Corridor

Corridor: (n) a gallery or passage connecting parts of a building; hallway.

Everybody tries to get into the main office.

There’s a general consensus that if we can just get into the boss’s headquarters one time, we could talk ourselves up and improve our situation.

But life isn’t really like that.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

We live life in the corridors. The minute we commit ourselves to entering an office or a room, we are no longer visible. We’ve taken a side. We have locked into a position.

When I lived in Nashville, Tennessee, back when I was young and knew everything in town that I could get to eat for fifty cents or less, I realized that walking into offices and trying to talk to someone who was notable so I could get my “big break” was a worn-out idea which may never have had its time in the first place.

I realized it was about finding the corridors.

I talked to many a music agent in the parking lot of his or her building, where I had waited so I could strike up a conversation when they came to their cars. I knew they eventually would come to their cars.

Likewise, I learned over the years where various interested talented people got their cars repaired, and I sat in the front room, waiting for a glance of them when they came to pick up their fancy auto after having an oil change. It was always a quick moment and I never pushed—just made my face familiar. Then, when I ran into them later on—in the corridor of an office building or in the mall—and said hello, they would swear that we had met before.

Now, I can’t tell you that through this process I guaranteed myself a shot at a record contract, but it was during the time of walking the corridors that I did get a lovely break.

Be careful signing on the dotted line with political parties, religions and movements. They will hide you away from the opportunities that just pass by in the corridors of everyday life.


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Correspond

Correspond: (v) to communicate by exchange of letters

Dear You:

This is me.

I am writing you for many reasons.

Well, that’s not true.

The main reason I’m writing you is that I don’t want you to ignore me.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Each one of us is so busy that we soon will forget people we know unless we purposely correspond with them. We may protest and say that’s impossible, but certainly, “out of sight, out of mind.”

Pretty soon, who knows? In a moment of feeble-mindedness, you might actually fail to recall my name.

I don’t want you to do that.

I’m too important to me for you to forget me. Do you follow that?

And I hope you are too important to you to have me forget you.

This is why we contact one another. It doesn’t make any difference whether it’s done through a letter, an email or a text—just as long as I know that you know that I am here and you are aware.

Yes, all forms of communication, at their root, are insecurity speaking out.

After all, how much time would we spend thinking about God if there were no Bible? And how much Bible would we read if there were no church? And how many churches would have people in attendance if they weren’t going there to meet up with people they hope wouldn’t forget them?

We can either deny selfishness, or we can use it to help us understand the selfishness that exists in others. Once we forgive ourselves for selfishness, we might have a bit of leniency left over to forgive one another.

I correspond because I do not want to be forgotten. In the process I am able to communicate to you that you are well-thought-of and treasured.

How can this system be wrong?

How can this be anything other than the definition of the selfishness of humanity put into good practice?

Dear You,

This is me.

May we never forget us.


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Correlate

Correlate: (v) to bring into mutual or reciprocal relation

My eyes popped open as I awoke this morning.

So did my black brother’s in Harlem.

I wanted to roll over and sleep more, even though I had a full eight hours.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

My sister in China agreed nodded her head in union.

I convinced myself I felt better once I got up and around.

The young man living on the Indian reservation concluded the same.

I was hungry—but picky—and only wanted a certain something or another for breakfast.

A young boy in Mexico told his mother exactly the same thing.

I started my day wanting to be grumpy but realized I wouldn’t be able to get by with it.

My black sister in Chicago, who holds down three part-time jobs, prayed to reach the same position.

My mind was reluctant to do much of anything.

Somewhere in Japan, a young girl said amen.

But once I got going, moving around, my spirit became sweeter.

That’s what the Irish gentleman driving his taxi in New York also decided.

By the end of the day, I had accumulated enough good experiences that I was able to banish the bad experiences from my mind and be grateful that breath was still in my lungs.

On this one, the Eskimo, the Aborigine, the Aussie and the Queen of England concur.

You see?

We correlate.


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Correctional Facility

Correctional facility: (n) a prison, especially for long-term confinement.

I think it’s safe to say that a plurality, if not a majority, of people think about prisons just about as much as they do the city dump or changing the batteries in their smoke detectors.

It’s not that we’re uncaring. It’s just that sometimes we are at such a loss as to know what to do that rather than taunting ourselves with the frustration of considering something, we pretend it vanished into thin air. (Kind of like when you pick your nose and pull one of those crusty funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
things out and rub it between your fingers until there’s no further evidence…)

Early on in my career in music and the arts, our musical group was invited to come and perform at the State Prison. I was traveling with two girls, and most folks thought it was a very bad idea for us to go to such a dangerous and potentially violent arena.

