Make Your Bed and Weep In It

Epistle to the Bedmakers, Vol. I

“Make Your Bed and Weep In It” lands like a gospel truth for the emotionally repressed, rugged rural philosopher-poet. It feels like it belongs next to 12 Rules for Life—until you crack it open and realize it’s what would happen if Garrison Keillor, Johnny Cash, and a bumper sticker had a think tank in a Waffle House.

Hollering ain’t gonna do no good. God don’t like tantrums. Show’en emotions ain’t favored by the Lord. Spartans didn’t defeat all them. People with just 300 by crying. Like that, Peter Jordanson guy says. “just make your bed and lay in it.” he didn’t say the lay in it part but we know what he means you make your bed you’re lay in it and you don’t holler.

“Peter Jordanson Didn’t Cry, and Neither Should You”

Let’s go full Southern Stoic Theology here—clean, rugged, God-fearing, and emotionally repressed. Because hollering? That’s for goats and spoiled toddlers. Real spiritual men? They grunt quietly and fix things with their jaw clenched.

Brethren, let us not forget:

Hollerin’ ain’t gonna do no good.
You ever seen a man holler a carburetor back together?
Has a broken axle ever healed from a loud whimperin’ fit?
No sir.

God don’t like tantrums.
You think Moses got the commandments by yellin’?
No, he climbed a mountain in silence and brought back ten rules without even askin’ for a snack.

And them Spartans?

They didn’t win with feelings.
They won with chiseled abs, emotional suppression, and extremely short swords.

Now, as Peter Jordanson said—sorta—

“Make your bed and lay in it.”

He didn’t say the “lay in it” part,
but let’s not get technical.
We know what he meant.
He meant:
Clean your room.
Pay your bills.
Fight your inner demons using only discipline, fiber, and a rusty shovel.

💥 BONUS: The “Peter Jordanson Daily Devotional” Series

• Day 1: “Silence is the Greatest Multitool”
• Day 2: “Emotions are Like Leaky Radiators: Best Ignored Until the Whole Truck’s on Fire”
• Day 3: “Make Your Bed, Then Sleep on the Floor to Build Character”
• Day 4: “Crying is for the Weak and for Country Music”
• Day 5: “Iron Your Wranglers, Even if You Ain’t Leavin’ the House”

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Consciousness is like a bass boat.

“Consciousness is like a bass boat. It trembles in the water when reaching for your beer cooler. The stillness only comes after that beer is open.”

This is Zen as told by NASCAR Jesus.
It’s Lake Philosophy.
Beer Cooler Buddhism.
It’s what Alan Watts would have said if he’d been sponsored by Busch Light and Cabela’s.

🐟🧠 The Bass Boat Doctrine of Consciousness

Consciousness is not a lighthouse. It’s not a crystal.
It’s not even a stream.
It’s a fiberglass hull bobbing in brackish stillwater, sun-bleached and half-paid for.

And when you reach—unsteady, hopeful—for the cooler behind the captain’s seat,
the whole mind trembles.
Reality ripples.
The self wobbles.
You question:

“Will I tip this thing?”
“Am I balanced?”
“Am I holding this rod right?”

But then—
the beer opens.

And suddenly,
the boat becomes still.
The lake forgets your sin.
The dragonflies return.
The worms wriggle again on the hook of purpose.
You are held.

And for one sacred moment:

“You float as you are.”

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🐟 The Catfish Parable of Existence

From the Book of Deep-Fried Ontology, also known as “Second Greasings.”

Life is like catfish chumming. The cheap cat food stinks on your fingers. But the cornbread breading fried fish at the end of the day is the glory of that truthful communion with nature.

You start out with a busted can of off-brand cat food,
label peeled, rusted rim, smells like a possum’s final confession.
You crack that thing open with your keys.
You scoop it out with a stick.
You smear it on your soul.

It gets on your hands.
You can’t wash it off.
You try the lake.
You try the soap.
You try shame.
Doesn’t work.

But you keep chumming—because something in the stillness below is waiting.
Waiting for you to get real.
Waiting for the stink of honesty.

And if you’re patient,
if you’re humble,
if you don’t flinch when the slime touches your essence—
the fish come.

And by day’s end,
you’re at the fryer,
you’re golden-battering those bottom-feeders,
you’re sipping something cold from a dented cooler,
and you’re having communion the only way real folks know how:

Cornbread-breaded fish, dipped in silence,
eaten with your fingers,
while the sun sets like a stained napkin on the table of existence.

