Words ...

Words ...


A word isn't really word until it's embraced in a sentence of some sort.


That's what a word is all about ... the words that precede and follow it ... and depending on those words, the word itself might take on many a shade of meaning ... perhaps this or that ... or maybe not ... or maybe ...


Hinting at what it means ... leaving the final decision up to us ... for good or for ill ... up to us.


How to string words together ... in familiar patterns that comfort with their familiarity ... or in discomfiting ways, that catch our attention and arouse uneasiness ...


Words are not easy ... every try to catch smoke?


Words convey the mysteries of life ... from the salacious to the salubrious ... our highest hopes of a better world to the bitterness of disappointment ... trying, trying, trying, to understand what is always just beyond the tip of the finger, defying our gasp ... eluding us, and quickly pecking our cheek with an enticing kiss that keeps us alive and alert and still seeking to find ... slipping away at the moment of embrace ... laughing ... deriding ... beckoning ... and maybe we continue ... or maybe we retire from the field for a drink ...


Words ... they're all we have ... no matter the language, though other languages capture their own reality in their own way ... and it pays to know something about other languages other than one's own ... even a few words of another can shed light on whatever it is we seek.


And who knows what we seek?


If it isn't one thing, it's another ...


The human spirit is restless ... always seeking ... never finding ... at least anything permanent ... but only the passing, the fragments, like a good lunch that satisfies until about 6 o'clock, and then hunger once again ... and so we get out our victuals, and turn on the stove ... and get out our dictionaries, and take up our pen, or the keyboard ... and we prepare something to satisfy ... and we know, to satisfy, only for a time.


Words ... strange critters ...


They're all we have.

Do Americans Know How to Face Death?

Do Americans know how to face death?
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure I know how.

It's unsettling to think about it.

So, we come up with polite euphemisms.
Put a happy face on it.
"What, me worry?"

When someone dies, we're likely
     To blame them.

Lack of exercise, poor diet.

Or too much stress.

"If only they had ..."
Judgment ... so much judgment in those
few words.

When someone loses a loved one.
We grant them grief for a few weeks.
And then they better get on with it.

We're surprised, maybe miffed.
When six months later.
Tears and depression arise.

Maybe even in ourselves.

Death, I don't like it.
But I have no choice.

Perhaps faith offers something.
But even Jesus dreaded the prospect of death.

No cakewalk for him.
Nor for us.

And so it goes.

We can't run away.
Nor hedge our bets.

The mad accumulation of goods
     Is a hedge.
          Against death.

And so are harsh words
     Toward the poor.
          Who can't accumulate.

"What's the matter with them?"
      Do they remind us of something?
           We'd rather not know?

So we worship the Great God MBA.
And its Wall Street Minions.

Little boys and girls in expensive suits and fast cars.
Drinking expensive liquor.
Joy-riding in the fast lane.

Escaping death.
Running from it.
Full tilt.

All the way.
No tomorrow, is there?
But sooner or later.

The last tomorrow comes.
And then what?

Death holds a few keys in its wearied hand:
     Courage.
     Humility.
     Kindness.

As for accumulation?
How about piling up hordes of mercy?
Or justice?

A little charity now and then.
But more than charity;
A whole lot of effort to transform

     The mechanisms of society.

To face life.
That's what it's all about.
To see it for what it is.

Opportunity, but limited.
With death hanging around.
And maybe that's okay.

Can't do much about it anyhow.
Except thank it for the reminder.
That life is precious.

"So, get with it," says death.
"I'm here, waiting for you."

So we learn to face life.
In the gray light of death.
To live, maybe even well.

Some of the time.
Maybe much of the time.

Because there isn't that much time.

There really isn't.

Life Without Limits???

Saw a book yesterday, "Life Without Limits" - only gullible Americans, who lust for life, rather than love it, would buy such a book.

This kind of thinking allows comfortable Americans to "own" their success as if it were their own creation, rather than a simple gift of chance and circumstance, not to mention God, and then, when looking at folks in hard times, blame them for their troubles, attributing the hardship of others to moral failure or sloth, or any number of sins the successful love to blabber about on talkshows and in their self-congratulating books.

Anyway, life is full of limits. And we all know that, and it pisses us off, for sure. But what can we do about it, except tell the truth, and discover the power and the glory of life lived within limits, life that sees and embraces its own reality, rather than living in some bizarre dream-world than can only end with nightmares and tears?

And we all die, sooner or later. And that's a mighty big limit. Not even The Trump can work his way around that one. Money can buy time - watch the wealthy and their hyper-expensive health-care programs and plastic surgery and organ-transplants prove that one every day, while the poor languish and die too soon. But money cannot buy more than the limit - dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, is still the truth about life. And when we live beyond the limit, when we buy more time than we deserve, by robbing it from others (that's always the trade-off), then we end up looking like hell and sounding like it, too.

We all die, and that ain't so bad!

After all, we have to make room for one another, especially the young, who may make better choices than we have.

I'm glad when someone can face hardship and disadvantage and prove the victor; it happens all the time. Of course. It's a good thing to push hard and sieze the day, and all of that. We can all do more than we imagine.

But I'm sorry for the mind-tricks we play on our cultural heros, and the mind-tricks we play on ourselves, pretending that we can get to the top of the hill all by ourselves - as if no one ever helped us, even as we ignore the humbling truth that just plain luck, or chance, or fate, or God, or what have you, played a decisive role in all of it.

Will someone write a book entitled, "I Was Just Plain Lucky"?

Or, "I Don't Deserve Any of These Good Times"?

Or, "I'm Sorry I Think I'm Better than You Are"?

Or, better yet, "Life Is Beautiful Within the Limits"?