Author Archives: Karen Molenaar Terrell

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About Karen Molenaar Terrell

Karen's stories have appeared in *Newsweek*, *The Christian Science Monitor*, and *Pack and Paddle Magazine* and she's the author of *Are You Taking Me Home Now?: Adventures with Dad*, *The Second Hundred Years: Further Adventures with Dad*, *The Brush of Angel Wings*, *The Madcap Christian Scientist* series, *A Poem Sits on my Windowsill*, *Finding the Rainbows: Lessons from Dad and Mom*, and co-author of *The Humoristian Chronicles: A Most Unusual Fellowship*. Her photos are featured in the spring 2014 edition of the *Bellingham Review*, and the "Photos from the Field" page of the April/May 2017, December/January 2018-2019, April/May 2019, and June/July 2020 issues of of *Mother Earth News*. Her photos can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60803140@N06/ Her books can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Karen-Molenaar-Terrell/e/B0044P90RQ/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1312060042&sr=8-

Waiting for the Christmas Spirit

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The kitsch and spangles
and baubles and bangles,
And department store Santa,
just really can’ta
Seem to bring me
the spirit of Christmas.

And I’ve been waiting to feel it –
the real Christmas spirit
Hoping it’d come by now.
The stockings are stuffed,
the tree is all buffed,
The cookies are baked
and frosted and fluffed
But there’s still something missing –
a feeling, a tingling
that’s supposed to come every Christmas.

Except…
Maybe that Christmas feeling,
that energy and tingling
Is something I can have every day –
It doesn’t depend on spangles,
or jingly-bell jangles
Or jolly men dressed all in red.
It comes in the sharing
of laughter and caring
And the comfort in words with love said:
To all – Peace! Joy! Hope!
Every moment of every day.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book

Source: Waiting for the Christmas Spirit

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by Xander Terrell

If only fear could fuel a rocket,
we could reach the moon in time
to escape these shadows.
We could bring the sun down to earth
to brighten our days in time
to watch them burn.
They would do anything to love themselves,
except love each other.
You would do anything to love them,
except love yourself.
If only hatred could melt metal,
no more bombs, knives, or bullets.
If only ignorance could feed the hungry,
what an abundant world we would live in.
If only greed could make life everlasting,
then there would be no need to be greedy.
Success for us is being better off
than the people who harvest your food,
produce your pleasures, and support the
successful on their broken backs.
What if success was measured only
on the happiness of all mankind,
and not each individual man?
What if people cared more
about making a beautiful world,
than making their little worlds beautiful?
– Xander Terrell, from Dream Voyage
available at Amazon.com

xanders-book-cover-dream-voyage

 

Christmas at the Post Office

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Stopped at the local post office on the way home from work. There was a complicated transaction with the customer in front of me that took maybe 10 minutes. A couple of people came in and lined up behind me. We’re all standing there, quiet, behaving ourselves – like people do in elevators. Of course, seeing as how *I* was there – this couldn’t last long.

I turned around and said, “Merry Christmas!” and the two people standing behind me smiled and wished me a merry Christmas back. The woman behind me said, “They should be playing Christmas music.” I started singing, “We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas…” – grand finale – “we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new (raised my voice an octave) year!” The people behind me laughed.

Pretty soon my old friend, Mr. Rousseau, came in and greeted me. I told him we were having a party in there. He suggested there should be caroling – my cue – I started singing “Jingle Bells” – everyone joined in. Just as we finished Jingle Bells the customer in front of me finished her transaction, and it was my turn. Perfect timing! I bought my stamps and picked up a package, and as I was leaving I said to my fellow customers, “And my next show will be at…” and they started laughing. 

And for your listening pleasure (or listening something) :), here’s another Christmas carol I recorded on singsnap a couple years ago: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Times That Test Us

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I went to the Brainy Quotes page for Anne Frank to find some inspiration for myself. Wonderful quotes there – full of love and hope and a steadfast belief in the power of good – and then at the end I came upon this one: “I’ve reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can’t do anything to change events anyway.” And… yeah… that one caught me up short.

Of course Anne Frank was wrong about that – her words and thoughts have had a huge impact on mankind – although she wasn’t here to see it.

But her words got me thinking about my own place here. I don’t know if I’ll be around long enough to see a time when the world is, finally, at peace, and recognizes the rule and might of Love. But I want to be part of the movement that leads that direction, you know? I want to be part of the wave that pushes Love to the shore, even if maybe I don’t get to the shore myself.

But I get ascared sometimes. Sometimes I get frustrated. Sometimes I get angry. And discouraged. Sometimes I make humongo mistakes.

We are in times that test us – times that bring out the worst in mankind, and the best. And I really hope I can rise to the occassion (one c? one s? – that word gets me every time).

So. Those are my thoughts as I wake up on this morning of December 16, 2016.

Just thought I’d share.

Alrighty. Carry on then…

– Karen

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
– Anne Frank

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
– Anne Frank

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”
– Anne Frank

“I see the world slowly being transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”
– Anne Frank

Do Not Despair

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“My child, do not despair. Do you think we would have brought you here if there were no hope? We are asking you to do a difficult thing, but we are confident that you can do it.”
– Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Message to the Electoral College

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“Covering iniquity will prevent prosperity and the ultimate triumph of any cause.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Message to the Electoral College:

We have elected a man for President who may soon be going on trial for treason, who has admitted, on tape, to sexual harassment, who bilked thousands of students out of millions of dollars with his fake Trump University, who claimed bankruptcy and refused to pay his workers what he owed them and then walked away with billions of dollars, and who has no record of ever paying taxes to the nation he’s supposed to serve. He spends his days in tweeting wars (one of his tweets sent Boeing stocks plunging, another threatened diplomatic relations with China), and wants to continue his job as Executive Producer of The Apprentice while he serves as our President. He has nominated as Secretary of Education a woman who’s never attended public school, whose children have never attended public school, and whose main goal with public education has been to dismantle and “privatize” it. He’s nominated a man with ties to the KKK to be White House Chief of Staff. He’s nominated a man as Sec of Health and Human Services who’s openly said he wants to get rid of Medicare and “privatize” social security. He’s nominated as Secretary of Energy a man who’s said he wants to “scrap” the Energy Department.

This man is not fit to be the leader of the nation I love.

Thank you for taking the time to read the concerns of your fellow Americans, and for being willing to take on the huge responsibility of being a member of the electoral college. Your courage and wisdom during these uneasy times is much appreciated.

– Karen

(For those of you who wish to send your own message to the electors, go to asktheelectors.org and they’ll lead you through the process.)

“Who is telling mankind of the foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the danger and yet have given no warning.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Today’s Christmas Offering

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Here’s this morning’s Christmas offering – another song I recorded while I was gallivanting around on singsnap that one summer: The Christmas Song

Merry Christmas! 🙂

It happens.

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disagree

“I don’t have any serious shoes.”

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Lots of errands with Moz today – doctor’s appointment, supermarket, veterinarian’s. We’re sitting at the doctor’s office and Moz says, “We have a lot of appointments today. See? I wore my serious clothes.”

To which I reply, “Your shoes belie that.”

To which she replies, “I don’t have any serious shoes.”

mozs-shoes

The Christmas Dog

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Christmas Eve, 1988.  I was in a funk.  I couldn’t see that I was making much progress in my life.  My teaching career seemed to be frozen, and I was beginning to think my husband and I would never own our own home or have children. The world seemed a very bleak and unhappy place to me.  No matter how many batches of fudge I whipped up or how many times I heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” I couldn’t seem to find the Christmas spirit…

Source: The Christmas Dog