Tag Archives: spirit

Dark

Dark: (adj) having very little or no light

The human emotions need to believe everything will be alright.

Our spirits require alternatives that allow us to make intelligent choices.

The mind of a human being is in search of fresh ways to do things better.

And our bodies need to be exercised so that our respiration grants us the oxygen to be optimistic.

Anything that intrudes on these processes may seem entertaining, but ultimately will defile us.

For after all, “dark” is not the presence of anything.

Unfortunately, it is just the absence of light.

Dangerous

Dangerous: (adj) full of risk, perilous

You shouldn’t call something dangerous unless you really give a shit about people.

You shouldn’t declare some activity potentially lethal just to establish some sort of superiority over your fellow-travelers.

But every once in a while, there are dangerous things—maybe better phrased, dangerous tendencies or unhealthy trends.

I feel unqualified to speak on the subject (which I feel compelled to address) mainly because I don’t want anybody to think I’m drawing a moral equivalency or being judgmental about the issue.

I don’t drink. (I’ve established that before.)

I don’t think this does anything for me except eliminate a liquor bill from my budget and spare me a few morning headaches.

Yet I must be honest and say that there’s a dangerous complicity from entertainment all the way through religion and everything in between.

We have just made it too cool to drink.

Alcohol is too common.

It seems to have morphed from being an adult beverage into an elixir for depression, stimulation for fatigue and a truth serum to get friends and neighbors to open up.

It has also become the favored confidante of young females who portray that coming home to a glass or two of wine is the ecstasy of the day.

Unfortunately, alcohol is a drug.

Alcohol has a very bad history with humans—not that dissimilar from the Nazi Party. In the case of both, alcohol and Nazis, there is a great rally that builds up a wave of confidence, leading to faltering returns and ending up with self-destruction in a bunker of solitude.

Let me tell you what is dangerous:

  • Alcohol is an intoxicant. As long as it’s presented in that fashion, it is completely permissible and even acceptable.
  • Alcohol is not fun—that’s dangerous.
  • Alcohol is not necessary. Once again, dangerous.
  • Alcohol is not a cure for anything, but rather, the symptom of many devastating sorrows. Dangerous to the fourth power.

If I felt that young men and young women were partaking of alcohol for the purpose of social interaction, I really would have no case to make.

But alcohol is the only “spirit” I see being promoted in a faithless society.

We are heading toward forty- and fifty-year-old alcoholics, who thought they were socially drinking in their twenties and thirties until the realization of getting older drove them deeper into counseling with Jack Daniels—on a horrible cruise with Captain Morgan.

 

Cutting Edge

Cutting Edge: (n) at the forefront or lead

I am guilty of taking my brain on field trips to boring conversations with people who try to turn very old ideas into new concepts.

Or worse, they take something proven to be ineffective and merely rename it.

My brain gets very upset.

My emotions threaten to abandon in protest.

And during the process, my spirit slithers over into a corner and goes to sleep.

I don’t want to hear the phrase “cutting edge” until we’re actually willing to do something that cuts away the unnecessary, the unrighteous and the unworthy from our human paradox.

After all, you can’t have a cutting edge without some severing.

So what should we cut ourselves off from?

Here’s one:

The more highly we think of ourselves, the more elevated our consciousness will become. (Actually, we just become lofty assholes.)

I must give you a second:

Loving people is often impossible. (We adore this assertion—because then we can determine how quickly “impossible” arrives on the scene.)

And finally, a third:

Discovering our cultural differences helps us appreciate our diversity. (Actually, the more we talk about things being different for one another, the less unity we create.)

There is only one cutting edge: Love your neighbor as yourself.

So let us stop making so many goddamn excuses for why it won’t work.

 

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Crown

Crown: (n) headgear worn by a monarch

Waking up feeling refreshed.

Biting into a shrimp and getting that immediate aftertaste which lets you know it’s a shrimp instead of some sort of fish.

A chocolate milkshake after you haven’t had one for a decade.

Buying a candy bar at the grocery store and realizing it’s fresh, so your teeth won’t have to break through a crust that’s like the surface of the moon.

The two, sometimes five, seconds that occur, transforming your body into a tingling mass of jiggling gelatin right at the point of orgasm.

Praying and knowing that even if the heavens didn’t hear, you heard, and feel enriched.

Seeing a mile marker on a long trip, delighted to discover you’re closer to home than you thought.

When the scrambled eggs come out just right.

Those occasions when a conversation could have been a fight but instead became an open door to deeper feelings.