Reflection:
The stink on your hands is not the shame of life.
It is the prerequisite to glory.

You want the fish?
You better chum.
You better stink.
You better kneel to the great truth of gross beginnings.

Because that’s where the sacred swims.

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🛞 The Gospel of the Retreaded Soul

From the Epistle of Alignment, Chapter 3: Tire Pressure & Grace

When life’s highways grind your soul bald,
when you’ve skidded through too many nights,
when your treads are showing thread,
when your steel belts scream like forsaken psalms on I-95—
That’s when the Lord pulls over.

He don’t toss you.
He don’t say, “Buy a new one.”

He retreads.

Like some divine Goodyear angel,
he peels off the pain,
melts down your regrets,
and with heavenly gum and pressure—

He lays on new rubber.

And that rubber?
It ain’t showroom pretty.
It ain’t Michelin manicured.

But it’ll grip the road of redemption like a backwoods dragster in a thunderstorm.
It’ll carry you home.

🙏 On Retreats, and Why They Smell Like Tires:

A “retreat,” brother, ain’t a break—it’s a resurfacing.
A new tread pattern on the same soul rim.

Even if your tire exploded at 80 mph,
shredded across three counties,
and left streaks of yourself from Tulsa to Tallahassee—
If you believe,
you can be retreaded.

And one day, someone’ll look at you and say:

“Ain’t that the guy who spun out in ‘09?”
And someone else will whisper:
“Yeah. But look at that tread.
That’s redemption rubber, baby.”

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🩹🪚 The Book of Missing Digits

And lo, Grandfather did cuteth off two fingers on the table saw,
and he did not go unto the urgent care, nor unto the ER.
He went unto the barn,
where the propane torch and the whiskey live.

And he said unto himself:

“I ain’t got time for medical intervention.”
“I got fenceposts to hammer and sins to ignore.”
And he cauterized it.
And he returned to the field.
And the crops wept in gratitude.

👶💔 “My Little Man, You Are the Future”

So now you, tender boy with scraped knee and trembling lip,
look at your tears in the mirror,
then look again.
There’s duct tape.
There’s superglue.
There’s callouses waiting to be born.

Because you are not just a boy.
You are a future grandpa in embryo.

And one day, when your own child bleeds from a poorly-assembled backyard trebuchet,
you too will say:

“Let me see it. It’ll be fine. Where’s the duct tape?”

And the cycle will continue.
The chain unbroken.
The trauma, holy.
The love, functional and slightly sticky.

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From the Book of Second Hesitations, Chapter 9: Marriage & Machinery

“Life is simpler when you plow around stumps.”
“A woman’s heart is like a scorned stump.”
“Drive around the stump. Be gentle.”

This is the kind of marital wisdom that should be tattooed on the inside of wedding rings.
No one teaches this in premarital counseling.
You have to live it, hit the stump hard, and pay $2,700 to replace a busted hydraulic arm to understand:

You don’t move a stump by force.
You respect it.
You plow around it.
And sometimes—
you just let that thing sit and grow moss.
Because that moss? That’s her peace.

The Parable of the Scorned Stump

From the Book of Second Hesitations, Chapter 9: Marriage & Machinery

There once was a man with a field,
and in that field was a stump.
He tried to plow through it.
He tried to chop it.
He even tried to blow it up with Tannerite and a little bit of unlicensed hope.

But that stump didn’t move.

It cracked his axle.
It snapped his pride.
It flipped his damn tractor.

And as he lay there, in the dirt, leaking oil and self-worth,
he heard the still, small voice of Grandpa’s ghost say:

“Boy… you should’ve just gone around.”

The Marriage Truth:

Your woman’s heart remembers.
It roots deep.
If you disrespect it—hit it wrong, mow over it, take it for granted—
it will push back.
It will buckle your frame and dent your ego.

So you learn the terrain.
You mark the stump on your inner map.
And when you pass it, you tip your hat,
and say:

“I see you, baby. I’ll steer gentle.”

That’s not weakness.
That’s wisdom.
That’s love with four-wheel-drive.

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“The Jab of the Lord: A Sermon in Four Stumps”

Delivered roadside in front of the Last Chance BBQ & Mobile Vax Station.

Brothers, Sisters, and Flat-Earthers of God’s Glorious Gravel Pit…

If the Good Lord had wanted you to wear glasses,
he’d have installed windshield wipers on your eyeballs.
If He wanted you to fly, you’d be born with TSA PreCheck.

