Worship

It’s been a long time since we did a word study here on “Connections.”  I believe one is now in order.  Here is the word for the day: worship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this: “A person will worship something, have no doubt about it. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we worship we are becoming.”

According to Dictionary.com (the Thesaurus part), worship (as a verb) means to honor or glorify. Some synonyms are  admire, adore, bow down to, celebrate, chant, deify, dote on, esteem, exalt, extol, idolize, laud, love, magnify, offer prayers to, pay homage to, praise, pray to, put on a pedestal, respect, revere, reverence, sanctify, sing, sing praises to, venerate.  In other words, it means not only a brief act of celebration, but also a constant state of adulation.

Emerson also wrote this: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” When Emerson wrote this, he didn’t just mean men, of course.  What we spend the biggest part of our time and money on is our most important priority.  That is what we think about most.

God wants our every thought. He wants to be closer to us than our breath, part of our blood and bones and mind.  He wants us to dote on him, to respect, esteem, and revere him, to seek his guidance in everything. He wants us to desire for our lives to glorify him.  That is worship.

*I borrowed the picture from this site: http://godwordistruth.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/what-kind-of-worship-god-desires-from-his-people/ 

Worship

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/04/worship.html

An Occasional Word

It is no secret that I am a word person.  I have no words to describe how words intrigue me, draw me, inspire, entertain, and confuse me.  I love to investigate all kinds of wordage--their meanings, both their denotations and their connotations. 

My word! The word word speaks broad meaning.  You can give your word as a promise, to assure someone. Or you can speak a word of caution or advice. You should keep your word, in the first case, and you should limit your word in the second. People will depend on your word if you don’t break it, but they will ignore you if your outpouring of words is too numerous, too critical or bossy, or too insignificant. You must be a man or woman of your word, standing on that word, and be as good as your word. You must never break your word.

If you are quoting an expert, be sure to do it word for word rather than in so many words, or you’ll mislead somebody. If you take the words right out of someone’s mouth, your relationship might be very close and understanding. If you hang on somebody’s words, you could be in an unbalanced relationship. 

You could be a wordsmith who enjoys subtle wordplay, arranges wording in word processing, or plays word square or does crossword puzzles. You could read the wonderful words of Wordsworth. You could be wordless, which I am not. You could have a brain-lesion problem called alexia that makes you word blind, so you can’t read, and that would be torture. You could look up the 100 most beautiful words in the English language at this linked site.

You could read the word of God. You could see that it is the living word, and in the book of John, you could learn how the Word became flesh in the person of Jesus.

Words have great power, and that’s why the pen is mightier than the sword. But in a word, all this utterance is just so many words.

*For much of this word, I had the help of Webster. And the picture comes from this site: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/10/

An Occasional Word

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/occasional-word.html

Words

Some words and phrases have power over me-- they command my attention, prick up my ears, scald my soul, and/or unshackle my heart. Here are a few of those (there are many more):

Lost legends

ancient words

mighty river

elemental theme

the power of love

the cleft of a rock

Why? I don’t know. They just throb with intrigue or romance or something.

Words

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/words.html

Apples and Pears and Poems

Sometimes just to be silly, I call a poem a pome. I wrote the word in an e-mail to my brother a few days ago. He wrote back, “That’s not a word! You misspelled it.” He just thought I made a typo. I knew I’d heard it before, so I looked it up.

According to Merriam-Webster, the word pome refers to “a fleshy fruit (as an apple or pear) consisting of an outer thickened fleshy layer and a central core with usually five seeds enclosed in a capsule.” It comes to us from Middle English—pume, Anglo-French—pomme, and Latin—pomum. In French today, pomme is the word you’d use if you asked for an apple. A pomme de terre, apple of the earth, is a potato.

It is not surprising that the word has medieval roots. After all, nothing like that just comes popping up out of nowhere here in the twenty-first century. We often think we originate quite a number of things.

Now, if you think about it, a poem is not so different from an apple or a pear. It has a sweet, juicy central core and some seeds to plant.

The picture comes from Acclaim Photography web site.

Apples and Pears and Poems

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2008/09/apples-and-pears-and-poems.html

Hunger

All right, class, the word for the day is hungry, and we might as well also take a look at its noun or verb form, hunger.

Now, we all know basically what that means. In fact, right now, I feel a bit hungry for a couple of brownies, the triple chocolate chunk kind; I like to throw in an extra handful or two of semi-sweet chocolate chips, for good measure. Maybe a cold glass of milk would be good, too.

According to Merriam-Webster, hungry means “characterized by hunger or increased appetite.” Okay, that’s probably the kind that would be fixed up by brownies.

On the other hand, a little different light is cast on this feeling when the verb or noun hunger is used. M-W says hunger is a “craving or urgent need for food or a specific nutrient; an uneasy sensation occasioned by the lack of food; a weakened condition brought about by prolonged lack of food.”

