Blog Entries for KenP

The Serenity Prayer

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

We 12-step people say the Serenity Prayer's first few lines thousands of times, before most meetings, and in our hearts so often when faced with one of those inevitable difficult situations life hands us.

But how many times have we heard the entire work, as written by Reinhold Neibuhr in 1926?

When you hear the prayer in its entirety you see even greater depth, and you see where it is at heart a Christian poem. So [...]

Please Stop Drinking Alcohol During Pregnancy!

kenandjody@comcast.net — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/index.htm?s_cid=LinkToUs_003"><img src=&q [...]

Alone With You Sittin' Right Next To Me. For Abandoned Wives.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

My sponsor is working hard to expand me beyond the life I live now, which is almost exclusively "in my head." He tells me that I must transcend the barriers erected within me by decades of faulty programming for an American male and access the feeling part of me. In his words, "Ken, you can do all of the thinking you want, but until you start doing some feeling, you are limited. This is because it is the feeling part of you that 'drives your bus.'"

< [...]

No Pair. A Song For Gamblers.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

No Pair is an allegory that condenses a lifetime into a poker game. The "dealer," in the story (and usually in life on earth) is the Devil. The reader (or listener) may not believe in a devil, but anybody who experiences this earthly existence has experienced temptation.

Joe F., my neighbor and friend in the mid-'80's, taught literature and writing in a southern university. Joe wr [...]

A House Full of Country Love. For Upscale Women.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Like so many of the songs I have written, this one grew out of love for my wife. We'll call her Katy here in the interest of her anonymity. Katy was God's favorite tool for blessing me.

This song tells her favorite memories from childhood, much of which she spent in a tiny rural community deep in the south with her grandparents...Nanny and Pappy.

A House Full of Country Love

My friend, Kit Johnson at Kansa Records, an- independent label in Nashville, asked me to write an old fashioned cowboy song. Her exact words were "...Ken, I want the saddest, loneliest cowboy song you can write...something that might have been sung by the Sons of the Pioneers." Some of you really old cowboys may remember this group as the harmonizing cowboys who originally launched a guy named Roy Rogers.

&n [...]

See 'Ya Next Time." A Song for Divorced Dads.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

See 'Ya Next Time. A Song for Divorced Dads.

Posted by: KenP in trust, society, social capital, shutting down, Men, Masculinity, Isolation, fear, costs, battle of the sexes on May 29, 2008

We [...]

Your Country Style. A Song About A Texas Gentleman.

kenandjody@comcast.net — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Country Style

It's not your boots, not your hat,

Not even your je [...]

How 'Ya Do. A Song for Honky-Tonkers

kenandjody@comcast.net — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It all starts with the first date. There are always expectations as a man and a woman First meet. This nice country duet explorers the expectations most common TO men and women when they meet in a honky tonk.

How Ya Do.

[...]

Feel Bad. A Song For Alcoholics Who Can't Decide How To Feel!

kenandjody@comcast.net — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

During the first phase of alcoholism, the so-called happy phase, the alcoholic is constantly partying. He or she is still young, the liver is still fighting a successful battle, and life seems like a pice of cake.

This dynamic where the alcoholic has some success, gets it all together, and then blows away all progress in what the AA's called a "spree" back in the late '30's, is documented in legend. This littl [...]

Sick And Tired (A Song for AA Members)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I wrote this song for all of my AA friends after attending "open AA" meetings for about twelve years. By the grace of God I don't have the disease of alcoholism, at least the part that destroys my various body systems after I ingest alcohol. I have codependency, which is itself a recognized disease.

However, I had heard quite a few AA stories by the time I wrote this, and I felt like I knew how people in AA sometim [...]

Easy Does It (A Song For Frustrated Women)

kenandjody@comcast.net — Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The first rung of our mental awareness ladder to disappear when we swallow alcohol is the rung that holds up JUDGEMENT. That fact has caused more human suffering than most of us can imagine. One form of sufferring is the sufferring that happens when a lack of judgement is mixed in with an all-too human emotion...lust. That mixture often results in unwanted pregnancies, jail-time, shame, STD's, or maybe a lifetimes of marriage between two people who barely know [...]

I'm Losing Me For You (A Song for Codependent Men)