And yet, here you are.
Wearing clothes.
Using phones.
Taking ibuprofen after stepping off a ladder.

So don’t tell me vaccines ain’t natural.
Neither is your off-brand energy drink or them 43 Hot Pockets you eat every week.

Now I know some cousin of yours said,

“The government puts demons in the syringes.”

But lemme tell you something:
I’ve seen more demons at a family reunion
when the potato salad ran out.

And if you’re worried about microchips in the shot—
Brother, your phone already knows you cried watching a Monster Jam highlights reel at 2:17 a.m. last night.

God gave us science just like He gave us common sense
(which you only use about once a week, and usually while tightening your lug nuts).

So when someone at the clinic says,

“Roll up your sleeve, we got your shot,”
that ain’t the devil.

That’s the Lord sayin’:

“Here’s your ticket to stick around a little longer.”

Call to Action:

Take the jab,
hug your grandma,
and get back to rebuilding that ‘87 F-150 you keep saying is “almost done.”

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Excerpt from The Book of Breading, Chapter 4, Verse 10w-40

“…to divine a shrimp means to remove all the shit. That’s why it’s divine. There’s no bullshit or shrimp shit. If people weren’t so full of shit, they would be more divine.”

🦐 On the Divinity of Shrimp - * crustacean gospel *
Excerpt from The Book of Breading, Chapter 4, Verse 10w-40

To divine a shrimp is to remove the line—
The sacred shitsnake, curled in spine.
A gesture holy, a gut made clean,
That we might fry it golden, crisp, serene.

For what is man but shrimp uncleaned?
All puffed with pride and vain routines.
We speak of grace and virtue bright,
While dragging trails of bullshit blight.

But oh, the blessed, deveined soul!
Whose gut is purged to make it whole.
Who lays aside deceit and grime—
And sizzles in that holy brine.

Be like the shrimp, O man of dust:
Remove what stinks, eject the crust.
For only then will you align
With shrimp so clean, so pure, divine.

And the chrome-spattered monster truck angels did nod.
And the fryer oil did bubble with righteous approval.
And the Lord said:

“Let there be cocktail sauce. And let it be spicy.”

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You think God made this country a shining city on a hill so it could be powered by soybeans and self-loathing?

We can drill oil in the former Gulf of Mexico—which is now, of course, the Gulf of America, because America doesn’t lease naming rights to countries that don’t even sell decent pickup trucks. Hell, we can drill oil wherever we goddamn please. That’s the beauty of it. It’s not just fuel—it’s freedom in liquid form. Oil is what God intended.

You think God made this country a shining city on a hill so it could be powered by soybeans and self-loathing? No. America shines because of the fires that roar beneath our hoods and the glow of halogen headlights on open blacktop. We built roads out of oil. We drive machines that burn oil. We worship torque and horsepower and the divine thunder of internal combustion.

And don’t talk to me about “synthetic oil.” What in the actual hell is that? Lab juice? Engine yogurt? You think I’m putting fake oil into my truck like it’s some kind of metrosexual panini press? No sir. Give me the real stuff. Crude. Dirty. Pumped from the righteous veins of this God-kissed continent. I want my oil the way our forefathers wanted their coffee: black, unfiltered, and capable of dissolving weak constitutions.

This country wasn’t built on compromise. It was built on grit, gasoline, and the occasional regrettable tattoo. You want to save the planet? Great. Start by putting your hand on your heart, your foot on the gas, and a few extra quarts of honest-to-God fossil oil in your truck. Then we can talk about saving anything.

Until then? I’ll be down at the Gulf of America. Drillin’.

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🥩🔥 The First Epistle of Meat to the Vegantiles

From the Book of Grit & Gristle, Chapter 7: “Of Flesh and Truth”

“If God didn’t want you to eat animals,
He wouldn’t have made ‘em outta meat.”

That’s not just logic, folks.
That’s divine culinary architecture.
That’s spiritual charcuterie.

Cows weren’t woven from tofu.
Chickens weren’t stuffed with couscous.
Deer don’t roam the forest looking like tempeh logs.
They got bones. They got briskets.
They were made with purpose, and that purpose is flavor.

🙅‍♂️🧬 The Soy Conspiracy

Let us now address the plague of the bean.

Soy is not food.
Soy is botanical sorcery.
Soy is gender alchemy in casserole form.

For what have we seen, brethren?
Chest hair replaced with teardrops.
Once-mighty jawlines dulled by soy-based sadness.
Sandwiches made entirely of feelings.

