I had a kind of breakthrough for myself in the middle of the night – I can’t really explain what I experienced, but the short of it is that I had a conversation with Love that brought me a healing of terrible fear.
So anyway. When I left the house this morning I was floating on a cloud of Love. I had Mindy Jostyn’s CD in my car’s CD player, and her version of “I Walk with Love” came singing through the speakers –
“I walk with Love along the way, And O, it is a holy day; No more I suffer cruel fear, I feel God’s presence with me here; The joy that none can take away Is mine; I walk with Love today.”
Every car I passed seemed to be moving with me on the cloud of Love. I could feel Love’s choreography as I moved down Burlington Blvd towards Fred Meyers – every light turned green as I approached it, every car moved at the same pace, in harmony.
I moved through Fred’s on my cloud – exchanging smiles with my fellow customers. I told the young man stocking shelves how much joy his purple mohawk brought me. He grinned and thanked me.
On my way home, I stopped at the Starbucks near Cook Road, to get myself a pumpkin spice latte. Starbucks was full of customers, and there was a long line to the drive-thru. The barista who came to the counter to help me looked like he needed a kind word and a good laugh. He went through his script – how can I help you? would you like whip with that? how’s your day going? I told him I was having a great day, and asked him how his day was going. He smiled and said they were pretty busy. He was tired. He asked me for my name. I leaned in and said, in a half-whisper, “Karen,” and waited to see his reaction. He quietly typed my name into his computer, and I thanked him for not laughing at my name. Which – as I’d hoped – got him to start laughing. When it came time to give him a tip, I told him I was giving him the biggest tip for not laughing, and he grinned and thanked me, and wished me a good day.
I went off to the side to await my latte.
A young woman entered the shop and started scanning the faces of the other customers. When she got to my face, she smiled. I smiled back, and she approached me. “Are you a mother?” she asked. I told her yes, I was. “My kids are outside in that car, and I need to use the restroom. Can you go outside and watch them while I use the restroom?” Being recognized as a mother – as someone who could be trusted with her children – was the highlight of my morning. I told the woman it would be my honor.
I went out and stood by her car. I gave a salute to one of the youngsters inside it, and she grinned back at me.
When the mother came out of the shop, she gave me a hug and thanked me. I thanked her for the priviledge of guarding her children.
Nothing has the power to stop us from loving one another. There’s no border, boundary, wall or lie, no person, place, or thing, no history, ethnicity, religion or king, that has the power to stop us from loving one another.
I’m kind of shaky as I type this because this is, for me at least, an epic decision and commitment: My family has decided it’s time to sell Dad’s K2 paintings – the two highest watercolors ever painted (at 25,000′ on K2), and the eight watercolors Dad painted as his team made their way up the mountain.
Some background on the paintings:
Our father, Dee Molenaar, was a member of the 1953 mountaineering expedition to K2 – a team of climbers put together in hopes of making the first ascent of K2.
The climb did not go as hoped. The team found themselves caught in a snowstorm at 25,000 feet. During the 10 days the climbers were trapped in their tents at their high camp, our father painted two paintings of K2 from memory. Because water was so precious up there, his teammates made him drink the watercolor water once he was done painting. Dad was always kind of proud that he drank that water.
During the storm, one of their members, Art Gilkey, became dangerously ill with blood clots in his lungs. His teammates realized if they didn’t get him down to a lower elevation he would die. They also realized there was a good chance they would die trying to get their teammate down the icy slopes of K2 – but they knew they had to try to save their friend’s life.
As they were lowering Art Gilkey down the mountain, one of the climbers slipped, three ropes tangled, and five of the men – our father amongst them – found themselves hurtling towards a cliff with no way to stop themselves. Fortunately, one of the men, Pete Schoening – the youngest and strongest member of the team – devised a belay that saved their lives. That belay has come to be known as “The Belay” in the annals of mountaineering history.
The men left Art secured to the slope while they went to their tents to recover, but when they came back to where they’d left their friend, Art was gone. It was like the slope had been swept clean. It appeared an avalanche had swept their friend down the mountain.
