Category Archives: B words

Cave

Cave: (n) a large underground chamber in a hillside or cliff.

Cave men.

We just accept that these individuals existed. Basically, they’re described as a step up from a gorilla, and a few steps down from a sophomore in high school.

Here’s the problem–at least, the situation for me. The fact that the human race lived in caves seems intelligent. The enclosure would be
completely safe from the outside elements and would not require to be rebuilt every time a storm came along to blow it down.

And also, inside these caves are drawings. Therefore these cave men, which are supposedly not much more intelligent than apes, found pieces of charcoal and were able, from their brains, to replicate things they had seen and sketch them on a rock wall.

I feel very confident that I am more intelligent than a monkey–but if you put me in a cave, I don’t know if I could find the charcoal to draw with, or come up with a picture that anyone would recognize.

So what were cave men?

Were they people without the resources to build huts, produce weapons and tools, who just chose to climb into caves to protect themselves?

Or was this just a phase in a mental evolution the human race went through, to get to where we are now?

For after all, how much progress have we made away from the man cave?

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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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Cavalcade

Cavalcade: (n) a formal procession of people walking, on horseback, or riding in vehicles.

I often rebuke my brain for always trying to turn something into a philosophical quagmire instead of just eyeballing what is set before it, and
 accepting the image for just what it is.

I like parades–I do.

But for some damn reason, my brain starts thinking too much.

Am I letting the parade pass me by? Am I merely in the gallery watching the participants stream along?

First of all–I don’t like to stand for much of anything. Never have. I will always find a seat. Matter of fact, if you give me a bucket of chicken and a chair, you could march two or three parades by me.

There is a cavalcade–an ongoing flow moving down the highway. Someone is in charge of that parade. There is a person who knows where it begins and where it ends. At least I think so.

But as life streams by us, is there anybody in charge?

Does anybody really know what they’re doing?

Is there a Parade Planner?

You see? There I go again.

My brain will not leave well enough alone. Sometimes I punish my mind by watching episodes of “I Love Lucy,” which couldn’t possibly have any other meaning than foolish 1950’s television.

Other times, I just listen to the news … which seems equally as vacuous.

 

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Cautionary

Cautionary: (adj) serving as a warning.

The word “cautionary” usually travels with a tale but often does not have the brains to fill a head. Most of the things I have been warned about in my life have proven to be false, or at the very least, exaggerated.

When I was twelve years old, a sociologist came to our school to discuss race. Actually, her function was to explain to our dull but fertile
 minds why it was important for the races not to mix.

It was a slide show.

So we observed that when a black person and a white person get together and create children, the results are uncertain and often catastrophic. She provided pictures of children with splotchy skin, tumors and obviously suffering in some sort of miserable configuration.

She was so official–so well-studied. She explained that “it was just not good for the children.”

There are two comical things about this story. First, we lived in a community where the nearest black person was 25 miles away. And secondly, everything this well-educated and maybe even well-intentioned woman told us was bullshit.

Yet if you had been there to hear the cautionary tale, you would have been totally convinced you should avoid all contact with “Negroids”. (I believe that’s the word she used.)

When is a cautionary tale really of value?

When it asks us to mind our own P’s and Q’s instead of trying to change the ABC’s of life.

 

 

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Caution

Caution: (n) care taken to avoid danger or mistakes

“Casting caution to the wind…”

Pretty good advice if you’re discussing farting.

Other than that, it is a piece of vanity without any sanity. Yet the statement has merit because cautious people are painfully picky.

What is the right amount of caution?

Most of us spend a lot of time figuring out how we’re going to do things, where, or even when.

The better part of caution is the question why. Because just because I can, or because it’s available does not mean it is advisable. “Why” welcomes the spirit of prudence, bringing about the inner conversation that introduces common sense to the event.

Stop asking yourself if you can. Cease to make everything in life an attempt to prove your prowess.

Why?

I would never ask God to give me superhuman strength unless I needed to lift a car off of someone pinned in an accident. But at that moment, the request would be well-founded. No need for caution would be required.

But to win the privilege of a couple of beers over a bet is not worthy of pulling your back.

Simply stated, caution is when the need is so great that we must go ahead and do what seems to be impossible–because otherwise a greater tragedy may occur.

 

 

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Caustic

Caustic (adj) sarcastic in a scathing and bitter way.

Being negative to another human being when positive energy could be beneficial is a great offense.

But equally as caustic is to piously tell folks they can do things that they can’t. It is cruel, mean-spirited and to a large degree, self-righteous
–simply because we want to be known for giving flowers instead of stopping and working with people’s soil, and teaching them how to get something to grow.

Life is not about me. Rather, it’s about me learning to be honest with myself, and then gradually sharing with the world around me.

