Monthly Archives: February 2018

Danskos or Skechers? Gun Control Now

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“Wisdom is better than weapons of war…”
Ecclesiastes 9:18

This might help you understand where I am right now: This morning as I was getting dressed I debated whether I should wear my Danskos or my Skechers. I decided on the Skechers. If I need to be able to move fast, help my students get out of the building, and jump for the tree outside my office window, I think Skechers would work best, right?

Yeah. God is Love. Love will protect. And so forth. I believe that. But Love also provides us with the wisdom, and Mind provides us with the intelligence, to take the sensible steps we need to take in our human lives. Just as Jesus didn’t leap out of the tower when he was tempted to (“Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”) – I believe we need to not throw ourselves out of 12-story windows to see if God will save us. And we need not make available to private citizens the type of guns that were designed to kill large numbers of people in a very short time. Common sense, people. Common sense.

Someone commented on one of my posts that more people get struck by lightning every year than have been killed in school shootings. About that: If you choose to stand on the top of a hill holding a metal rod during a lightning storm your odds of being struck by lightning increase a lot. And if we, as a society, choose to allow these types of guns in the hands of people who have no business owning them, we shouldn’t be surprised if a lot of innocent people die.

We need gun control now.

Click here to see a map of the mass shootings since Sandy Hook.

 

The Great Heart of Love

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“When the heart speaks, however simple the words, its language is always acceptable to those who have hearts.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

A poem for my love –
A Simple and Unremarkable Perfection

It’s a miracle of perfection.
I am warm and fed and I can hear
my loved one tapping the keys
on his laptop
and clearing his throat
near me
I have chamomile tea with
cream and a chunk of
sourdough bread and the wind is
moving
the rain-splattered screen on the
window
and making the lights behind it
look like they’re dancing
I feel no pain or fear
I know I’m completely safe
and I imagine coming through
some terrible danger
and finding myself in this room
and what a miracle that would
seem to be
and how much I’d appreciate the
simple unremarkable
perfection of it
and I am filled with gratitude
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from A Poem Lives on My Windowsill

heart

 

This is the day that Love hath made…

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“This is the day that Love hath made! Be glad, give thanks, rejoice!”

Love Hath Made

Sunset over flooded fields in Skagit County, Washington State. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.

A Confession: Sometimes Anger Works for Me

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“Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

I’ve now and then shared some of the thoughts that have brought me healing.  Usually these are thoughts of hope and joy, humor and cheery positivity. But sometimes there’s another mental place I go when I need healing – a place that I’ve been weirdly reluctant to share with others. But… maybe it’s time. Here it is: Sometimes I just get completely angry and exasperated with sickness and gloom. Sometimes my inner rabble gets roused and I get this powerful sense of indignation towards anything that would try to foist itself on me that I don’t want foisted on me. Sometimes I feel this powerful surge of revolt against anything that would try to take away my God-given right to wholeness and holiness. I laugh at the gloom, pull it from its fear-built pedestal, and knock it into smithereens. Yeah. Sometimes anger seems to work well for me. So there it is. My secret’s out at last. Thanks for letting me make my confession. I feel so much better now.

Alrighty. Carry on then…
– Karen

A New Ending for an Old Poem

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“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

“If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools…”
– Rudyard Kipling, If

Karen’s ending:
If you can think bigger than what’s best for you alone
And consider the needs and wants of others before your own
If you’re able to function without a computer or cellphone
And in the midst of crises keep an even-tempered tone
If you’re willing to give your life to serve a noble cause
And not expect to be appreciated, thanked, or be “The Boss”
Then you are the woman or the man I want for Pres.
You are the person who might lead us out of this mess.
– Karen

“Do you want to go for a drive?”

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Dad is watching a movie when I get there. I sit down in the chair next to him and we hold hands for awhile. When I start getting ready to leave Dad says he wants to go with me.

Dad: I need permission to leave here.
Karen: No, you don’t. Do you want to go for a drive?
(Dad nods his head yes, and Melissa helps me get him ready to go. When I open the door to the passenger seat, he looks in and says, in surprise, “Hey! It’s clean!”)

I decide to drive us out towards the Sisters Espresso Stand to see if the flood waters have gone down there. If the waters have gone down and the stand is open I’ll buy Dad a root beer float.

Dad: It’s not the best weather for a drive.
Karen: Yeah, it’s kind of ugly out here, isn’t it? (pause) I love you, Daddy.
Dad: And I love you!

(We pass an eagle sitting in a tree and I point it out to Dad.)
Dad: (pondering eagles) We never saw any eagles in Los Angeles. Maybe they like this weather better.
(We pass a cool old farmhouse – I’m just about to point it out to Dad and tell him how much I’ve always liked that house, when Dad notices it on his own.)
Dad: That’s a picturesque place!
Karen: Yeah! They moved that here from another place…
Dad: (having a hard time hearing) What?
Karen: They bought that house for, like, a dollar forty-nine and had it moved out here from another place.
Dad: (nodding) And held up traffic getting it out here.
Karen: (laughing) Yup!
(We pass Allen School.)
Dad: Did you used to teach there?
Karen: Yup. And you showed your K2 slideshow to my students there.
Dad: (nodding) I remember.

The flood waters have gone down around the espresso stand and I see that I can drive in there. I pull in next to the stand.
Karen: I think we need to get you a root beer float.
Dad: (nods his head) Yeah!
(I get Dad his root beer float and bring it to him. Dad takes it and thanks me, and starts happily slurping it.)

We head back to Dad’s home. I pull into the driveway and up to the front door.
Dad: Are you going to dump me off here?
Karen: This is your home, Daddy.
Dad: (nods his head) Oh.
(I help him out of the car, into the house and up the stairs. He sees Melissa and says hi, and asks her if he should go into the living room. She smiles and helps him into one of the lounger chairs.)
Karen: I love you, Daddy. Thank you for going for a drive with me.
Dad: I love you, Karen.
(I head out – turn and blow him one last kiss, and he smiles and waves.)

Heaven is…

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Heaven is free of fear 4

Sunset after the storm. Taken near LaConner, WA. 

Unflappable Humanity and Pugnacious Joy

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My dear Humoristian hooligans, 

Go out there and spread your magic! May the stodgy, stingy, and stuffy be transformed by your irrepressible love of life. May bullying busybody bossy britches be bested by your unflappable humanity and pugnacious joy. May you make memories of moments that put a grin on your face and a bounce in your step. May you be part of the wonder of today.
Amen.

Karen

magic today

This little identity-theft-got-skype-hacked-maybe-all-my-accounts-have-been-compromised blip in my life…

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Really?!
I am tired.
I am teacher-on-Friday tired.
I am Dad-is-99-and-on-hospice tired.
I am a-loved-one-has-died tired.
And you think I have energy
and time to worry about THIS
little identity-theft-got-skype-hacked-
maybe-all-my-accounts-have-been-
compromised blip in my life?!
Seriously?!

“Identity theft” can’t steal my real identity,
and dishonesty can’t destroy what’s true.
Lies can’t destroy what really matters –
the beauty in the world, and Love’s
love for me and you.

I have reached that place in my life
where I no longer can find the time
to worry about all the possible things
that may happen – I’ve found
all that’s really real is fine.

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

so tired

“The divine Mind maintains all identities, from a blade of grass to a star, as distinct and eternal… Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense. The identity, or idea, of all reality continues forever…”

“Error is false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spiritual identity or foundation, and it has no real existence.”

“We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects no light. So evil should be denied identity or power, because it has none of the divine hues.”

“God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men.”
 – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures