Don’t Untangle The Tangled Mess: Thought-Streaming Prose

On a recent trip, my wife and I had several hours of drive time in the car. We decided it would be good to do some energy work on some friends and family. (Yes, they’d given us permission to do such work.)

For those of you who don’t know, Marnie is a SimplyHealedTM practitioner. Using her gifts of perception and empathy, she can tap into what’s going on energy-wise in people, and then (if it’s negative energy), she can clear it. She doesn’t have to know exactly what happened. She doesn’t have to go in and do any sort of interviewing or discussion or anything like that. She can just sense that there’s an energy that’s out of alignment and out of place and can move it so it’s in alignment. (Want to try it out? Get on her calendar.)

A tangled mess of rope: either untangle it or throw it away

As she was doing the work on somebody close to us, she stopped and told me “I just had a really interesting sensation and a sort of vision. This person is standing next to other people who are close (emotionally) to this person. They all have cords running out of their solar plexus. The cords all meet in the middle. There’s this big tangled messed-up ball, almost as big as they are, a big tangled pile of rope like the ones we have in our yard. Or maybe it looks like a big tangled mess of fishing line or yarn. These people who are all tangled up — and other people — try to untangle this mess. The lines, the cords, are the stories and the past hurts and all the bad things that have happened, that bring bad feelings into these relationships.”

Don’t Fix The Tangled Mess

All the people involved know that this tangled mess exists. They try really really hard to untangle the mess, but it’s just not working. No matter how hard they try to untangle it, the mess just gets more and more tangled. (Later I said: “It sounds like that scene from the Tar Baby with Briar Rabbit, when he keeps pushing and pulling trying to get away from the tar baby, and finally the narrator says ‘The more he tried to get unstuck, the stucker up he got! Pretty soon he was so stuck-up he could scarcely move his eyeballs!'”)

Everybody is trying to fix this mess by untangling all the cords, all the lines, all the hurt and anger and frustration. Then she (my wife) said: “I had the thought and the perception that they need to just let all of those cords go. In this case the Savior came in and picked up this big mess and clipped off the cords where they connected to each of the people and took away the big mess and threw it away.”

Now they can look at this relationship, where the big mess used to be, and say, “Okay, these things aren’t in the way anymore! Let’s just move on from where we are without any of this tangled mess, without trying to figure out what happened in the past or anything like that.”

Then as she continued to work on this scenario, she realized that there were people who were also attached to these people. As these groups of people faced each other, they had their own much smaller tangles. As they were released from the cords, the Savior could throw away the messy tangles.

As she talked about this, I realized that was something that I did with my family members. Yes, there were huge horrific stories and things that happened in the past and big tangled messes. It may sound like you’re just walking away. That doesn’t mean that you have to forget about your life experiences. You need to learn from the past; you should learn from the past. But you don’t have to try to unravel that big wad of messed up cords. You just let it go.

What Can Fix The Tangled Mess?

When we look at fixing the tangled mess, we are getting the question. In my case, I turned it over to the Savior, and said “I can’t do this.” That’s what He is waiting for. When we do that, then He takes care of it. He doesn’t unravel or untangle or analyze it. He get’s rid of it. He heals us from it. And as each person gets disconnected and liberated from the mess with the other person, then they can turn and have a very simple relationship where information is going back and forth.

People can start building these beautiful relationships that are clear. Everybody stands in their own power with each other. There’s no big tangled mess. It’s as if, as they disconnect from the tangles, everybody’s relationship begins to get much more solid and much more free-flowing and the energy between people is strong. When a cord is not tangled up it can hold the weight and the pressure. But when it’s tangled then it slips and things slip and move in a way that they’re not supposed to. Christ heals those wounds that lead to the tangles.

Sometimes you can go into the mess, you can have the hard conversations, you can apologize, and you can untangle things because you need to untangle them, and because you’ve caught them early enough. But it reminds me of when I was young: I would sit there and spend literally hours trying to untangle a tangled-up fishing reel with backlash. It would be a huge mess. That’s when my Dad would say: “Just cut it and put some new line on the reel. Then we can go fishing!”

The hard thing is to let the Savior take that tangled mess and throw it away. It’s hard for us to let Him move it out of our lives so that there is no more backlash, no more tangled mess, no more past mess. But we need to let Him do that. Because as we try to untangle things, we go back and re-examine and re-examine and re-examine and re-examine. Then new hurts come up, and we tell ourselves all these stories about what they mean and what they could mean, what they possibly should mean. And the reality is maybe they don’t mean any of that. The reality is if we just throw away those tangled messes and start over from what is so, and where things are, then we can really start to move and build these strong, clean relationships.

What happens next? She also saw that it was as if a chip were inserted to each person who’d been cut away from the mess. The chip could be labeled: “This is what good relationships look like!”

Most people who have these big tangles have never had a good relationship modeled. All they may know is confusion, calamity, distrust and sadness. It’s as if the Savior puts a chip into their heads, saying: “This is what a good relationship looks like.” With those inspired models they can start developing relationships. They stand in their own power instead of saying “Oh I have to live this way because this tangled mess is the way I always saw it, so I assumed that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” But Christ comes through and says, “No, it doesn’t have to be that big tangled mess. This is how it could be for you!”

As people let go and let Him take away that big tangled mess, they can find the truth, which teaches them the correct and easier way to do things. And then they can develop meaningful relationships without having these massive tangled messes.

