I love Cy of Village Books. She never fails to make me smile. Today she was bopping all over the store – cashiering, manning the information desk, fetching books, giving people (me) the key to the restroom – AND she took the time to spend a few minutes chatting with me about how to prepare the perfect turkey for Thanksgiving (it involves putting an orange inside it). She brings me joy.
Regarding the cormorant photo – I belong to a group called “Crap Bird Photography” – and I’ve been waiting for maybe years to capture this moment. I don’t think any further explanation is necessary.
I was standing behind a young man at Wood’s who had a cap that said “annoyed” on the back of it and – maybe because I’m a former middle school teacher? – this just totally tickled me. I debated tapping him on the shoulder to find out more about his cap – but… would that be annoying? Finally, I could not help myself and I tapped. He turned around (he looked very much like my eldest son!) and I told him I liked his hat and asked him about it. He smiled and explained that “annoyed” was a brand name, and then he graciously agreed to let me get a photo.
At the top of the ramp to Taylor Dock I looked over and saw a sweet little family of deer – a doe and two youngsters – grazing just behind the fence. They didn’t seem at all perturbed by my snapping camera, and calmly moved underneath the ramp to munch on the apples under the tree, and get out of the drizzle.
The lights in Fairhaven were beautiful last night – reflected on the wet sidewalks and Village Green.
Today a rocket scientist changed out the cabin filter in my car.
I set aside this morning to run errands: oil change, car tab renewal, bank, grocery shopping.
I thought I’d start with the one that most scared me: the oil change. I’m always a little scared I’m going to drive my car into the pit.
I got to Valvoline pretty early, and was the second car in line. While I was waiting to face my terror and drive over the pit, Ashlee came back to check my tire pressure, and to see if my lights were working. (All good!) I saw she had a *Star Trek* belt and asked her if she was a Star Trek fan – she said what she really enjoyed was *The Big Bang Theory* – and her favorite character on there was a Trekkie. I loved that Ashlee was a Big Bang fan – anyone who enjoyed that show is okay by me.
A fearless young man directed me over the pit. I thanked him for bringing me in safely and he said, “You’re welcome” – like he understood that this was serious business for me.
Everything was looking good – battery, brake fluid, and etc. Then the young woman who was ringing me up asked me how my air conditioner was working, and wondered if I might want the cabin filter changed. I had never, in the decade I’ve owned this car, had the cabin filter in it changed. It seemed like a good idea to take care of that.
She asked me if she could come around and get into the passenger side of the car, and I nodded. She opened the passenger door, and then pulled down my glove compartment box and it was like opening a secret door! There was a whole ‘nother world hidden back there!
At this point she went to get Zach, the manager. Zach is like a comic book Super Hero. I long ago discovered his brilliance when he helped me reset my old Ford Fiesta standard transmission maintenance light. The fact that he could even drive a standard transmission was cool – but knowing how to turn off that maintenance light – knowing the just right order to push which pedal and how long to hold it – that was epic.
Zach pulled out the glove compartment box completely, and then removed a panel below it, and, as he was doing this, he was pointing things out to me and explaining what he was doing, and I actually understood what he was saying! I asked him if he’d ever thought of being a teacher – he’d make a good one – and he told me he had considered that – and he knew there would be parts of teaching he’d like – but he could also see himself losing his patience sometimes, and he thought that probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
Zach was working in a very small space in my car – contorted between the passenger seat and the shield under the glove box. When I expressed sympathy to him, he told me he’d worked in smaller spaces, and this is when I learned he’d been a designer for a race car team when he was a student at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. (!)
A rocket scientist was working on my car.
For personal reasons, he’d dropped out before he’d completed his degree, but he told me that he was currently enrolled in an online program through Embry-Riddle – the old credits on his transcripts had transferred into the online program – and he was working on finishing up his degree with hopes of getting into a career in aeronautical engineering.
It took Zach probably 20 minutes to get that cabin filter replaced – he’s one of the few people in the Valvoline chain trained and trusted to do this procedure, and I felt really lucky that he was there today. I had such fun chatting with Zach for those twenty minutes. I learned that he’d grown up in a town in Oregon, where his parents had both been pediatricians, and that he loved his mom and dad, but liked the freedom of living up here and being able to create his own life with his wife (whom he’d met at Embry-Riddle and is herself employed as an aeronautical engineer).
Every now and then, while Zach was working on my car, his younger Valvoline teammates would come back and check with him to make sure they were doing things right. I loved the rapport I saw between Zach and the younger technicians. I could see respect and appreciation there. I could see Zach teaching.
After he was all done, I asked him if I could give him a hug – I told him it felt like he was one of my kids. He grinned and we exchanged a hug, and I drove away smiling.
Yup. Today a rocket scientist worked on my little car. How cool is that?!
Excerpt from “Connecting 101: Karen Molenaar Terrell’s Lab Class on Love” from the newest edition ofRenewal, published and edited by Constance Mears: “This consciousness of cosmic connection goes beyond basic friendliness. For Karen, it’s informed by her beliefs as a Christian Scientist.”