Being loved.  Loving.

Catching yourself being unloving just in time.

Letting someone in front of you in traffic and getting honked at by the guy behind you.

Sometimes I just think about all the good things that happen in life.

To do this adequately, I must first sit down, turn off the television and close out my surroundings, and tune out the “fret mode” of my brain.

When I do this, I am filled with some sort of spirit, be it Holy or other.

It is the best feeling in the world. It makes me wonder why those who wrote the Bible thought it was necessary to promise heaven as a place where we will receive our crown and reward.

I don’t need a crown.

I’m not a king. And even if I were a king, I would pass on the crown.

There are just too many crowning events in life to ever require additional honor.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Crossed

Crossed: (v) to move past

The quality of your life is determined by how quickly you learn the lessons of life.

They happen quickly and after they’re done and the immediate classroom has been shut down, you have to decide whether you believe what you just experienced to be true, or if you thought it was a fluke and next time it might be better.

For a pessimist becomes so negative that he or she won’t even try something new, fearing that all conclusions in Earthly life are doomed.

A pragmatist has favored ideas to pursue, but once those are worn out, he or she is a little bit depleted in hopefulness because there doesn’t seem to be fresh things on the horizon.

An optimist holds to the “bad day” theory.

In other words, there was nothing missing with the plan, nothing wrong with the planners, nothing askew with the organization. It was just poor timing or a little “fritz in the glitz.”

There is another choice, you know:

I tried it; I gave it my best shot. It didn’t work. This is what I learned from it.

If you do this, once you’ve crossed a certain rickety bridge, you don’t ever have to try it again later to see if it’s gotten sturdier. You can trust your instincts, respect your emotions, listen to your spirit, remember the previous encounter in your mind and don’t take your ass anywhere near that defeat.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

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Covenant

Covenant: (n) an agreement between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

 I have neither the time nor the patience to seek out another person to agree with me to seal the deal. So I guess I cannot officially call my rant a covenant.

But I will anyway—because no one is here to stop me.

I do have a covenant with myself. Bluntly:

I’m sick of the shit.

I’m sick of people making a livelihood off stirring up trouble.

I’m sick of politics being given a free pass to be disingenuous and evil.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

I’m sick of the shit put out by a religious system that hides behind two or three verses of scripture, to attack and destroy two or three billion people.

I’m sick of the shit inside me—which causes me to want to hold back the true essence of my soul for fear that I’ll be found unworthy. Hell—I am unworthy, and so far, still alive.

I’m sick of the shit that makes us believe we can be prejudiced against half of the population simply because they nurture a vagina. Many times we’re grateful for that vagina, so for us to declare it insipid, weak and lesser might be considered hypocritical.

I’m sick of the shit that I was taught as a boy which kept me away from the simplicity of loving my neighbor as myself, but instead, checking skin tone first.

I’m sick of this shit.

And I don’t think I’m alone.

The only problem is, the people who might have enough heart and spirit to be sick of the shit won’t use the word shit. And the folks who are reveling in the shit don’t really think it’s stinky, just historical. (Sometimes historical is hysterical…)

So I may be more alone than I think. But if you’re sick of the shit, just like me, do me a favor and join me in this covenant.

According to the definition, I only need to win over one of you.   Donate Button

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Countless

Countless: (adj) too numerous to count; innumerable

I often get very confused over the hunters, gatherers and nesters—who is who and what is what, and certainly, why is why. Perhaps there isn’t a category for everything.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

When I was a child, I remember that we sang a hymn in church called “Count Your Blessings.” According to the tune, we were supposed to name them, one by one.

I found it fascinating.

God, who is a Spirit—who doesn’t possess physical objects as a symbol of His worth, wants us to sit around and tally what we’ve accumulated to prove that He gives a damn. Really?

Somewhere along the line, we’ve traded in the meaning of life for a comfortable explanation which can offered at a party.

This is the power of the word “countless.” Even though it tips its hat—or in this case, front—to the word “count,” it quickly warns us that trying to assess our value, the esteem of others, the purpose of the Universe or the favor of God by numbering our blessings, is not only fruitless, but smacks of pernicious arrogance.

I remember sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire, and turning to my friends and saying, “What a beautiful day it is to be stopped.”

The reaction, though not verbal, was a combination of unnecessary admiration for my optimism and aggravation over the same.

I wasn’t trying to be coy. Nor was I attempting to be clever and positive.