The rest of the team was eventually able to make it back to civilization – and so were our father’s paintings.
The team didn’t make it to the summit of K2, but the team is remembered for their extraordinary heroism on their attempt. From an article titled “The Mountain of Mountains” in Outside Magazine (November 1, 2003): “I have great respect for the Italians who summited K2 for the first time in 1954,” says Reinhold Messner, “but even greater respect for the Americans and the way they failed in 1953. They were decent. They were strong. And they failed in the most beautiful way you can imagine. This is inspiration for a lifetime.”
***
What’s led us to make this decision now?
1) I ain’t getting any younger, and, as the executor for Dad’s will, I’d like to see this taken care of before I croak.
2) Dad lived to be 101, and, by the time he passed, there wasn’t much left to pass on to his four grandchildren. We think Pop would have wanted us to sell his paintings to be able to pass on something to the youngsters.
3) There have recently been some of Dad’s paintings put on sale, purported to have been painted on K2, that were NOT painted on K2. We’re thinking it’s time to put the ACTUAL K2 paintings out there.
***
Setting a price for these paintings has been the most challenging part of this process for us. To our family the paintings are, of course, priceless. And there’s no precedent, you know? This is a one-of-a-kind sale – these paintings, and the circumstances behind them, can’t be replicated. It’s the history behind them that gives them their value.
We hope to find a buyer that recognizes their value, and is able to pay for it. (We’re in dialogue with a mountaineering organization that might help us auction it off in a couple months.)
I wake and feel Love calling to me – inviting me to commune with Her in the still of the night. “All is well,” comes Her reassurance. “All is Love.” And I feel it. I feel my connection to all of creation – to every tree, stone, and being – in the still of the night, enfolded in the arms of Love.
August 20: I drove out to Deception Pass today to see an 800-year-old friend. Just knowing my old tree-friend is still there, still making oxygen for us, still standing tall, gives me hope for our planet. It was good to see her again.
I met NEW friends while I was there, too – Bucky the pup approached me with a wagging tail and a sweet doggy smile; and I met Mike, who was there with his young family. When Mike and I got to chatting, I learned he, too, had climbed Rainier – and I, of course, had to show him Dad’s Wikipedia page, and tell him about the paintings Dad had painted on K2 at 25,000 feet, back in 1953. (I love how Pop is still connecting me to new friends.)
I explored the beach for a bit – found an agate glowing up at me from a bed of pebbles, and snapped pictures of birds and driftwood and other cool beach-stuff. After I left Deception Pass, I drove to my favorite bookshop in Oak Harbor, The Book Rack, and treated myself to a new murder mystery (*A Cute Little Murder*) and a cupcake and cookie from their bakery. I sat there at a high table for a bit, swinging my legs, and reading from my new book, and soaking in the magic I always find in a bookstore.
And now a poem.
This is one I wrote for my old tree-friend back in 2022.
Be a Tree
The son and I talked about the tree on the drive home. 850 years it had lived on this planet! It had been seeded in the late 1100’s – around the time of Genghis Khan and England’s King John, before Mansua Musa or Marco Polo, da Vinci or Michelangelo. Before Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mooji. It rooted into the soil as a tender seedling and grew during the Black Plague; grew while the ash from Krakatoa blocked the sun; and while factories sprouted up across the northern hemisphere. It grew while soldiers fought to end slavery; while World War I and World War II raged across Europe; while our planet warmed; and while division and despair made humans sometimes wonder if our planet was beyond repair. It grew. Quietly, without fanfare or medals or approval or star ratings – it lived, created oxygen, and grew – because that is what trees do. And maybe when it was older and sturdy, indigenous children played in its bends and called it “friend.” I like to think that’s true.
Yesterday I visited my wise friend, Charles. He could tell I was scared about our world. “Just be present,” he said. “Be a tree.”