Near the border of Mexico live some of the hungriest children in the United States. They are fortunate if they have one meal a day, so their hunger seldom is satisfied. They suffer from chronic malnutrition, so they have a hard time concentrating on schoolwork. They know what it means to be hungry.

In many places along the border, especially in New Mexico, Arizona, and west of the Rio Grande valley in Texas, the land itself is hungry—not rich or fertile—barren.

Other meanings of the word hungry are “eager or avid (as for affection)—highly motivated (as ambition).” Hunger, again, is more intense; it means “a strong desire, a craving,” such as “a hunger for success.” We have also hunger of the spirit—a need for closeness to God.

Those children who suffer from desperate hunger along the Mexican border can’t worry much about feeling these other kinds of hunger. Physical hunger, in the sense they experience it, is a symptom of a basic survival need; those needs must be met before any other. That’s how God made us, so that we would survive.

I looked up hunger for the purpose of writing this blog entry. And I am amazed to see the resources Merriam-Webster has included on the definition page for the word. After the definitions, M-W has a list of organizations who help with world hunger, as well as physician-reviewed articles about it. For example, this paragraph from Healthline is part of a linked article there:

Hunger is the physiological drive to find and eat food. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hunger is the world's major health risk. Globally, one in three people suffer from chronic hunger, which is a result of a lack of food security. Food insecurity means people do not have access at all times to nutritionally adequate food. There are three dimensions to food insecurity: a lack of (1) purchasing power (lack of money or resources), (2) accessibility (ability to get food), and (3) availability (amount of food). In the United States, hunger is caused by poverty, whereas in developing countries it is caused by poverty, war, civil unrest, or an undeveloped economy.

God tells us to feed the hungry, care for the poor. We could do much more to help than we do; we don't even have to deal with things like war, civil unrest, or an undeveloped economy. And America is covered up in food.

Oh, well, so much for a word study!

Hunger

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/09/hunger.html

Thursday Thirteen: Cliches

I try to convince my college writing students that they should avoid using clichés. Here are some of the most common and most distasteful:

1. dry as a bone

2. cold as a wedge (what’s a wedge?)

3. simple as pie

4. dumb as a stump

5. dead as a doorknob

6. sitting in clover

7. a no-brainer

8. pull the plug

9. throw caution to the wind

10. keep body and soul together

11. never a dull moment

12. teach an old dog new tricks

13. and . . . (please, NO!) . . . be there for somebody

Jerry B. Jenkins, author of the Left Behind series, says writers must use original language; avoid clichés like the plague!!!

I have discovered that my comment thing doesn't work! So if you'd like to leave a link to your site and/or a comment, please send it to me at this e-mail address, and I'll add it through editing: judycallarman@yahoo.com

Thursday Thirteen: Cliches

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/thursday-thirteen-cliches.html

What is a “Yahoo”?

On the home page of Yahoo.com is a little section called “Pulse--What Yahoos Are Into,” which contains a list of popular videos and albums. I have seen it over and over, but for some reason, it penetrated my consciousness a few days ago. Suddenly I realized what it says. “Yahoos,” in the definition of the search engine’s creators, are apparently “cool” people who do their important Internet searching through the Yahoo web site—those loyal to Yahoo.com.

I had to laugh at the joke those makers of Yahoo.com are playing on us.

The origin of the word “yahoo” is . . . well, I hate to tell you this. But according to Merriam-Webster, a “Yahoo” (when the word is capitalized) is “a member of a race of brutes in (Jonathan) Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans.” The dictionary goes on to say that when it is not capitalized, the word means a “boorish, crass, or stupid person.”

Needless to say, then, to be called a “Yahoo” is not a compliment.

Jonathan Swift wrote in Chapter 7 a detailed description of the Yahoos, a wild and odious species that his character Lemuel Gulliver encountered during his travels. Here is a sample:

My Master, continuing his Discourse, said, There was nothing that rendered the Yahoos more odious, than their undistinguishing Appetite to devour every Thing that came in their way, whether Herbs, Roots, Berries, the corrupted Flesh of Animals, or all mingled together: And it was peculiar in their Temper, that they were fonder of what they could get by Rapine or Stealth at a greater Distance, than much better Food provided for them at home. If their Prey held out, they would eat till they were ready to burst, after which Nature had pointed out to them a certain Root that gave them a general Evacuation.

There was also another kind of Root very juicy, but somewhat rare and difficult to be found, which the Yahoos sought for with much Eagerness, and would suck it with great Delight; and it produced in them the same Effects that Wine hath upon us. It would make them sometimes hug, sometimes tear one another, they would howl and grin, and chatter, and tumble, and then fall asleep in the Dirt.

These Yahoos sometimes resemble monkeys and apes, but more often, humans, engaged in the most obnoxious, nasty behavior. Should we be insulted—or amused—when we see that Yahoo.com refers to its masses of users as “Yahoos”?

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-yahoo-on-home-page-of-yahoo.html