Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…
– Jesus
On Paying Taxes
3
Author Archives: Karen Molenaar Terrell
Autumn Sings
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Today’s Assignment
Class,
Here’s today’s assignment: Tell me what you most respect about your choice of presidential candidate, what you think are your candidate’s greatest accomplishments (please include specific examples), what you consider your candidate’s greatest strengths and biggest weaknesses, and why you think your candidate would make a good President. Avoid any reference to an opposing candidate (you will lose points if you do this) and personal attacks.
Have fun!
Mrs. Terrell
***
I will be voting for Hillary Clinton this election. Although I went to the Democratic caucus as a Bernie Sanders supporter, and would like to have seen him win the Democratic nomination, I have to admit that Hillary Clinton has won me over in the last month. The morning after the second debate I woke up realizing that I really WANTED to vote for Hillary Clinton. There was something about the way she handled herself during the debate that really impressed me. She was criticized by some for being too unemotional – but it occurred to me that if she’d shown emotion, she would have been criticized for being an “emotional female.” I liked, too, the way she talked to individuals in the audience face-to-face – I liked how she talked to the Muslim woman and addressed her concerns about discrimination.
What I most respect about Hillary Clinton is her commitment to doing what she thinks is the right thing to do – her “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” attitude about the issues that matter to her. She’s been demonized, threatened with bodily harm, lied about, and ridiculed – but none of it seems to phase her. She keeps her eye on the goal and keeps moving forward.
Her greatest accomplishments? As First Lady, her work in helping to bring health care to impoverished children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program; as a senator from New York , her work to bring aid to the first responders who got sick after 9-11, and to bring $21 billion in federal aid to New York to help it re-build after the attack; and, as Secretary of State, her work in keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran, and in creating avenues for women, globally, to become empowered. Hillary Clinton has admitted she’s better at the “servant” part than the “public” part. She’s more a Clydesdale than a prancing Lipizzaner. She’s one of those people who has worked for years behind the scenes – forging progressive policies, working for children, the poor, and the disenfranchised.
This brings me to what I feel are her greatest strengths and her biggest weaknesses: She’s great at policy-forging, and at behind-the-scenes negotiations. She’s tenacious. When she sees there’s a need, she finds a way to meet it. But this also might tend to make her focus narrowed – I don’t know that she always sees what’s going on in the periphery – I think she was blind-sided, for instance, by the strong support Bernie Sanders amassed during his campaign. I wish she were as much “public” as “servant” – I wish she held rallies in football stadiums à la Bernie, and had the ability to rouse the troops. But if I have to choose between “public” and “servant” – the “servant” part of a politician is more important to me than the “public” part.
I think Hillary Clinton will be a good President. Maybe even a great one. I believe she genuinely cares about people, and wants to help. I believe she wants to leave the world a better place than she found it. I believe she has the intelligence and savvy and heart to do this.
Harassment Stinks
Class –
There is a big difference between flirting and harassment. Flirting is a back-and-forth thing and both parties walk away feeling good about life. Harassment is not a back-and-forth thing – one human being is saying or doing something to another human being without concern for the other person’s feelings or well-being. It is disrespectful to the other person, and it leaves the victim feeling disgusted and/or humiliated and/or helpless. It stinks.
Be kind to one another.
– Mrs. Terrell
Stuck doesn’t seem like a very good place to be…
“You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can’t make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it. If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you fill it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head. You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.” – Frank McCourt, *Angela’s Ashes*
I’m always a little wary of those folks who try to shut up people who disagree with them. I’m wary of folks who presume to be “experts” on stuff and tell people who disagree with them that they already know everything and they don’t need or want to hear what these other people have to say. My thought about this is that if you isolate yourself among people who think just like you, and insulate yourself from differing thoughts and beliefs, you stagnate. You stop progressing and evolving. You get stuck. Stuck doesn’t seem like a very good place to be. Everyone has his or her own perspective and experiences to add to the pot – and I’m thinking it can’t hurt us – it can only make us smarter and wiser – if we share and listen to each other, and add to our understanding of each other.
