The Flood Gates Open

The flood gates open
and unbounded joy pours out –
O feel the glory!
-Karen Molenaar Terrell


Symbols for the Times

Symbols for the times –
BLM posters in windows
and fingers in the peace sign,
banners of rainbows
and cars in a COVID-testing line.
Sunflowers and masks,
and knitted pink hats,
Taking a knee,
and piles of requests
to save the bees,
Fans waving flags of yellow and blue.
A world in labor,
birthing a world that’s new.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Rainbow Over Padilla Bay. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.










Our Own Niche in Time and Eternity

Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.”
-Mary Baker Eddy (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70)

Father-Mother God –
Thank you for expressing me in this time
and this place – right here, right now.
Thank you for the opportunity
to manifest Love, Truth, and Soul
in this niche in time and eternity.
It is a privilege to be here with Your other
children who are sharing the current hour
and space with me.
None of us would be here if we weren’t up
to the tasks in front of us –
if this wasn’t our own niche in time and eternity –
if we weren’t made for exactly this moment.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Beloved children, the world has need of you…”
-Mary Baker Eddy

“Be It Song, Sermon, or Science”

“Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love – be it song, sermon, or Science – blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ’s table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

And in the spirit of that quote –

Here’s a song:
Here’s the first song I sang on “singsnap” – a song by Jason Mraz that feels like an anthem to the world – not just a love song between two people, but a promise to the planet: “I won’t give up on us…we’ve got a lot to learn, but God knows we’re worth it.”
https://www.singsnap.com/#/d/listen/1020508

Here’s a sermon:
We have just a tiny scrap of existence here
– a miniscule piece of our eternity –
to love and learn and live
and leave something good behind.
Let’s not waste it on nothings.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

In his sermon, The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond asks,“Why do we want to live to-morrow? Is it because there is some one who loves you, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back? There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and are beloved.” Drummond writes, “There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful, there is a great deal that is great and engrossing, but it will not last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while…You will give yourself to many things; give yourself first to love.”

And here’s some Science:
Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed  by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics,  thought passes naturally from effect back to cause.  Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive  and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself, out of all that is mortal.”
– from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

Here’s an example of the use of Science for a healing of a puffed-up hand:
Observation: My right hand appears to be puffed-up like a balloon.
Question: Can I use Christian Science to heal this puppy?
Hypothesis: If I use my understanding of Christian Science, then I will experience healing.
Predict: I predict my hand will be healed.
Test: I’ll use my understanding of Christian Science to heal the “ballooned” hand.
Analyze the data and draw a conclusion.
Present the findings:

November, 2011:
I woke up to find my hand inflated to twice its normal size, and really painful – I couldn’t bend my fingers or anything. My first thought was, “Well, this is interesting.”

I got myself dressed and drove to my workplace. I figured I’d just work around my inflated hand until it went back to normal. But when I showed my hand to my co-workers to see if they’d had any experience with something like this, they were all really scared for me. One of them told me about an allergic reaction that had nearly killed her son. Three or four other people mentioned that flesh-eating disease, or other serious infections, that had nearly killed them or their loved ones. Everyone advised me to see a doctor post haste.

Well, I really like my hand, you know – and the thought of losing it was pretty scary to me. So I called our family doctor right away and left work to see him. Normally he laughs with me about stuff, but this time he was not laughing. He was pretty serious, actually. He said he thought it was either a serious infection or rheumatoid arthritis – although my case wasn’t typical of either one of those because I didn’t have any open wounds and my joints weren’t inflamed. He wanted to start me on drugs right away – some to address the one thing, and some to address the other – and he wanted to run blood tests on me. I agreed to the blood tests, but I told him I didn’t want to start taking any drugs until I knew better what was going on with me. (The one or two times I’ve ever actually taken pharmaceuticals, I’ve always had a bad side effect from them. Also, when I’m working out a problem through Christian Science, part of the process for me is real-izing the “reality” of Spirit, and the nothingness of matter – and, in taking drugs, I’d, in essence, be giving power to matter, and working contrary to what I needed to do for a healing in Christian Science.)

So I didn’t take the drugs, I went in for the blood tests, and came home and called for prayerful support from a Christian Science practitioner.

Although there’s no template or anything for Christian Science healing – sometimes healing can come so quickly – instantly – with just a quick change of thought – that there’s really no process involved. But I usually start my treatments with an affirmation of God, Good, Love, as the only power, the only reality. My application of Christian Science to this problem probably went something like this:

I am the idea of Love and Truth and Life – eternally perfect and whole, healthy and active, unchanged, undimmed, loved, loving, intelligent, alert, aware of all good. The belief that I can ever be less than my perfect, ideal self, is a lie. The belief that I can ever be separated from Love, Good, God, is a lie. As an idea, I dwell forever within the consciousness of Love. I am the image and likeness of Love. I am the perfect child of perfect Love. I reflect nothing but Love, Spirit, Life, Truth, Principle, Mind, Soul. There’s nothing about me that is imperfect, for there’s nothing in my Father-Mother out of which imperfection could come.

