MK forum

Oh confession time. I don't like goodbyes either and even more embarrassingly I don't cope well when people cry. "But Bemused" I hear you say, "you are a nurse of 30 years experience, surely you had to face tears of patients and relatives in your career". Very observant of you to ask that. I always made sure there was an exit procedure, a cup of tea to be made or another nurse who would hug the grieving (oh yes the old problem with hugging). Just like for 30 years I avoided almost all public speaking.
However I have in the last weeks faced my public speaking demon and am prepared to do battle with the handling crying demon.

Now this offer to pay for a therapist I like. Where do I send the bill for the long hours that Mrs Bemused (who really does have a psych degree amongst her myriad of qualifications) has spent deprogramming me and being my true support in these turbulent (but triumphant) times? She would like to take me to exotic locations for my next lot of therapy and if someone else is offering to pay, I think I might need more therapy in more exotic locations than previously envisaged.

I could be gone for some time, just talk amongst yourselves till we get back.

I meant for us, you loser! In other words, we will survive any perceived necessary absence . . .but might need actual therapy for ourselves . . . (see the demented eye roll, Mrs. bemused? You're not the only one who does that!)

OK, OK, sorry for calling you a loser. Still friends?

Loser? Oh no, my apple cart has been turned over, I'm back at Numonohi, I'm being picked on again by other MKs, I'm having a meltdown, I'm in therapy, Mrs Bemused is exhausted and given up on me (are you feeling guilty yet, or should I continue?), I'm getting paranoid, the pills aren't working, they are knocking on my door, the straight jacket is on, I'm being taken to an institution . . . .

You are forgiven, just show true repentance and a cheque to Bemused@exoticlocation.com

Oh you want to pay for Mrs Bemused to see a therapist, well that would be me. Just send the money anyway

P.s. You want to be my friend? O.k. now who needs the therapist

P.s.s. thanks for the laugh, its a nice break from some of the serious and heavy stuff of today.

Well you've educated me once again, Bemused. I had to Wiki the original poem. Actually, it's pretty touching, how the writer only gained fame from it well after his death.

But I really like the 2014 version.

My husband e-mailed me this today, and I really like it. I hope Bemused won't mind if I add it to this thread.

Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

DISCHARGING YOUR LOYAL SOLDIER

Listening for the True Voice

During childhood we developed an internal Loyal Soldier (largely from our parents’ early warnings) whose mission was to keep us safe. Our Loyal Soldier created and deployed whatever strategies were necessary to assure our social, psychological, and physical survival.

The voices of the Loyal Soldier are pre-rational, immediate, deep, constant, and unconscious, and they feel like absolute right and wrong. They become for us the very voice of God (resulting in our distorted, punitive images of God). These voices determine what we value and what we disvalue. They are usually shame- or guilt-based and very good for social order and control, which are first-half-of-life concerns.

There is a deeper voice of God, which you must learn to hear and obey in the second half of life. It will sound like the voice of risk, of trust, of surrender, of soul, of common sense, of destiny, of love, of an intimate stranger, of your deepest self. You need to discriminate the voices of the Loyal Soldier from the voice of the Holy Spirit. God never leads by guilt or shame! The deeper faith journey begins when you start to listen to and follow God’s inner voice, and not just shame-based early conditioning. God leads by loving the soul at ever-deeper levels, not by shaming at superficial levels.



Adapted from The Spirituality of Imperfection
(included in the CD set Richard Rohr On Transformation,
available through Franciscan Media);
Discharging Your Loyal Soldier (CD, MP3 download);
The Enneagram as a Tool for Your Spiritual Journey,
Disc 6, (CD, MP3 download);
and Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, p. 48

Gateway to Silence:
The war has ended. Go in peace.

Wise man that Mr Raz

My humble take on it all, is that if one believes in something because one fears the consequences of not believing, it is no match for finding something that you believe because it is something that truly makes sense. Bearing in mind that others will have come to a similar conclusion about their own very different paths.

I climbed up a mountain
Saw the fields below
Watered by rain
Basking in the glow

And my mind drifted
As I took my rest
To those who serve
North, East and West

In foreign fields
Beyond family
Like the fields
That nurture me

And some do hurt
As they read of pain
And ponder if
Tis worth the gain

For that I have
No answer wise
But to only say
In each conscience lies

For though we be
In fields of different grain
There is no harvest
Without sweat and pain

And words of kindness
Will bring reward
For oft there are many
Who need reassured

When outstretched hand
Needs strangers care
To be ears that listen
When family isn't there

Your words of kindness are welcome to this bruised soul tonight, Bemused.