Embarassed In Patriotic Prayer: Improv Free Verse

Today,
as I prayed,
and thanked God
for the Liberties that we have,
in this free and blessed land,
suddenly,
in my mind,
I saw all these Patriots,
young men and young women:
D-Day,
Korea,
the Revolutionary War,
the Civil War,
Vietnam,
the World Wars,
Iraq,
Afghanistan,
all the wars;
men and women
with body parts
blown apart,
some of them
disintegrating
into pink clouds,
laying down their lives
for the freedom
which we enjoy.

I realized,
at that moment,
how rarely I thank God
for their sacrifices.

I was ashamed to know
I did not,
have not,
and sometimes still
do not
bend my knees
and bow my head
every morning
and every evening
in gratitude for them
and their sacrifices,
and from the bottom of my soul
thank Him for them,
these young men and young women
who don’t even know me,
who died just because
they were doing their Duty.

In shame and anguish
I wept,
and I wished to God
that He could call a great convention
of those Heroes,
gather them all together
and announce,
in a voice of thunder,
from His Holy Throne:
“Dave Kuhns is sorry
that he was a schmuck,
that he had forgotten
to thank them.”

I don’t know
that they will ever know,
from the depths of my heart,
how much honor
and respect
and appreciation
that I have for them,
as I look out on my land,
my free land,
and for the liberties
and the bounties
that I have here.

I have never said
“Thank you!”
to that vast and gallant throng,
but now,
weeping in shame and gratitude
I bow my head,
and beg forgiveness
for me overlooking them,
and tell those valiant Patriots:
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!”

Why I Do Not Fear Death In Surgery — Haibun

During my recent surgery, I (ultimately) did not fear death. This is my tale and truth:

 
During my recent surgery, I (ultimately) did not fear death. This is my tale and truth:

Two decades ago I had open chest surgery for Constrictive Pericarditis. Did I fear death. YES! When I researched by condition, a study at Johns Hopkins Medical Center said there was an 85% mortality rate on these types of surgeries! Should I not fear death?!? YES. But then my doctor told me that was because most of the patients were 80+ years old, had already had several heart surgeries, and were already in a weakened condition. So I felt better.

Surgical Mistake Way Back Then

Surgeons lifting off my stiffened pericardium from around my heart.

Back then, for this type of surgery, they cracked open my rib cage (just like with open heart surgery) and peeled away the stiffened pericardium. You can read about that experience by opening this link here. Unfortunately, when they sewed me back up, they left a gap in my upper abdominal wall. As a result, I’ve had an incision hernia there for nearly 20 years. Because of the way it bulged out just below my sternum, we’ve affectionately called at my “alien” (like the movie). As stare-worthy (especially on the beach) as my alien is,  it has been obnoxious and very weird looking.  

Lately, it’s also been pushing against various parts of my innards, causing me to have uncontrolled hickups for days at a time. I finally decided enough was enough, and that I would go in for surgery. Dr. Sangara, at the WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Georgia, agreed to do a robotics hernia repair (no cracking open my chest!); he said the surgery would last just under two hours, with check-in starting at 8 a.m.; I would be heading home at about 1 p.m..

Fear Death Before Surgery

As I mentioned, the night before surgery I was feeling very nervous about the surgery. Even though it was a robotics outpatient surgery (so it’s not that big of a deal,) I still felt uncertain and afraid. And then I realized I did not have to fear death. Why and how? I could ask my Priesthood-holding step son, Elijah, to give me a Priesthood blessing. That would take away my fear. He agreed, and called up his cousin Noah from next door to help.  

How wonderful that was! They anointed my head with consecrated (olive) oil, then laid their hands on my head. Through the power of the Melchizedek priesthood and in the Name of Jesus Christ, Elijah pronounced the blessing. Among other things, in it he said ” I bless you that you’ll be calm and not worry.” 

Do Not Fear Death

At the moment he  blessed me that I would be calm, I felt a giant curtain of calm and peace descending over me. It started at my head and continued down through my entire body. I felt completely at peace, totally relaxed. In fact, afterwards, when Elijah went upstairs and Noah went back next door, I went to bed. I was so totally at peace that I was sound asleep in probably 10 minutes.  

The morning of the surgery I woke up at 3:45 because we needed to be in Marietta at 6, which meant we needed to leave home by about 4:20. As I awoke, the first thing I thought was “OH NO! My surgery is today!” I started to get nervous. Then I thought “You had a Priesthood blessing and things are going to be fine!” Immediately the calmness returned to me.  

The surgery went fine. My alien hernia is gone. They pumped my stomach full of CO2, so now my entire gut looks like I swallowed two rugby balls. Interestingly, there is a divot where the bump used to be. I told my wife I was going to lay out in the yard, put water in the indentation, and become a bird bath! I’m home, walking around, writing, eating, and still calm, knowing I’m going to recover and that this is going to help me.  

It’s such a privilege to be able to have Elijah and Noah give me a Priesthood blessing and help me be calm. Afterwards, I did not fear death. More importantly, I knew things were going to be okay. Thanks to both of those fine young men that they could do that for me. In fact, after I came home from the surgery, I composed this haiku about the experience.

Why Not Fear Death – Haiku

There are 2 reasons
to not fear death: Be ready/
Or be blessed you won’t.