-Karen Molenaar Terrell (Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
August 19: I needed a walk, but when I headed up Chuckanut towards Bellingham I wasn’t exactly sure where that walk was going to be. And then I found myself turning into Larrabee State Park. I’ve done hikes to Clayton Beach and Fragrance Lake, but I don’t think I’ve visited the main part of the park for several years.
I decided to do some exploring. I found the old tunnel I remember (built in 1935), with the happy mural painted inside it. After I came out of the tunnel, I followed the trail to the left and walked out to some cool rock outcrops with views of the bay, and a memorial bench to Bruce Emery Sherlaw. (I just googled to find out more about Bruce and learned he was a writer, tap dancer, singer, teacher, actor, and taekwondo black belt! And he was only 22 when he passed!) https://www.legacy.com/…/name/bruce-sherlaw-obituary
Then I followed the trail back to where I’d started, and went down to the beach.
I loved the vibes down on the beach – there was a cheery dad skipping rocks on the water; children wading into the bay; young folks lounging in the sun; and smiling pups, drenched in saltwater. I leaned against a big log next to a vollyball net and just soaked in the ambiance.
There was a song playing in the background that I recognized as a blast from the past: “When everything’s meant to be broken/ I just want you to know who I am.” I moved under the vollyball net and to the other side, to ask about the song. I think the people playing the music thought, at first, I was there to complain about the volume or something, and were getting ready to apologize – but I laughed and told them I really liked that song, and thanked them for playing it. I asked them what it was and they told me “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. I nodded, remembering. I told them it was the perfect song – because that’s what we all want, right? For people to know who we are. I said it was making me a little teary, and they smiled at me in a kind way, understanding.
And then I moved beyond them and out to where the rocks jut out into the bay. I found a golden fly on the sandstone, the word “HOPE” written in the recess of a boulder, and, above me, sap sparkling on a tree. (I took pictures of all of that and put them in another post.) Magic everywhere!
And then I went back to the trail and hiked up to the place where the tree with the sparkling pitch jutted out over the water. I found a memorial bench to Dr. Robert F. Kaiser tucked into the side of the trail up there. (My googling tells me that Dr. Kaiser was a Bellingham ophthamologist, renowned in his field.)
I stood on the bluff for a while, looking out at the water, snapping photos, filling my soul with all the peace around me, before heading back to my car and home.
I love being a tourist, and I don’t have to travel far to be one. (Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
I’ve known young William since 2016 when I stumbled upon a piece he’d written at Northwestern University, and was blown away by his intelligence and wit. And now here we are – ten years later – and today I finally got to meet William in the person!
William is extraordinary. This is not hyperbole. He actually is extraordinary. He’s kind and wise, and has a wonderful sense of humor. He’s a rocket scientist, a novelist, a cartographer, and he’s working on his second master’s degree – and he hasn’t even hit 30, yet!
This summer’s he’s been up here from his home base in California, doing an internship in the Seattle area. And today we met up for lunch at Tweets Cafe in the little foody town of Edison.
I got to introduce William to Mickey, who helped me when I found a turtle at Lake Padden, and who I later learned worked at Tweets. Mickey is AWESOME! We ordered our lunches – a half a roasted chicken for William, a quiche for me – and then sat out on the deck and talked and laughed like the old friends we are.
After lunch, I gave William a little tour of Edison and we bought treats at Breadfarm. Iris was manning the counter, and she was a hoot! She was very patient with me, and when I asked her if I could take her picture, she said she’d just go fetch our treats and then be back in a moment for her photo shoot.
A line of classic cars came through town, and I managed to snap a quick picture of a golden beauty. And little Baker and Brody pups appeared, and I got a picture of them, too.
William followed me in my car, Rosalita Ipswich O’Molenovich, with his car, Trigger, and I brought him back home so’s Scotty could give him a tour of his orchard, and I could give him some of Dad’s old maps. (I remembered that William had created his own maps for his novels, and thought he might appreciate bringing home a couple of Dad’s maps.)
And then it was time for William and Trigger to move on to more adventures (this was the most north Trigger and William have ever been – but tomorrow they go to Canada where they will set a new record for themselves.)