But if you think about it, as long as you’re not sleeping in, a prison is one of the safest places on earth. Everyone is restrained, threatened and guarded. (Perhaps we should consider this profile for Washington, D. C.  I digress.)

We did not take the gig because we wanted to bring hope or good cheer to the prisoners. No—it was because we were just starting out, and anyone who wanted us to play was our next best opportunity. (After all, you get tired of performing at nursing homes or church pot luck dinners.)

We arrived at the prison and discovered that the entire population was not invited to the concert. Matter of fact, only 150 inmates would be present—these being members of a Bible study held twice a week in the rec hall.

Well, I was young and impetuous, so I objected. I said that if I’d wanted to come and play my music for a bunch of Christians, I could have gone down to the Baptist Church, which “may or may not have just as many felons.”

Both the warden and chaplain were patient with me. They realized that I was immature and did not understand that I was carrying along with me two delicious “human treats,” which these men had not partaken of in some time.

They explained that even though they could protect the girls in our group from attack, they certainly could not shelter them from the trauma of being accosted with foul language.

I grumbled.

Well, we did our first show in front of the Bible Club, and it went so well that the warden asked me if we would do another show in front of about 200 of the inmates who were presently on “good behavior status.”

I immediately agreed.

Boy—did I learn a lesson. If those 200 prisoners were the “good behavior boys,” I shudder to think what would have happened if they had released the lions on us young Christians.

It was loud, overbearing, and it was difficult to get the inmates quiet enough to listen to the music—and only when the beat reached a certain level of intensity did they clap their hands and participate in the event.

Afterwards I felt humbled. I told the warden and the chaplain that I was sorry for being such a jerk.

They corrected me. The warden said, “Don’t you ever give up on the idea of trying to help someone—especially if it looks hopeless.”

I nearly cried.

Even though there’s a reason they call them correctional facilities—because most of the time, correction is the name of the game instead of rehabilitation—it is not our right to ever give up on those that God decided to create in His image.


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Correction Fluid

Correction fluid: (n) an opaque, quick-drying fluid for obliterating handwritten or typewritten matter.

As I read the definition, I smile a bit over the word “obliterating.”

If you didn’t live through the liquid paper or white-out phase of office business done with a typewriter, you missed a juncture in time when creative effort was often made to try to cover a mistake, when typing the entire letter over again might have been quicker.

First and foremost—for a long time, it was just white correction fluid. This meant if you were typing on paper that was white, and by the way, preferably twenty funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
pound, you might have a chance, if you used the brush sparingly, of covering up your typing mistake and having the letter look as if it had never been sullied.

But unfortunately, if you worked at a business where stationery was used, with a higher quality paper which sometimes had a tint, then you had a carnival of difficulties.

First, the heavier paper took your typed letter or word deeper into the texture, which made it much more difficult to cover it up with correction fluid.

Then—guess what? White correction fluid on pale blue stationery does not avoid the appearance of a mistake, but rather, advertises it.

So, they came up with colored correction fluid. But as you probably would guess, matching the color was extremely tricky.

I had a friend who was so adept that she could mingle two different colors of correction fluid to get the exact color of her company’s stationery. Then, after twenty or twenty-five minutes of fussing with the “cover-up,” passing the letter around the office to see if anybody noticed the use of the correction fluid, you would tentatively fold it up, put it in an envelope and send it off.  Then the next time you talked to the recipient of your correspondence, they would make some sort of joke about how the correction fluid had not totally dried—so the letter stuck together.

It was one of those ideas that seemed really smart until it was actually put into practice and it became very complicated to pull it off and still look professional and error-free.

Thank God for the arrival of the computer, where you can hit the back space, and nobody ever need know your office-place iniquity.


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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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Correct

Correct: (adj) conforming to fact or truth; free from error; accurate

“Correct” is the favored word for those who wish to appear righteous but are really working a hidden agenda or stoking a deception. For “correct” does not need to be accurate and of course, accurate can fall short of truthful while still maintaining a claim to accuracy.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

We play this game in religion, entertainment, business and politics every single day.

We, as the consumer, as the public, are offered a few correct statements which fail to address some accurate observations. Since the accurate observations are hidden from us, we will never know the truth.

This is why we sit here today, arguing over a report that was commissioned by our own government, and now is being obfuscated by the same. It’s easier to read the report and find correct statements that jive with a needful political conclusion. We might even want to offer some accurate insights to make it seem that transparency was nearly achieved.

