Editor's Note: The Rev. Ian Punnett is the author of "How to Pray When You’re Pissed at God (Or Anyone Else For That Matter)" and a veteran talk show host. He has been married for 28 years and is the father of two college age boys.
By Ian Punnett, Special to CNN
(CNN) -- “God never gives us more than we can handle.”
Filed under Uncategorized
The universe reaches out to us in surprising ways. It sends us messages telling us positive things like “You are stronger than you think” and “God doesn’t make mistakes.” Then sometimes like today, it says get over yourself.
Message received universe. I will get through my current dilemmas and things will get better. Thank you for all of my blessings.
My heartaches for the people of Oklahoma and I pray that they get the help the need quickly. And because I think the angels have their hands full I have made a small donation today to the American Red Cross. Every little bit will help. Here is the link to the RedCross.
For more ways to help click here.
Update – Here is the link for the Lone Star Santas. http://www.lonestarsantas.org/convoy.html
Filed under Life & other interesting questions
The original blog for today has been trashed. I was being whining and feeling sorry for myself. There are some very understandable reasons for my current melancholy and I am sure no one would fault me for being a little down.
Nonetheless, the universe doesn’t need any more complaints unleashed into the chaos that swirls around the human race. There are simply too many of us that complain about things which don’t need to be voiced while we let injustice roam freely in our world. A young gay man was killed in New York simply for walking down the street. A senseless crime. Most of our everyday complaints are temporary and do nothing to make things better. I am not going to don a maniacally happy facade instead I am going to ride these feeling out and maybe find some solutions.
While I do.. I am going to listen to some Doors.
Thanks Papi for the inspiration.
p://youtu.be/k9o78-f2mIM
Filed under Uncategorized
A kids dream. This teacher’s nightmare.
No school = no pay. The county I work for doesn’t offer year round pay. They have a deferred pay system where you can elect to have a percentage of every check differed until the end of the school year. A smart thing to do, if you can afford it.
Which I can’t.
Let the cash scramble begin…I have applied summer and adjunct teaching positions and begun working connections to make up the loss of income. I have picked up extra shifts at my second job and arranged yet another job for my plate. One day a week, but hey it’s money.And the landlord prefers that to promises.
A search for a new roommate has begun, I have an interview with a potential on Sunday since sharing my home is better than losing it.
Grad school is still up in the air, I have some things to work out with financial aid and am still waiting on the all clear from the admissions office.
I am not sure what the summer will mean for me or this blog, but no matter what I won’t stop writing.
And I think that is really what makes me a writer. I can’t and won’t stop writing.
Filed under Life & other interesting questions
I drink each glass as a toast to you
A toast to the sweaty moans
You induce
The tears to which you reduce
The goddess that I am
The one who waits
Silently in devotion
The bottle is empty
And so is my heart
There is no more
That I can give
It all belongs to you
Now and forever
My fate is sealed
Another bottle uncorked.
This poem is based on something I wrote in college. Time can give you perspective, but it doesn’t always free your heart. ~ Love, Lu
Filed under Poetry
Nu Mu napping
My animals have all flatten themselves on the floors of the house as if to say that they give up. It wasn’t an especially trying day for the terminally fuzzy day. Everyone made it up this morning and out the door. The morning walk even had time for a spot of tea.
Then I came home was literally sick on my front porch.
No one else but me.
I cleaned up the porch and then myself with no clue as to what made me sick.
Why are you still awake Momma?
Normally, I would say gluten, but it has never made me heave.
But, the animals. They were fine. No one even had a hairball and now they are passed out.
Life is pretty fantastic when you are fuzzy.
And it isn’t actually so bad when you aren’t.
Cuddle time?
Filed under Life & other interesting questions
Here’s to Momma,
Who said no,
To letting a man who didn’t love,
her anymore stay in her bed.
Here’s to the Momma,
Who said no to moving,
going back home,
And kept her kids in their house,
worked two jobs to do it.
Here’s to the Momma,
Who came home when her daughter,
scared herself silly.
Here’s to the Momma,
Who gave up the house,
When to the streets to give her son,
a chance to play some ball,
He went college and forged a life for himself.
Here’s to Momma,
Who flew a thousand miles
When her little girl’s heart and mind
broke.
A mother’s love picked up the pieces
But, couldn’t put her back together,
again.
She knew her child would have to do that
and she did.
Here’s to Momma,
Who keeps on going,
Through heartbreak and cancer,
beating both down more than once.
Here’s to Momma,
Who keeps on loving,
and being herself.
Filed under Papa and Momma, Poetry
Recently, I discovered that one of my favorite authors was ending a series that I have been reading for the better part of ten years. It saddens me, but I get it. She needs to me move on and it is time for us to let go Sookie Stackhouse and her fangy friends. Charlaine Harris‘s series has been going strong since 2001. There have been bums along the way, but fans have been eating the books up.
So much so that some fans have threatened to kill themselves if she goes ahead with her plans.If you are one of these fans please seek help immediately. Serious, do not stop on go just get help now.
As readers we get attached to characters and tend to forget that there are living breathing people behind them. I haven’t always agreed with what characters in my favorite books have done. (Richard in the Anita Blake series is lucky I couldn’t bitch slap him.) The people behind the keys giving life to our favorite stories are the ones that create the worlds we love. The worlds I aspire as a writer to make. And since my style of writing is akin to Ms. Harris, I feel sympathy for her situation.