Yet I will tell you–it is sarcastic, bitter, childish and ridiculous to take humans who have chosen mediocrity and insist that they are just as valuable as those who are laying their lives down to discover greater purpose.

If the truth makes us free, then anything short of that freedom is bondage.

For after all, you can tie people up with fuzzy bows just as easily as you can with barbed wire.

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Cause

Cause: (n) a reason for an action

Even evil has a cause. A wise man once said it was to “kill, steal and destroy.”

So if good is the opposite of evil–or at least doesn’t share rent–its cause would be to bring life, to provide and repair.

Can it really be that easy?

So whenever I find myself killing, stealing or destroying, I have donned my “evil cap.” (Or maybe it’s a cape.)

And when I find myself giving life, providing for others and repairing things that are broken, I become a superhero for goodness.

There are so many causes and places to sign on dotted lines that my mind is blown and my ink pen is empty. I crave simplicity.

I need a plainness to my cause–something I would do whether there was pressure, approval, devils or gods.

Because the truth of the matter is, if I am trying to pursue the cause of the heavens, my earthly fatigue will often abandon the task.

I just don’t want to be evil.

I want to stop killing.

It would be good not to steal.

And probably, to avoid destroying.

I think the wise man was right–when you attempt to contradict the killing, stealing and destroying, you find yourself pursuing the cause of good, which is the cause of humanity…and amazingly, appears to be the cause of God.

 

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Caulk

Caulk: (n) a waterproof filler and sealant, used in building work

Not everything is a parable.

Truthfully, you have to be careful with metaphors. You can slice them as thin as the cheese at Subway.

But I will tell you on this Independence Day–I am caulk.

I realized this early on in my life. I am not wood, iron, steel, or as the song says, titanium.

I am caulk. I find the holes and I fill them with my gentle, sweet, comical but purposeful, passages.

I am not here to tear down, nor am I here to be a building inspector, informing you about what parts of life should be condemned.

There are dear, brave souls who do such reconstruction. They free slaves, liberate nations and find actual cures for disease instead of just bizarre treatments.

I am caulk. I come across cracks in the concrete and I fill them in with wit and good cheer.

It buys time. It keeps us from leaking like sieves.

It holds things together–waiting for the hour when common sense can sit down and have dinner with wisdom … and let tolerance pick up the check.

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Cauliflower

Cauliflower: (n) a cabbage of a variety that bears a large immature flower head

“I don’t like vegetables.”

A typical complaint shared by an average adult.

It doesn’t make any difference that vegetables are healthy. Somewhere along the line, we’ve convinced ourselves that our opinions on all
 matters reign supreme and might even move the God of heaven to alter His efforts.

People say:

  • “I don’t like traffic jams.”
  • “I don’t like long lines at the DMV.”
  • “I don’t like people noticing my weight gain.”

One after another, we express our disapproval for common portions of everyday life.

Since vegetables work very hard to keep us alive, we might at least take a moment and try to figure out some way to consume them.

Cauliflower is a friendly one. It can be riced, diced, cut up, slivered, fried, baked, dipped and nearly disappear into any variety of dishes.

It also is white–so you don’t have to worry about the “fear of the green.”

It happens to be delicious if you mash it, and does a remarkable job of imitating the potato.

It’s time to grow up. The childish little whine of “I don’t like it” needs to be followed by the adult counter of, “But I will find a way to enjoy it.”

Without that, we spend our whole lives childish–minus the advantage of remaining cute.

 

 

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Cauldron

Cauldron: (n) a situation characterized by instability and strong emotions.

Putting together sentences, or even the art of making sense, is not the most difficult thing about writing. Also not writer’s block, unless you get too silly about constructing the perfect paragraph.

Actually the most difficult matter is making sure that your writing hasn’t “aged out.” In other words, do people know what the hell you’re talking about?

It happened to me several weeks ago when I was working on a passage in a novel, and decided to insert the word “cauldron”–as referring to a problem that was simmering inside my plot, without people knowing how dangerous it truly was.

The dear lady who does my typing stopped and looked at me with a quizzical face and asked, “Cauldron?”

She does this from time to time. It’s her way of saying I’ve come up with some obscure word that no one will understand and therefore they will assume that my awareness of pop culture ceased somewhere between Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

It raises the question, when are we being sensitive to the market and when are we joining into the universal “dumbing down” of our society?

Is it too much to ask a reader to look up a word or search for context clues? Are we a generation that is just going to squint and opine, “I don’t know that word…”

Some words should die. Maybe they represented something evil or there’s a better replacement for them in today’s language.

But sometimes a word needs to be toted from the Conestoga wagon, onto the bicycle, into the Model T Ford, placed carefully on the airplane and finally situated safely in the rocket to outer space.

 

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