This week has brought me so many lovely meetings with old friends – with my former student, Jamie; with my old friend, Deidre; with Freida, a friend I met 50 years ago, and hadn’t seen for 25 years; with the Kuykendalls, who brought me that post card from the 1975 K2 expedition with Pop’s K2 painting on the cover; and, today, with my old young friend, William. This week has been a healing week for me – full of laughter and people who inspire me.
I am grateful for all the good. I am wealthy beyond imagining in the things that really matter.
My friend, Susanne, messaged me to say she had something she wanted to give me and asked if we could meet for coffee. I was intrigued. Even if Susanne hadn’t had something she wanted to give me, I would have said yes to meeting up with her and her husband, Phil – they are two of those people who never fail to bring me joy whenever we’re together.
So we met up at the Stompin’ Grounds coffee shop in La Conner this morning. I’ll write more about the joy of being in the company of Susanne and Phil in another non-public post. But in this post, I want to share what Susanne gifted me with this morning.
She handed me a card in a protective plastic sleeve. The side I saw first was the back side – and there were all these names I recognized as Pop’s friends from his climbing community – Jim and Lou Whittaker; Jim’s wife, Dianne Roberts; Jim Wickwire; Galen Rowell; Steve Marts; Fred Dunham; Leif Patterson; Rob Schaller; and Fred Stanley. Then Susanne said, “But that’s not all. Turn it over.”
And there was a copy of a watercolor of K2 by my pop, Dee Molenaar!
I started tearing up.
Susanne explained that her former husband, Jim Taylor, who’d passed in 2018, had received his degree in geology from WWU, and had acquired the post card from the 1975 expedition to K2 through the Geology Club there. When Susanne saw that the artist for the K2 painting was Dee Molenaar, she thought of me, and wanted me to have this card.
Susanne’s kindness to me this morning totally lifted me, and made my day.
Thank you, dear friend!
(I love this: “CARRIED BY RUNNER FROM K2 BASE CAMP – 18,000′)
When I drove up to Artist Point this morning, I’d been planning to do the Artist Point hike. But, once I got there, the Table Mountain hike called to me. It’s short – but it packs a punch. There’s a quick elevation gain (725 feet, according to the Washington Trail Association) up the side of a steep cliff, and there’s one place where hikers have to navigate a high step made for people with longer legs than me.
I try to do this hike every year, and I decided today was the day.
When I started out, the temperature was perfect – cool and breezey. I stopped every now and then to take pictures of Shuksan and butterflies, alpine flowers and the Bagley Lakes down below.
I managed to get myself over the high step by using a handhold I found in the cliff, and pretty quickly found myself at the top. I sat on a boulder and ate my trail mix and enjoyed the view.
On the way down, I kept thinking about that one place where I’d have to figure out how to get over that high step. In my experience, a rock scramble is always harder going down than going up. But here’s a cool thing – when I got to that spot on the trail, there were two young men – brothers – maneuvering around it as I got there. I was trying to figure out how to get out of their way, while they were trying to figure out how they could help me. The one brother said to the other: “She’s going to need to use that handhold.” And the other brother responded by giving me room to reach for it.
But, in the end, I found another way down. I said, “I think I’m just going to do this…” and I sat down on the step and lowered myself down. Easy!
When I turned the corner of the switchback, I saw a couple that I guessed were the parents of the young men. They confirmed this. Then I told them how kind their sons had been to me. I learned the family was visiting from Colorado and had never been to Mount Baker before. I told them that years ago I’d climbed a mountain in Colorado’s Collegiate Peaks called Mount Harvard, and they knew exactly what I was talking about. I pointed to Mount Baker and said I’d climbed that one, too – and now I look at it and think, “What was I thinking?!” Appu laughed and said, “You weren’t thinking and that is why you could do it!” The family was delightful. Appu kindly agreed to let me take her photo.