Every month my friend, Constance, brings us inspiration, beauty and wisdom in her online magazine, “Renewal.” She brings us magic.
This month “Renewal” prepares us for Thanksgiving – for sitting down around the table with family and friends and celebrating (or rebuilding) our connections with one another.
Author Shannon Willis speaks of the importance of putting down our devices and sharing our stories with each other.
Connie talks about the tradition of gratitude, and the healing that comes from building a shrine to what’s important to us.
And look! There’s me! Connie interviewed me to get my thoughts on connection.
You can read the magazine by clicking this link and then either downloading the magazine (this issue has happy ducks on the cover) or tapping on the little “full screen” box under the cover, and clicking the arrow to turn the page. (This works best on a full-sized computer.): https://www.constancemears.com/renewal/
I had an appointment at the Blaine Trusted Traveler Enrollment Center this morning, to interview for my NEXUS pass. I’ve known about this appointment for four months, and for four months I’ve stressed about it. Would I remember to bring all the right papers with me? When I was filling out the application, I’d accidentally answered the question about countries I’ve been to in the last five years by clicking on the “Austria” bubble instead of the “Australia” one – would that get me in trouble? Would there be anyone to laugh with me at the office – or would it be a very serious and solemn place?
I’d asked Scott to come with me – I told him I’d buy him breakfast afterwards. I really didn’t want to go there alone.
As soon as we stepped through the door into the office, I was greeted by a friendly man behind the counter named James. I told him I’d gotten there early, and he smiled and said he’d go ahead and take my birth certificate and passport and see if he could get me in sooner than scheduled.
Scott and I took a seat in the waiting area. There was a big-screen tv showing children’s cartoons set up to one side, and that made me smile. How thoughtful!
Soon I was called to be interviewed by an American agent who, I learned, was originally from Puerto Rico. She did a great job talking me through the interview and I told her that she would make a good teacher. She told me she actually had been a teacher in a previous career. I told her about answering the question with “Austria” instead of “Australia” – and told her I’d been a social studies teacher, and I was embarrassed that I’d clicked the wrong country. She smiled and said not to worry, she wouldn’t tell anyone – and she changed the answer for me in her computer.
I took two or three steps to the right, to talk to the Canadian agent now. He was smiling, and told me he’d been terrible at social studies. I told him that later in my career I’d had the opportunity to teach every subject – including trigonometry and geometry. He laughed and said that, because he was Asian, people often assumed he should be good at math – but he’d been terrible at math until he’d gotten the right math teacher in high school, and then math had become his favorite subject. I agreed with him that the right teacher can make all the difference.
And then – just like that – I was done!
It was time to take Scott to breakfast now, and I had in mind a little bakery in Blaine I’d visited last spring. Scott drove us into Blaine, and I pointed past the construction going on there, and told him the place I was thinking of was on the other side of that. So he parked the car, and we walked around the construction fences, past the vape shop, and into the L&L Bakery.
I love that place! There were four or five other pairs of friends there, chatting and drinking coffee at small tables; the walls are covered in colorful art; and the display case at the counter is filled with pastries and cookies, and quiches. It’s one of those places that just wraps you up in a welcoming hug when you walk in.
Lili, the owner, and Megan, were cheery and fun, and let me snap their picture behind the counter. Scott and I ate our quiches (jalapeno for him; vegetarian for me) and drank our coffees and chatted with Lili about the restaurant business, and the value of the community meeting place she and her mom (the other owner) are providing for Blaine.
After we left the bakery, Scott and I wandered through town, soaking up the Blaine vibes. There are Christmas decorations up in parts of the town; and cool murals on the walls; several “parklets” scattered along the main road; and a wide range of restaurants – Hawaiian, Mexican, Thai, a steakhouse, and a couple diners. It’s a really cool little town.
So this day that I’ve been anticipating for four months – this day that I was so stressed about – ended up bringing Scott and I new friends and good food, and a nice walk through autumn leaves.
Here’s a link to the sermon I gave at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (SUUF) last Sunday, if you’re interested in listening to it. Topic: Choosing Love. https://suuf.podbean.com/e/choosing-love/
“Oh God, I’m going to now read this Christian Science text… and it’s going to be heavy sledding… and I was stunned to read this absolutely magnificent kind of prose… Mary Baker Eddy was a wonderful writer… she writes gorgeously… and I kind of fell in love with it… I didn’t become a Christian Scientist, but I found it tremendously moving.” – Tony Kushner, talking about the title to his new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201405151000
Although I might not be considered a very religious person, I am very grateful for what the study of Christian Science has brought into my life – the healings I’ve experienced and my growing understanding of the power and presence of Love. And I’m very grateful to Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, for giving us the textbook for Christian Science. Science and Health was published back in 1875, but it’s still timely today, 150 years later. Even in 1875 Eddy was talking about consciousness, the nothingness of matter, invention and discovery, evolution, and atomic power – topics that we see being discussed among those who study quantum physics and other physical sciences today. Prophetically, Eddy wrote (on p. 125): “The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, – he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed. Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man through its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The problem of nothingness, or ‘dust to dust,’ will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds himself God’s reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass.”