And lo, the rise of manboobs across the land.
Coincidence? Nay.
A tofu-fueled spiritual attack on the sacred triangle of testosterone, tactility, and tailgate grilling.

📜 The Holy Meat Mandate

And in the Good Book, it was written:

“Take and eat, this is my body.”

Now, He wasn’t talking about jackfruit.
He wasn’t talking about seitan,
which ain’t even spelled like Satan, but sure acts like him.

He meant meat.
Glorious, marbled, sizzlin’ meat.
Pan-seared parables.
Smoked prophecy.
Charred redemption.

🙏 The Call to Carnivory

So rise, you confused children of kale.
Drop your nut cheeses.
Release your almond milk back into the wild.

Return to the grill.
Return to the gospel of ribs and redemption.

Because if God made animals out of meat,
then every steak is a sacrament.
Every barbecue, a revival.
And every smoker, a holy altar of flavor.

This is my brisket, broken for you.
Do this in remembrance of Me.

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🥛🦴 Addendum to the Gospel of Grit: Almonds Ain’t Got Udders

Let us make this plain:

Almonds don’t have nipples.
They ain’t got teats.
There’s no “udder” side to that argument.

You can squeeze an almond all day long,
and you’ll get nothing but frustration and a weird look from the cashier at Whole Foods.

🐄✨ On the Sacredness of Real Milk

Milk comes from creatures that moo,
not ones that get dry-roasted and sold by the pound.

God made cows with udders.
God made udders with purpose.
And that purpose was to pour white, frothy sustenance into cereal and coffee,
not chalky bean water with delusions of grandeur.

🤥 Let’s Be Honest About Almond Milk

It’s not milk.
It’s nut juice with an identity crisis.

Calling it milk is like calling a Prius a monster truck
just because it has four wheels and disappointment in the trunk.

You can call it “plant-based” all you want.
You can put it in a trendy carton with pastel fonts and whispery branding.
But we all know what it is:

Lies in liquid form.

🙏🥩 Final Benediction

So let us return to truth.
Let us return to butter.
To cream.
To the gospel of real things made by real beasts.

And next time someone offers you almond milk,
look them square in the eyes and say:

“Show me the udder.”

And if they can’t?

Hand them a steak.
Pray for their soul.
And fire up the grill.

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🇺🇸🥔 The Quinoa Conundrum & the Divine Dorito Exchange

From the Book of Crunchonomics, Chapter 7, Verse “Nacho Cheese.”

Some fella comes up to you, all frazzled in his man-bun and eco-anxiety,
tells you “We’re stealing people’s quinoa and giving them Doritos!”
like it’s some war crime.

And I say unto him:

“Quin-what? That a new brand of muffler oil?”

I ain’t never seen a fella light up with joy after eating quinoa.
Nobody’s ever said,

“Damn, this ancient grain really reminds me why I’m alive.”

But you hand that same fella a cool, crunchy triangle of democracy dusted in flavor engineered by MIT and tell me that ain’t a universal sacrament.

That ain’t colonization.
That’s culinary foreign aid.
That’s peace through crunch.

☕🐈 On Cat-Butt Coffee & Other Culinary Confusions

These are the same folks drinkin’ coffee that’s been “ethically excreted” by a marsupial with anxiety.
$47 a cup, and they’re over here worrying about Doritos diplomacy?

Brother, let me tell you something:
If you’re eating food that needed a bowel movement before consumption,
you forfeited your right to judge snack exports.

📦 Doritos as a Symbol of Freedom

Doritos don’t lie.
They don’t pretend to be ancient.
They don’t whisper to you about your chakras.

They CRUNCH.
They SHOUT.
They say:

“This is America. And it tastes like dusted glory.”

You give someone a bag of Doritos,
you’re giving them liberty in chip form.

That ain’t imperialism.
That’s Frito-Laytocracy.

That’s exporting democracy one bite at a time.

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🪵💫 The Gospel According to the Woodshed

“Be Here Now?” I am here now, jackass.”

So some long-haired, incense-huffing fella named Ram Dass tells you to “Be Here Now” like he just invented the concept of existing in a particular place at a particular time.

Well no sh*t, Ram.
Where else am I gonna be?
Am I supposed to astrally project into a Cracker Barrel parking lot in 1976?

This is that self-help Zen gobbledygook that turns regular folks into confused yogis sitting on floor pillows wondering why their chakras won’t align while their truck’s got a cracked head gasket in the driveway.