But the truth is a very hard business to open up on Main Street America.

The truth is often feared—and the truth, which is the only thing that can free us of the lying that paralyzes our progress, is hidden away and reserved for those who know it but are damned because they squelch it.

Simply because something is correct does not make it accurate. Accuracy can offer contradictions. Yet it is only when we have studied all of the accurate ideas that we might be prepared to draw some conclusions about truth.

But wise men know that we are not on a search for the correct, the accurate or even truth itself.

No—we are in pursuit of uncovering our own hypocrisy, which clears our eyes, to be willing to honestly see.


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Corral

Corral: (n) an enclosure or pen for horses, cattle, etc.

The key to building a corral is to make sure that the animals you’re trying to hem in are not aware that they are being limited. If they are constantly eye-balling the restriction, they will also be challenging the fences and breaking them down.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Therefore, you give a horse a long way to run before you close off escape.

You make sure all the cows have plenty of grass under their feet, so they don’t start looking to the other side of the fence.

And you give the chickens plenty of huntin’ and peckin’ room, so they don’t try to use their tiny wings to lift off the ground and vault the barricade.

I guess since human beings are creatures of Earth, we also resist being corralled. I don’t know about you, but sometimes just the existence of Ten Commandments makes me want to break ’em all.

Seeing a tag attached to my mattress reading, “Do Not Remove by Penalty of Law,” festers me into a ripping mode.

And I have found the children who have no discipline and the children who have too much discipline are always the least disciplined.

How can you corral the human appetite without encumbering the spirit?

I’m not saying I have the answer for that—but I will tell you, if you build a corral of legalism, attempting to scare people into submission, or if you construct no restraining wall whatsoever, you end up punishing people due to constraint or permissiveness.

My thought is, go as far as you want to—and keep going—and just ask yourself, your conscience and any God you might believe in to let you know when going further is unnecessary.


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Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi: (n) the body of Christ

I suppose they thought it was extremely clever, to manufacture a rubber bodysuit—bruised, beaten and bloodied.

When they made the movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” they had their actor don this monstrosity of an outfit, believing it would convey the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

It is a classic case of over-kill.

To understand the true indignity of the sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth, you must step into an operating room in a hospital and breathe in deeply. The smell of funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
blood will rattle your nostrils. It is a nasty odor, meant to be foreign to our consciousness.

Perhaps you want to go on the scene of a horrible car wreck and see the blood still pouring out of the wounds of dying people to understand his situation—there was no time for clotting because the beating continued and the blood was pouring forth, dangerously leaving the body and threatening death long before he was nailed in the hands and feet.

Perhaps if you were around someone bleeding to death and you heard their screams of thirst and realized they were in agony just from the lack of water…

As always, Hollywood dramatizes but never actually captures the drama.

The most tender, gentle man who ever lived, who healed lepers, hugged children, granted women equality and offered love as an alternative to the futility of fear, was beat to a pulp by religious people who thought they were acting in the name of God.

May we learn from that image: Corpus Christi—the body of Christ—which was ravaged by the self-righteous.

May we quietly, humbly and reverently realize how the stupidity of hatred, lying, cheating and self-promotion continues to murder him today.


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Corpse

Corpse: (n) a dead body, usually of a human being.

Sorting through a cavalcade of thoughts, I think I have finally arrived at a couple of notions that seem to hold true in spite of my own personal ridicule of them, and history proving that they’re ridiculous.

One such inkling is that I don’t really mind dying—I would just like to do it well and not have a bunch of people staring at my corpse.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

I don’t want to come to the end and be chicken shit or do something stupid like squeal like a squirrel.

I don’t want to have a gun pointed at me, and in a fit of weakness push a nearby child forward to take my bullet.

I don’t want to suffer, but I also would like to have the honor of “last words.”

But mostly…

It’s the corpse thing.

I learned a long time ago to stop bitching about my body and just focus on my body of work.

I got dealt an interesting accumulation of haphazard DNA possibilities. So I don’t want a bunch of people staring at my fractured and now-breathless frame, making judgments.

I don’t want to look “natural.”

I don’t want some technician in a morgue taking a peek at my penis.

(I know it’s silly.)

I don’t want two doctors shaking their heads as they stare down at my blob, speaking to one another in hushed tones about how I could have extended my life if…

None of us were meant to be “a corpse.”

We were just meant to die, and once dead, as quickly as possible, to shed our skin, and somewhere, somehow, possibly become a new creature.


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