And the topics that are still being debated on religion discussion forums today are topics that Mary Baker Eddy addressed and dealt with almost 150 years ago. God, she told us, was not an anthropomorphic being, but “God” was another name for Love, Truth, Life, Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle. Hell and heaven were not literal places, she told us, but states of mind. For her, the story of Adam and Eve was an allegory, not an actual event. She was progressive, far-thinking – a visionary.
I’ve read Science and Health from beginning to end probably five or six times. Most recently, I read it through last spring – and, once again, passages popped out at me for the first time that I’d never seen before. It’s, like, every time I read Science and Health the exactly right thought presents itself to me.
I thought that to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Science and Health, I might post some of my favorite passages from the book. But how to choose?! There are so many passages that speak to me and have brought me clarity and healing. I’m going to try to limit myself to twenty-five of my most favorite passages, but this is not going to be easy for me. Okay. Here goes:
The opening sentence to the textbook is profound: “To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.” (p. vii) (What a great way to start the day, right?! – expect blessings! – expect good!)
“Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” (p. 494) (Love supplies all good, and withholds no good.)
“No power can withstand divine Love.” (p. 224) (Love the hell out of the world.)
“Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'” (p. 13) (Love loves all Her creation, without discrimination, exclusion, or bias. Loves tells me I am Her precious child.)
“Love must triumph over hate.” (p. 43) (A promise!)
“Human hate has no legitimate mandate and no kingdom. Love is enthroned.” (p. 454) (Love is the only power. Love’s government is the only legitimate government.)
“Meet every adverse circumstance as its master.” (p. 419) (We aren’t victims. As expressions of God, we express all the power of God.)
“Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal.” (p. 304) (If it’s discordant, it’s not music; if it’s discordant, it’s not a part of us, or any of God’s creation.)
“At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love, human hatred cannot reach you.” (p. 571) (Good always overcomes evil.)
“Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind.” (p. 291) (If we feel joy and love we’re in heaven right now.)
“Fear never stopped being or its action.” (p. 151) (Fear has no power over us.)
“We should master fear, instead of cultivating it.” (p. 197) (Fear is not the boss of us.)
“The whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.” (p. 1910 (Truth wins.)
“Eternal Truth is changing the universe.” (p. 255) (Truth transforms.)
“…the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe. Hence the eternal wonder, – that infinite God forms and peoples the universe.” (Imagine all of infinity filled with expressions of Love!)
“Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.” (p. 57) (No one can be denied Truth and Love. Happiness comes from sharing Truth and Love.)
“If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science fo the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it, – no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so real as health.” (p. 130-131) (The thought that disease is unnatural helped bring me a healing of what seemed to be an infected tooth this summer. I came to the understanding that there is no bad substance, and there is no lack of good substance, and it’s not natural to be diseased.)
“We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.” ( p. 215) (This helps me answer the question, “Where does the bad stuff come from?” Just as darkness doesn’t have a source, the bad stuff doesn’t have a source – it doesn’t come from anywhere – it’s a big nothing.)
“Mind is the master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. 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.” (p. 393) (My mortal body is not the boss of me and I don’t need to look to it to find out how I’m doing. I am the boss of my body.)
“…progress is the law of God…” (p. 233) and “In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown.” (p. 74) (We don’t need to fear losing ground or losing progress.)
“The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity.” (p. vii.) (I find this bolstering.)
“Spiritual rationality and free thought accompany approaching Science, and cannot be put down. They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific means and so-called laws.” (p. 223) (How reassuring!)
“Christian Scientists must live under the constant pressure of the apostolic command to come out from the material world and be separate. They must renounce aggression, oppression and the pride of power. Christianity, with the crown of Love upon her brow, must be their queen of life.” (p. 451) (A mission and a purpose!)
And I’m going to include the 23rd Psalm (p. 578) , with its spiritual interpretation by Mary Baker Eddy. (Last spring, the line “Love anointeth my head with oil…” brought me a healing of an uncomfortable welty skin condition on the back of my head and down my neck and back – I could feel Love pouring over my skin and the next morning I woke up healed.):
[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want. [LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters. [LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [Love] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE’s] rod and [LOVE’S] staff they comfort me. [LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.
Okay. That’s about 25, I guess. I know I’ll think of more good ones as soon as I publish this post.
Click here to read, or listen to, the full text of Science of Health with Key to the Scriptures for free. The link will take you to the official Christian Science website, which has provided free access to the Christian Science textbook.
This Sunday (November 2nd), at 10:30, I will be speaking at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. The topic is “Choose Love.” If you want to attend the service in person, the address for the fellowship is 500 West Section Street in Mount Vernon. (The fellowship hall is behind the Mount Vernon post office.) If you want to attend via zoom the link is:
Finally, I could not help myself and I tapped. He turned around (he looked very much like my eldest son!) and I told him I liked his hat and asked him about it. He smiled and explained that “annoyed” was a brand name, and then he graciously agreed to let me get a photo.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 