But maybe that’s just me. Alrighty. Carry on then…
Putting the Puzzle Back Together
“We should remember that the world is wide; that there are a thousand million different human wills, opinions, ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different history, constitution, culture, character, from all the rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless action and reaction upon each other of these different atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great, and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a charity broad enough to cover the whole world’s evil, and sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it…”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Putting the Puzzle Back Together Again
We both hold pieces to the puzzle –
you have yours and I have mine
and to solve the puzzle we need
to come together and share
what we know and work as a team.
You say “stick to the facts” and tell
me you don’t need to listen
to what I have to share, but you do
and I do, too, if we want to put
all the pieces of the puzzle in place.
I agree you are an expert on your
bits of the puzzle, but you are not
an expert on mine. You have not
lived my life, seen what I’ve seen,
or learned what I’ve learned.
So let’s share, shall we? You share
your perspective, and I’ll share mine,
and we’ll learn from each other.
I’m thinking we can only gain from
this. Gain in understanding of
America. Gain in understanding of life.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Today’s lesson…
“Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessings we have, and thus be fitted to receive more.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
So I’m out on my walk in Bellingham – there is much glorious autumnal color to be had – gold and ruby are dripping from the trees and forming arches over the paths. But there are people walking the paths, too – spaced in just such a way that as soon as one walker gets out of my camera’s view, another appears. I’m feeling frustrated by this. At this rate I’ll be waiting all day to get a people-less picture.
I smile at the walkers as they go by me, and they all smile back and wish me a good day. And finally! – the path is clear – I raise my camera to shoot a photo – and one more walker appears around the curve in the path. I lower my camera and wait. He’s moving at a steady pace. I smile at him as he approaches, and he smiles back. As explanation for why I’m still standing there – I point down the path to an arch of branches over the trail and tell him I want to take a photo of that. He smiles and agrees that it’s beautiful, and says that if you go further down the trail you’ll see more of those arches. I notice the cool earrings dangling from his ears and tell him how much I like them, and he says thank you. I ask him if I can take his picture and he tells me sure. I shake his hand and introduce myself, and he tells me his name is Todd. I have met a new friend.
Todd
And as I’m walking back down the trail, it occurs to me that God had been presenting me with gifts all morning – wonderful people who were walking the path with me. It took me awhile to realize and recognize Love’s largesse – but I’m happy to say, I finally got it. 🙂
autumn blackberry leaves
autumn leaves
autumn railroad tracks
autumn path
autumn in Bellingham
Bellingham Bay
Bellingham boardwalk
cormorant
Fairhaven, Bellingham
What are YOU looking at?
And on this note, I shall bid you all good night… :)
Let’s Pledge
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Moz’s Trip to the Dentist
“Took Moz (88 years, 10 months) to the dentist this afternoon, and ohmygawd – it was like going to a comedy club! We’re filling out all the forms in the waiting area, and Moz has to put her signature on another one. ‘Again?!’ she asks, exasperated. ‘Behave yourself,’ I tell her, laughing, and she says, ‘Don’t make me laugh – I’m trying to sign this thing.’ She finishes signing the paper and hands it back to me. ‘You know,’ she says, ‘I’ll get all these papers signed, and then next week I’ll die.’…”
Took Moz (88 years, 10 months) to the dentist this afternoon, and ohmygawd – it was like going to a comedy club! We’re filling out all the forms in the waiting area, and Moz has to put her signature on another one. “Again?!” she asks, exasperated. “Behave yourself,” I tell her, laughing, and she says, “Don’t make me laugh – I’m trying to sign this thing.” She finishes signing the paper and hands it back to me. “You know,” she says, “I’ll get all these papers signed, and then next week I’ll die.”
Missy, the dental lady comes out to get her, and Moz gets up to follow her with her walker. “Watch out,” she says, “I don’t have a license for this thing.” Missy starts cracking up.
Missy gets Moz situated in the dental chair, and turns the light on to start working on her teeth. Moz tells…
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Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 