Against All Odds, Linus and The Great Pumpkin (Everybody Says Don't)

  

I swear to Gorgonzola, sometimes I AM Linus in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin each year (even on nights OTHER than Halloween), ever believing that THIS will be the year that the GP will see the good deeds I have done, kindnesses I have shown and innocence of my heart, and grace my patch with hir presence. Refusing to give up hope. Against all odds.

Linus is what makes the Great Pumpkin Great. He's the best thing about Hir.
Some people can't be helped. Some people don't wanna be helped.
Some people shouldn't be helped.
Linus shouldn't be "helped," he's just fine and dandy the way he is.
As tired out from all his hard work as he is, he's happy in his state of believing.
Who wouldn't want to be tired out from believing?
Some of us believe in God (I do sometimes, when it's convenient).
Some of us believe in the Great Pumpkin.
If you tell me I'm crazy for believing that the Great Pumpkin will come to my patch,
then all I have to say is this:
Are the odds greater that the God you're praying to will hear your prayers?
I think the odds are greater that my Great Pumpkin will come to my patch in this lifetime
than they are that your God is a a God is a listening
God is a God who will see you on the Other Side.
So let's take our bets or let's not.
You pray to your God, and I'll pray for my Great Pumpkin.
Peace, peace, peace.

Alright, here goes, my little 2011 Thanksgiving Prayer Thingamajig.

I'm grateful for all the love I have had.

I'm grateful for all that I have right here and now.

I'm also grateful for the love I don't now have but that could be on it's way.

I'm grateful for hope. You might call it delusion. That's you.

To ME, it's a perfect hope for a perfectly plausible and more than fathomable destiny.

I keep what I have had, what I now have and what might be
coming all inside me at the same time.

I love and am grateful for love in the zone beyond past-present-future - the zone that is my spirit.

I'm not talking an externalized Heaven, I'm talking about an innate Heaven living inside my being.

If you relate, bless you! If you don't, bless you!

It was/is/will be beautiful in this place right then/now/when.

I'm much better with all that love at once than with only one part.

They don't always come at the same time, but I sure do love it when they do.

I am trying to keep that kind of love alive in me.

If this makes sense to you, you probably feel very good right now (I hope).
This revelation shocks me, but, ahem, I am faithful.
Not to a god or to "God" but to what was/is/will be real to me.
Halleluiah, faithfulness soothes.

Cheers to those of us who persist in waiting for the Great Pumpkin
(or whatever it is we're waiting for/seeking/receiving/accepting).
It's not about whether or not s/he actually comes.
It's about all the love and joy (as well as all the other things) we feel inside, year after year, while we're enjoying ourselves in the pumpkin patch, carrying out all of our ethics and ideals, doing our good deeds in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving to all ye Unrelenting Idealists with loving hearts and believing minds.

Happy Thanksgiving to all ye Disbelievers and Pessimists with loving hearts, just the same.

And Happy Thanksgiving to that Source Beyond
- that Eminent, Intrepid, Elusive Great Pumpkin!!!

Everybody Says Don't (Anyone Can Whistle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo7lGsjnJK4

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't-

It isn't right,

Don't-it isn't nice!

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't walk on the grass,

Don't disturb the peace,

Don't skate on the ice.

Well, I. Say. Do,

I say, Walk on the grass, it was meant to feel!

I Say Sail!

Tilt at the windmill,

And if you fail, you fail.

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says don't get out of line.

When they say that, then

Lady that's a sign:

Nine times out of ten,

Lady, you are doing just fine!

Make just a ripple.

Come on be brave.

This time a ripple,

Next time a wave

Sometimes you have to start small,

Climbing the tiniest wall,

Maybe you're going to fall-

But it is better than not starting at all!

Everybody says no,

Everybody says stop.

Everybody says mustn't rock the boat,

Mustn't touch a thing!

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says wait,

Everybody says can't fight city hall,

Can't upset the cart,

Can't laugh at the king!

Well, I Say Try!

I Say

Laugh at the kings or they'll make you cry.

Lose Your Poise!

Fall if you have to,

But lady, make a noise!

Everybody says don't,

Everybody says can't,

Everybody says wait around for miracles,

That's the way the world is made!

I insist on

Miracles, if you do them,

Miracles - nothing to them!

I say don't,

Don't be afraid!

It Gets Better Project Video Contributions: "It Gets Better, When" - A Poem with a Message

It Gets Better, When.

A Poem Inspired by The It Gets Better Project

It gets better when your mother stops whispering

in your ear, you’ll never be accepted, you’ll just go

to Hell; when the priest at the pulpit stops

talking and starts listening, when the confessions

are communal reciprocations rather than the drivel

of hierarchy; when insubordination is no longer

necessary because we are more than a manifestation

of a warrior psyche; when we catch up on our role

as human animal rather than fighting blindly

against role-changing: a mother cannot become a father, cannot be

a lover, cannot love another mother; a daughter

cannot stand up to her brother, has to bow down to her father,

should never walk on her own, cannot be alone.

It gets better when your father starts shouting

at the bully within instead of being the bully, turning a debate

into violence; when parent and teacher see one another

in the mirror and know the power of their hate

and their love; when our minds are set

on peaceful cohabitation rather than on how to spin

information to fit our underlying fears and repulsions, when friendship

isn’t merely assimilation: a girl cannot shave her head

and grow her leg hair long, cannot speak about the beauty

of another girl without having it passed around

a cafeteria of laughter; the cafeteria cannot read her words

in silence, has to create an echo for the sake

of self-preservation, cannot linger between madness and silence.

It gets better when your grandfather can look you in the eye

after you tell him you’re a lesbian instead of pacing

around the hot family room and shaking his head

in anxiety; when your grandmother doesn’t try to bribe

you to have sex with a guy because she thinks it will change

your CHOSEN orientation; when your sister is no longer

embarrassed by your pride and does not shush you if you say the word

lesbian so that others can hear it; when your brother calls himself

a fag to take back a word that has been used to dis-empower;

when your family walks with you at a march; when the world stops

blaming the victim for its own intolerance: a shield of connected

hands crossing the chests of the grassroots people, the music

of the oppressed ringing in the ear of the universe,.

It gets better when you start being strategic: when you look

ahead and let your hope for tomorrow, however

it may look, get you through the darkest

of nights; when you come up with a plan to make yourself sustainable

and stick with it even when a million mouths tell you you’re trash;

when you get up every day and tell yourself, I deserve

respect, I deserve to be treated fairly, and when you pat yourself

on the back every time you survive in spite

of the displaced self-hatred— the rampant, generational helter

skelter inside the rotting heartland of a nation

of aboriginals, immigrants, and colonialists. It gets so much better

when you’re financially independent, when you’re on your own

and able to choose with whom and how to spend your time;

when you can choose to be with or be alone, when you can find

someone who loves you and understands that acceptance

is not simply something requested by the queer

community, it’s fundamental to all healthy relationships. It’ll never be perfect,

but it will be a whole lot better when you can step back

from the emotion and take apart the words and actions

that formerly wounded you. It gets better, it gets better, and your children

will look to you to hear the same words, they might see you

more clearly, perhaps, that you are now able to see

yourself. See yourself, see yourself through, and it’s sure

to get better. When you muster up the courage to face

your greatest fear, the power that you think others’ have over

you will vanish— you will dis-empower the disabling fear

when you imagine the worst that can happen, face it, speak

it, bring it out of the shadows, bake it in direct sunlight, mold it

into something new: something made by you, something

to show others who have never in their lives heard anyone

say, What didn’t kill me made me stronger.