Tag Archives: savior

Annunciation, The

dictionary with letter A

Annuciation, The: (n) announcement of the Incarnation by the angel Gabriel to Mary (Luke 1:26-38)

Angels have personalities.

I suppose one has to believe in angels or accept the concept of personality.

We know they have some sort of thinking process– one-third of them decided to rebel against management and ended up earth-bound. (Sometimes I think we fail to realize that losing a third of your personnel is a pretty heavy indictment against the employer.)

So I wonder what Gabriel, an angel in good standing, felt like when he was instructed to go to Earth and tell a young, teenage girl that the Holy Spirit was going to overshadow her and that she would bear a child, and even though the offspring would be the Savior of the world, for the first nine months, it would be a much-unwanted pregnancy.

I’m not so sure that a young, Jewish girl in that time would have been aware of the procreative process. So did Gabriel get stuck explaining sex and God–in the same visit?

Or were young girls of the time so confined within tiny, stone huts that actually, Mama and Papa’s evening groanings needed to be explained earlier than usual?

But I will tell you three positive things:

  1. Only a teenage girl would think it was cool to have a baby. If God had caught her any older, she would have been more rational.
  2. Only a young lass would have the faith of a child and the optimism to think that God really saw her personally and wanted to bless her uniquely.
  3. And only Mary stands out singularly as the woman that God chose, to birth the promise of the ages.

What a difficult assignment it was for an angel to annnunciate the heart of God into the fragile mind of a superstitious, adolescent and poverty-stricken little girl.

It is so much the story of humanity–with all of our technology, intellect, pursuit of knowledge, political maneuvers and theological profundities, it is still one single person believing in the unbelievable … marching us forward.

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

Animosity

dictionary with letter A

Animosity: (n.) strong hostility

When does what I don’t like become that which I ignore, which ultimately is deemed by me to be something worthless?

Although I think we believe that animosity is a visceral emotion, shown forth by our actions, the real danger of animosity is the nasty dislike in our soul that causes us to disdain the possibility of anything good coming out of what we have decided is crap.

It’s not just that bigotry fills our hearts and that we were taught that certain people, events, talents, attitudes and beliefs are meaningless. It is a disregard for things we disagree with, considering them foolish.

But after all, we are all atheists in the sense that we don’t believe in everyone else’s gods.

  • We sneer at them.
  • We laugh at them.
  • We call them ludicrous.

Think of this: in the Christian faith, we look with horror on some sub-culture which throws a young virgin into a volcano as a sacrifice to a molten god, while simultaneously worshipping a Savior who died on a cross for our sins as an equally innocent victim of sacrifice.

Therefore animosity is when we fail to notice our own hypocrisy, and attribute stupidity only to the other guy.

It is why prejudice still exists in this country. With that prejudice comes a brattiness and self-righteousness that lends itself to insults instead of introspection about why we feel the way we do about others.

Even though I have worked on my soul diligently, to prune away all the branches of dead-head ideas and superstitious beliefs, I still occasionally come across a patch of withered vines entwined with my brain, sprouting the “grapes of wrath.”

Yet as long as I am aware that I am a work in progress and that I will need to continue to chop all the animosity out of my life which is based on my piety … I have a chance at becoming a decent human being.

 

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Amiable

dictionary with letter A

Amiable: (adj) having or displaying a friendly and pleasant manner

My traveling partner and I discuss this all the time.

We’re constantly meeting new people, interacting with service organizations and the general public, creating a face-to-face opportunity and challenge daily.

There is one thing for certain: waiting to decide how you’re going to treat other human beings based upon either your fatigue level or your mood is not only foolish, but dangerous.

I will honestly impart to you that having a profile which you pursue faithfully and remaining “married” to it, as it were, through the good times and bad, and in sickness and health, is not only admirable, but also the only way you can survive the constant flux of society shifting its thinking based on whether we’re going to destroy one another or just manipulate one another.

OUR IDEA

We have come up with a very simple proposal or formula, if you will:

1. Always know what you want. Perhaps the most annoying thing to other human beings is asking them to guess your needs. There is a danger they will misunderstand your goals.

2. Decide what you can live with. We don’t often get exactly what we want. Even though some people think it’s a sin of conscience to have a fall-back position, I contend that when you deal with other humans, to be absent a “Plan B” is to welcome disappointment and strife.

3. Choose a face. You’re not allowed to have two. In our case, it’s a combination of warmth and professionalism. In other words, “I am so glad to meet you, but I’m fully aware of why I’m here and what my job is.”

4. And finally, don’t try to save the world. I have heard that we already have a Savior, and dying on the cross is no longer an expression of love, just over-zealous stupidity.

After all, if Nature, God, parents, employers, employees and the IRS have not changed the person standing in front of you, your best shot will probably fall short also.

Once people let you know that they are not going to be pliable, stop twisting them.

There you go.

Those four things allow Janet and myself to be amiable.

I refuse to do this journey any other way. I just pass it along to you because the advice you will get from others will be some sort of mish-mash of kick-ass or kiss-ass.

Obviously, they both put you in the wrong neighborhood.

 

 

 

Accept

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Accept: (v.)1 consent to receive 2. agree to undertake 3. give an affirmative answer to

What do I accept?

Even though I concurred with the above definitions, accepting something has another ramification for me. It requires loyalty.

We have too many people who accept things in life only to turn their backs on them when the least little difficulty challenges the concept. We often are more afraid of inconvenience than we are of failure. Inconvenience is inevitable, since we live on a planet which refuses to follow our will. Failure, on the other hand,  is optional. Failure is a decision to turn tail and run instead of taking the time to learn and evolve.

What do I accept?

1. I accept my personal responsibility to encapsulate the best possible human behavior I can conjure within the confines of my own skin. In other words, I have no intention of blaming you for the world’s problems because I plan on staying too busy in reformation.

2. I accept my family and friends as those who have joined me on the journey. They are no better than any other human beings–just closer in proximity.

3. I accept the law and order around me as being the best we can come up with at this point until wisdom shows us a better way.

4. I accept that there is a God because the absence of such a being leaves us with a godless world.

5. I accept that I am not better than anyone else. I am also on a path to prove this daily.

6. I accept that there is a natural order to life and when I learn the precepts of the organization, I can prosper. When I don’t, I have an immediate reason for my incompleteness.

7. I also accept Jesus as the best example I’ve found to explain why human beings are here and how they should get along. And also, since I am sometimes a bit lost and hapless, I will also receive him as my savior.

All these seven acceptances do not make me perfect or even qualify me to speak my convictions aloud with authority. They are just ways for me to set a solution in motion–and remain loyal to a cause instead of constantly bitching at the cosmos … because it deters me.