And, for the treatment of my hand, I definitely handled the fear in my thought. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook: “Fear, which is an element of all disease, must be cast out to readjust the balance for God… Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. 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… ”

The next morning my hand was even MORE puffed-up. But the fear in my thought was completely gone, and – even though my hand didn’t appear better – I knew I was healed. By the second morning my hand was completely back to normal.

When I called the doctor’s office to find out what the results of the blood test were, the receptionist said that one of the markers in the blood test indicated rheumatoid arthritis, and they wanted me to set up an appointment with a rheumatoid arthritis specialist. I told her my hand was completely fine now. She was really surprised by this, and called a nurse to the phone to talk to me. I told the nurse the hand was deflated, and there was nothing wrong with me at all. She didn’t say anything right away – I could imagine her trying to process what I was telling her. She finally said okay, that if anything changed to let them know, but she guessed they wouldn’t “go any further” with it right then.

That was ten years ago and there’s been no return of the condition.

Conclusion: Love heals.



This Is What I Hope

I want to know if the mother in labor, killed
in the Ukraine, is holding her new baby close
wherever she is now,
and rejoicing in Life never-ending.
This is what I hope for her.

I want to know if the young Russian conscript –
who texted his mother just before he was killed
in a war he wasn’t expecting –
is hugged safe in the arms of Mother-Love.
This is what I hope for him.

I want to know if the man who started this war
will wake up someday on the other side of this life
and meet the mother and her baby and the conscript
face-to-face and see what he has done and feel
the pain of loss they felt in their last moments on earth,
and feel shame.
This is what I hope for him.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

World in Mourning

A world in mourning.
Weeping in the dark of night.
Praying for the light.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Joy Wins

Does it make sense to sacrifice
the very things we’re battling to win?
To give up our joy, and lose our love,
would be to let hate and fear win in the end.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Cause and Consequence

The joy is always here, you know.
War and famine, pestilence and pain,
can’t stop joy from bubbling up,
unrestrained.

Love is always with us, too –
unhampered, irrepressible, strong –
heedless of whether you’re the “wronged”
or the “wrong.”

The thing about Love and joy
is they don’t depend on circumstance,
happenstance, or material substance.
They are both cause and consequence.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

With Old Friends, Laughing

Sitting in a bubble of joy
with old friends, laughing.
For a couple of hours
the world’s fear and terror
have no power.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Dee Molenaar and Tom Hornbein, 2018

Meeting Cool People in the Customer Service Line

I had the best time waiting in the customer service line yesterday.

Earlier in the week I’d bought a DVD that looked to be on sale for $7.99 from its original price of $16.99. When I got home I’d discovered I’d been charged $16.99. At the time I’d just shrugged it off as one of those things and went about life.But yesterday, when I’d been back in the store, I’d seen that movie was STILL on sale for $7.99 and I wondered if I could get reimbursed for the extra I’d paid for it earlier. I didn’t have my receipt with me or anything, but I had my customer ID number in my head and I thought the customer service folks might be able to see my purchasing history in their computers. So I got at the end of the customer service line to find out.

The nicest people were in line with me. The line was pretty long when I got in the back of it, and when a young man wearing a WSU jacket got behind me I suggesed maybe we should shift the line so we didn’t block people from getting past us. He agreed and we started forming the line to the right – but now we were blocking the path to the restroom. The woman in front of me smiled and said that, in her experience, she found it was best to make the line go the other way. So the young man said, “Here, let’s go this way” and stepped aside so I could get in front of him going the other direction. Team work!

There was a lady in front of us who had the coolest hat – it was a panda face hat with ears and a smile. And a gentleman ahead of me, who’d patiently waited in line a really long time, smiled and laughed and thanked the customer service rep. when she was finally able to help him. I gave him a thumbs up as he walked past me on his way out, and he smiled over his mask and gave me a thumbs up back.

When I got to the customer service representative she was so helpful! She told me what I needed to do to take care of my problem – it involved going back into the store to find another copy of the movie and then getting at the end of the customer service line again. I thanked her and went to get the DVD I needed.

When I’d gotten the DVD I needed, I got back at the end of the line. I had a choice at this point – let myself feel frustrated or let myself enjoy the moment. I chose to enjoy the moment. There was, honestly, no place else I would rather have been at that moment than waiting in line with all the other cool customers, watching people and laughing with them. I was safe and comfortable and had everything I needed right there.

There was a young mom in front of me in the line with her son – a little boy of about two with his hands in his pockets – he looked like a little man – so cute! I smiled and waved at him and he smiled and waved back at me – which totally made my day.

When I got back to the customer service rep. she was very efficient and helpful and I ended up getting $9 back, and an apology for being overcharged for the DVD I’d bought on sale earlier in the week.

$9 for standing in line 15 minutes and making new friends seems like a pretty good deal to me.

P.S. The woman with the cool panda hat was Asian; the man who gave me the thumbs up was Black; the woman standing in front of me was White; and the man standing behind me was Latino, I think. I’ll let the little boy with his hands in his pockets represent any little boy anywhere with his hands in his pockets.