind in the direction of silliness, allowing yourself the benefit of releasing your frustration–through a good old-fashioned chortle?

 

 

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Choosy

Choosy: (adj) overly fastidious in making a choice.

Oh, there goes Webster again.

For some reason, the dictionary feels it’s important to offer a certain amount of social commentary in describing the words that are showcased.

Here is the truth of the matter as far as I know: if you are not choosy, eventually you don’t get to choose, and you’re stuck with what’s chosen for you.

Welcome to Earth.

So portraying “choosy” as a negative attitude is the propaganda of governments, religionists, politicians and Madison Avenue agents, who would really like to plan your entire life, but feel that saying this bluntly might scare you away. So instead, they connote that you are “choosy” if you do not choose what they want you to choose on any chosen occasion.

If the dinner menu for the night is barbecued baked beans with barbecued beef and barbecued corn bread with barbecued pudding for dessert, folks might frown at you if, in a choosy way, you insist you prefer not to “go barbecue” tonight.

The problem in our world is not that people are too choosy. The difficulty lies in the fact that we’re not given enough choice.

  • Politics is divided into two major parties, with a whisker’s difference between the pair.
  • Churches insist they offer varieties of services, while simultaneously delivering the same spiritually tone-deaf message.
  • And the clothing in the department stores settles into shades that are determined to be this season’s preference, with stylings which are the “hit of the catwalk.”

What would happen if Americans actually did become choosy?

If we decided not to let the critics determine the best motion pictures?

If we didn’t leave it up to aging librarians to pick out the top books?

What if we had an open marketplace, an open discussion, an open spirit and an open mind–to give things a platform and see how they fared?

What if the whole world were a blind taste test? How would McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Apple, Democrats, Republicans and the religious system chart?

I’m choosy–and pretty proud of it. I often disagree with other people about my choices, but never in a disagreeable way.

But I’m not about to believe that something being popular gives it any more credence than I am to think that the hula-hoop was meant to last forever.

 

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Cesspool

Cesspool: (n) container for the temporary storage of liquid waste

Blather.

Defined by this humble writer as language which is accumulated in large clumps without any regard for validity or truth.

Synonyms: politics, religion, the Internet.

Blather.

One of the signs of blather is the overuse of terminology which supposedly has gained universal acceptance, even though it has no rational moorings.

For instance, “America is a cesspool.”

Although countless writers on the World Wide Web insist that our nation is a storage container for liquid waste, this is completely erroneous.

Actually, there’s a lot of solid waste out there, too.

 

 

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Cavalier

Cavalier: (adj) showing a lack of proper concern; offhand.

If we can laugh at it, we can mock it.

If we can mock it, we can make it seem insignificant.

If we can make it seem insignificant, we can deny its importance.

If we can deny its importance, we can stop doing it.

A nasty little process that’s being practiced every day in the entertainment industry, politics and even religion.

The cavalier approach we take to essential issues is damnable. You cannot take life-giving activities and place them on pedestals and put them in the museum of
“practices of the past” without setting up the destruction of our species.

Every morning I get up and ask myself, “What is important?”

It’s not important that my eggs are over-easy. That’s just nice.

It’s not important that my coffee was made correctly. That would be amazing.

It’s not important that my car did not start. That sets up a possibility for a lasting repair.

It is important that I have enough self-awareness to be aware of the other “selves” I will encounter.

To take the cavalier attitude that certain situations, certain occupations and certain people don’t really matter because they are either impossible to handle or not worth the time is the definition of hell on Earth.

After all, hell is the absence of God.

And God is the presence of “loving your neighbor as yourself.”

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