When I got off Table Mountain, I decided I wasn’t done with my hiking, yet, and drove on down to Heather Meadows to do a quick hike of the Fire and Ice Trail. And on THAT trail, I met more cool people! There were two couples – each with a toddler strapped to a parent’s front – and seeing the babies made me go right away to my grandma place. One of the little ones grinned at me from his pack and reached out to touch fingers. Awwww…
I told them it was so good to see them bringing their children into the mountains – away from screens – and they nodded and said, “Exactly!”
I don’t like posting pictures of children, but Sam and Addison, and Katie and Sean, agreed it would be fine for me to take a photo of them from the back. So there they are!
It was so good to be in the mountains again, my friends. The mountains are a healing place for me.
“Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” – Romans 13 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” -Galatians 3
A dear conservative friend I met years ago through our shared Christian Science faith, posted a letter she liked from a conservative Evangelical minister, Jeff Mullin, to Texas Rep. James Telarico. In this letter Pastor Mullin lectures Rep. Telarico about statements the representative has made that don’t seem to fit Jeff Mullin’s understanding of The Bible or Jesus’ teachings. I’m not going to repost or share Pastor Mullin’s whole letter – you can find it for yourself online. But I would like to respond to Pastor Mullin’s points as a progressive Christian Scientist, using passages from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (published in 1875, long before Rep. Telarico, Pastor Mullin, or myself) by the founder of the Christian Science church, Mary Baker Eddy.
Pastor Mullin: “1. Concerning Your Statement that God Is Non-Binary…” Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God… The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.” (p. 517)
Pastor Mullin: “2. Concerning Your Statement That Other Religions Are Circling the Same Truth…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “Jesus’ history made a new calendar, which we call the Christian era; but he established no ritualistic worship. He knew that men can be baptized, partake of the Eucharist, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath, make long prayers, and yet be sensual and sinful.” (p. 20) “Our Master taught no mere theory, doctrine, or belief. It was the divine Principle of all real being which he taught and practiced. His proof of Christianity was no form or system of religion and worship, but Christian Science, working out the harmony of Life and Love.” (p. 26)
Pastor Mullin: “3. Concerning Your Statement That the Bible Is Silent on Abortion…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “According to recent lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individualities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of the most complicated corporeal structures, including those we call human. Here these material researches culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are devoid of metaphysics.” (p 5.49) “The continual contemplation of existence as material and corporeal – as beginning and ending, and with birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages – hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting-point whatsoever, then the great I AM is a myth. If Life is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embryonic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for Deity.”
Pastor Mullin: “4. Concerning Your Use of Mary’s Consent to Defend Abortion Rights….”
Mary Baker Eddy: “Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God.”
Pastor Mullin: “5. Concerning Your Statement that Jesus Was a Radical Feminist…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.” (p. 340) “Civil law establishes very unfair differences between the rights of the two sexes. Christian Science furnishes no precedent for such injustice, and civilization mitigates it in some measure. Still, it is a marvel why usage should accord woman less rights than does either Christian Science or civilization. “Our laws are not impoartial, to say the least, in their discrimination as to the person, property, and parental claims of the two sexes. If the elective franchise for women will remedy the evil without encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us hope it will be granted.” (p 63)
Pastor Mullin: “6. Concerning Your Statements About Biological Sex…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “Gender means simply kind or sort, and does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or femininity.” (p. 508) “Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts.” (p. 516)
Pastor Mullin: “7. Concerning Your Support for Same-Sex Marriage and the Reinterpretation of Biblical Sexual Ethics…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “Kindred tastes, motives, and aspirations are necessary to the formation of a happy and permanent companionship.” (p 60) “Marriage should signify a union of hearts.” (p 64) “Matrimony, which was once a fixed fact among us, must lose its present slippery footing, and man must find permanence and peace in a more spiritual adherence.” (p 65)
Pastor Mullin: “8. Concerning the Danger of Reshaping Christianity to Fit Culture…”
Mary Baker Eddy: “Jesus’ promise is perpetual. Had it been given only to his immediate disciples, the Scriptural passage would read you, not they. The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following.” (p 328-329) “Love is impartial and universal in its adaptations and bestowals.” (p. 13)
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 