What I was trying to communicate was that no matter what happens to us, the true blessing of life, which is the ability to breathe, choose and function, cannot be counted.

It is countless.


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Cotillion

Cotillion: (n) a formal ball given especially for debutantes.

A cotillion used to be subtitled “a coming out ball.”

Now that phrase would evoke great laughter—because “coming out” means something completely different from it did when we were funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
referring to the first time a sixteen-year-old girl was dressing up like a woman and spraying perfume in her hair.

Somewhere lodged between the fallacy that “everything in the past was better” and the hard sell of “everything now is superior” lies some sort of compromise.

Maybe if we approached the passage of time similarly to the way we eat food at a smorgasbord, we might just arrive at a blending of practices which would be satisfying and beneficial to our well-being. For after all, at a buffet you grab a plate and walk the line, take a little bit of half-a-dozen or more items, go sit down and discover what is pleasing to the palate.

This is exactly what I try to do with my human life.

I have no desire to live in the past, filled with disease, pestilence and prejudice. Yet I’m not particularly satisfied with being overwhelmed in the present, with forms of idiocy which have merely donned contemporary costumes.

I do like a little bit of the cotillion to go along with my Facebook and Instagram.

I like the idea of the transitions in life being honored with celebration and a touch of reverence instead of the crude way of thinking that a young girl becomes a woman by losing her virginity.

How can we balance the human heart, spirit and brain? The heart wants to be moved, the spirit wants to be inspired and the brain desires learning.

So I guess my goal is to feel my way along, looking for those things that inspire me, and then try to make them my own.


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Correction

Correction: (n) punishment intended to reform, improve, or rehabilitate; chastisement; reproof.

Perhaps there is only one standard for evaluating quality in a human being.

Smiles are too easy—especially on a frowny day.

Prayers can be memorized.

Political promises, forgotten.

Wedding vows dimmed by passing time.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Devotion—merely an emotion.

Faith overwhelmed by doubt.

Love choked by jealousy.

There are moments when human beings appear to be worthy of the brain that finds home in our skull and the spirit that was breathed into us by the Divine. Then disappointment turns us into our darker selves and we reveal just how childish our inner children truly are.

But there is one way to tell if someone has weighed the values of life and discovered what is gold.

Correction.

Yes, what am I going to do when it is necessary for me to receive correction?

Because it will happen.

Not only are we imperfect, but we are also capable of practicing to perfection and because of fear and intimidation, performing ineptly.

Correction is necessary.

Correction is what allows us to do what the animals are incapable of achieving—repent and learn.

How do we handle correction?

Do we become resentful?

Do we become defensive and start explaining how we are misunderstood?

Do we point fingers and blame others for the shortcoming?

Do we lie in an attempt to create a different history?

Do we pretend we don’t hear?

Or do we hear and go out and pretend it doesn’t matter?

Correction is mandatory.

Correction is less painful when it’s received in silence, and the corrector doesn’t feel the need to pound home the point.

I am human—I hate correction.

I hate it so much that when it comes my way, I listen very intently, to make sure I absorb the truth that will protect me from being corrected in the same way ever again.


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Console

Console: (v) to comfort someone at a time of grief or disappointment

When I saw the word “console,” I thought about becoming reflective, gentle and sharing some anecdote about a time in my life when someone comforted me, or perhaps I was able to bring solace to another.

But then I was struck by reality.

Even though I am a strong believer in consoling, too many times what we consider to be an action of consolation ends up being a cajole–or supporting an funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
asshole.

So shall we consider the three words?

  • Console
  • Cajole
  • Asshole.

What would be the difference among the three terms?

Console is what you do when people, from a good place in their heart, try to do something, and either due to bad fortune, poor execution, or maybe even a little stupidity, fall flat on their face and you lift them up and encourage them, saying that such a tumble is never a fatal fall.

Cajole is when you run across an individual who has ability but has decided not to pursue something on their own without being encouraged, pumped up and told how great they are before they will even flex one ounce of their ability.

And asshole is someone who’s become much too comfortable with a console or a cajole, and so manipulates life to make him or her receive all the attention by being a hold-out or a lazy so-and-so.

You’re probably asking yourself, how can you tell the difference? Truth is, you won’t be able to do so unless you’ve tapped your soul, repented of your need for the cajole and any instinct to be an asshole–and allow your spirit to show you the ones who light up when they receive words of edification… and rise to their feet to try again.

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Mr. Kringle's Tales...26 Stories 'Til Christmas

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