It may be easy to say to an author that they should continue to write because they are making money, but writers like teachers don’t do it for the money. We do it because we are can’t help ourselves. And yes, I said we, because regardless of whether or not I reach the level of success as Ms. Harris has I will continue to write. It is our passion and when the passion begins to fade for a storyline it is time to move on. Maybe we will come back to it in time.
Mercedes Lackey said this about her long running series “Hey, everybody needs a vacation, even from the best job. So, until I come up with a story set in Velgarth that is as compelling as the ones you’ve enjoyed in the past, I’m taking a break. The last thing I want is for my own favorite series to start limping along and go out with a whimper.”
Authors need breaks to recharge their creative juices and while I will miss the Stackhouse Series I understand.
Fellow readers I know that you are upset, but give Ms. Harris some room. She has been writing this series for over ten years. She wanted to end it years ago, but kept going when the HBO series took off. She has already gone on after she wanted to quit for you,me, and the almighty dollar so let her be. The quality of the books have suffered. As much as I loved them somewhere after book four, I got lost. She tried it your way and she still wants to go. Let her.
And while you are at it pick up some of her other great series. Lily Bard, Aurora Teagarden and the Harper Connelly series are all excellent. (My personal favorite is the Aurora Teagarden series.)
Stalking and taunting your favorite author into producing something won’t work the way you want it, too. Trust me, when people have gotten unpleasantly freaky with me I back off. So let us take a moment, be thankful and let Sookie go.
Thank you, Ms. Harris, I look forward to your next series or book and I am so very grateful for your stories.
Love, Hugs and Moo’s,
Lu
Papa and Momma don’t dance
down the lane
They don’t skip to my lou
or any such thing
He has a limp from the war
says he fell out of bed with a whore,
But that ain’t the truth
Because truth ain’t pretty or nice
And Momma has been through too much
A husband who promised her the sun
moon and stars, but walked away
when chasing kids got too much
But Papa loves Momma
Since the day she pulled
a miracle out of her bag,
the red pepper flakes he forgot,
a tiny miracle that made
two broken families
full of kids looking for love
find their Momma and Papa
again.
And twenty years later,
Papa loves her more than beer
They don’t dance down the lane
But they are doing just fine.
Filed under Papa and Momma, Poetry
Monday Morning comes every week. You would think that I would learn to prepare for it.
Nope, every week it sneaks up on me. Attacking me when I am just beginning to get things done or so I like to think. The truth is as hard as I work, I am afraid at times and like to pass it off as my own laziness. So I dilly and a dally on unimportant things or start projects that I can’t finish.
There is plenty of time to prepare for school on the weekends or in the hours after school. Maybe not the killer lessons I always want to teach, but a lesson nonetheless. I would still be working fifty or so hours a week and in theory wouldn’t be so stressed out all time time.
My own self-doubt cuts at me like a knife and I spend time dreaming of what if’s instead of what next. I collect books and links to help work past these mental blocks and they sit unread and unused. I fall into psychological traps which my ego tells me that I am too smart for and yet, I am there again and again.
I want to free myself from stuff and have managed only to collect more. It is hard to say good-bye to things when my depression and anxiety clings to them. This past week during a lovely insomnia fit, I cleaned out two bins in my dinning room which have been sitting there for months since I first got a roommate.
Efforts to meditate have been met with heavy resistance. The negative aspects of my personality want to live and they fight for it. Day by day, I work on creating a routine that is healthy and rejuvenating. Some days like today. I don’t have a plan or don’t stick with the plan.
The plan was get up at six and take Luke for a walk. Get ready for Wacky Tacky day and leave for work about seven just in case they needed help in the cafeteria. If not, go to my classroom and prepare for the coming day and week. My walking buddy cancelled and I slept in. Luke was delighted that he didn’t have to get up, but not so happy when his morning walk was cut short. I arrived at work late and barely had time to get everything set up. Still I plotted a course in my head and got the students on track.
Everything was going well until third period. Then one of the girls upset with her feedback didn’t listen and in frustration I let the paper fly from my hand she became in-sensed, claiming I was aiming for her head despite the physical impossibility given that I was seated and she was standing, threatened to beat my ass. I don’t believe that she really meant me harm, still her words could not be ignored and a report was written. She earned herself a four-day suspension. At lunch another student locked herself in the bathroom and was screaming in English and Spanish at her boyfriend or at least that was the gist of the conversation I overheard. The big problem was that she left her baby in the cafeteria unattended, a sweet toddler who had no idea what happened to her mother. My lunch was spent listening to and attempting to get her out of the bathroom. She came out when the other party hung up and received her only special invitation for an exclusive vacation. Two days.
Frustration and fear leads us to act out. I tend to work myself over the coals daily for things that are truly out of my hands, spending so much time worrying that I don’t take care of things that are in my control and then when they veer wildly into chaos add them to the list of things to torture myself with, opting for a more internal approach that causes less outward drama. Like my girls, I avoid criticism and try to do better with as little effort as possible. Then fed up with the negative cycle, I dive back into life and get things done at least for a little while. Sometimes to be honest, I bully myself into getting up and going to work or starting/finishing a project. Asking myself again and again why am I not doing what I should and want to be doing. This is the reason that I finally finished the grad school application and applied for five adjunct teaching positions over the weekend.
Still days like today exhaust and send me into spirals of self-reflection. I vow to do better or at least attempt to do better the next day and work on a plan. A real one with contingencies and oh, yes, I promise to write those lesson plans.
Filed under Life & other interesting questions