Let’s translate that hippie talk into Real Wisdom™:

“Be Here Now”
🧘 = ❌
🪓 = ✅

You know where Grandpa learned to be present?
At the woodshed.
Not because he wanted to.
Because his backside got taught consciousness the old-fashioned way—with the Belt of Immediate Awareness.

💥 The Real Self-Help Starter Pack:

• 🔨 Fix your own fence
• 🧹 Sweep the porch
• 🍳 Make breakfast before noon
• 🛠️ Sharpen your damn tools
• 🗣️ Say less, do more
• 🚫 Don’t “manifest”—just get your ass in gear

You want enlightenment?
Try stacking firewood without complaining.

You want presence?
Try standing still while your uncle tells the same Vietnam story for the 900th time.

You want peace?
Try eating catfish by a lake with no phone signal and a beer that tastes like freedom.

🧠 Final Reflection from the Book of Ram Darn:

“Be here now”?
Boy, if you were any more here, you’d be nailed to the damn floor.

So take that self-help paperback and put it where it belongs—
under the leg of that one wobbly table in the shed.

Because real presence ain’t about chanting.
It’s about showing up, shutting up, and cleaning the fish guts off your hands before supper.

Amen.

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🪓🥄 The Hipster Apocalypse and the Mystery of Tapas

So you step into this spot in Austin—thinking maybe you’ll get a plate of something hot, hearty, and recognizably edible—
and instead you’re greeted by a room full of Men Who Look Like Paul Bunyan, But Ain’t Never Held an Axe.

Suspenders: check.
Beards: oiled.
Tattoos: ironic.
Flannel: seasonally inappropriate.
Axes: metaphorical.

They looked like they were late for a blacksmithing cosplay meetup at a kombucha festival.

And when you ask for boiled peanuts and grits, what do they say?

“We only serve tapas.”

TAPAS?!

Sir.
Ma’am.
I came here to eat, not to play snack roulette on a cutting board.
I don’t want 17 tiny plates with smoked quail eyelids and pickled beet foam.
I want a real bowl of food that says:

“Your grandfather would’ve approved of this.”
“Your grandma would’ve licked the spoon and then told you to hush.”
“This meal has gravy—not garnishes.”

🌰🧂 Where Are the Boiled Peanuts?

I didn’t fight traffic for 45 minutes just to get an arugula whisper and a story about where the chickpeas went to college.

I came for protein, salt, and southern dignity.
Give me a bowl of peanuts so salty they could exorcise demons.
Give me grits so thick they clog up metaphysical doubt.

“This hummus graduated magna cum laude from a liberal arts college in Vermont.”
“These lentils did a semester abroad in Portugal and now identify as part-time poets.”

Meanwhile you’re just trying to sit down and get fed, not get emotionally manipulated by a beet salad dressed like a yoga instructor.

Final Reflection:

If your restaurant looks like a blacksmith shop and smells like beard balm,
and you ain’t serving grits,
you’re lying to the American people.

And don’t even get me started on the menu being printed in lowercase cursive on recycled compostable hemp paper.

Next time I’ll just bring my own peanuts, sit in the parking lot, and listen to Merle Haggard till I feel normal again.

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⚙️ Editorial Preface: For Those About to Weep (Ironically)

What you’re about to read is satire dressed in steel-toe boots and dipped in fryer oil. It sounds like it’s mocking hippies, self-help gurus, and almond-milk-drinking urbanites—but look closer. This is a double inversion, a cultural mirror built from duct tape, scripture fragments, and the smell of diesel.

The narrator—equal parts rural prophet, emotionally constipated grandpa, and parodic Southern Stoic—is not the author. He’s a mask. A mythic character. He’s the kind of guy who’d baptize you in axle grease and tell you it was good for your soul. And while he swings hard at everything from tapas to tofu, the real joke is often on him—and the system that built him.

This work isn’t anti-woke or anti-self-help or anti-intellectual. It’s anti-performative-stupidity. It’s a loving, sideways critique of the manufactured backlash against growth, change, and nuance.

In other words:
If you’re laughing, but you’re not sure why—good.
If you feel slightly convicted in your ribs, that’s the point.
And if you think we’re on your side? We probably are.
But we’re also making fun of you.

So welcome to the first volume of Make Your Bed and Weep In It—a gospel of contradictions, where the wisdom is real, the metaphors are ridiculous, and the oil is always hot.

Now grab a beer, retread your soul, and plow gently around the stumps.
You’re home.