Dear star –
I saw your light tonight –
thank you for sending it our way.
It arrived at the just right
moment on the just right day.
I know you sent your light out
thousands of years ago –
traveling through fear, doubt,
and darkness to reach us here
below.
I know
the light you sent goes on, though
you may not exist anymore.
Your light will travel beyond us,
too, to reach other distant shores.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Her name was Ruth
and she stood for Truth
She worked for justice –
the rights of all of us
She was fearless, peerless
a woman of honor
no one on earth
could ever con her
When I grow up I want to be
just like the mighty RBG
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
13 years ago I went insane. I did not like it so much. But I learned a lot from it. It occurs to me now that the experience I had during The Year of Insanity helped prepare me for the challenges our world is facing right now.
I believe mankind is experiencing a collective insanity today. And recognizing that is what is going on is giving me some compassion for my world and its inhabitants. I understand what this feels like. I understand that shaming someone who is mentally ill is not going to make things better. Laying guilt on someone going through a massive clinical depression – as I went through – is not going to heal that individual, or the world. Hating someone who is not herself or himself or their self, and is already contemplating suicide, is not going to fix the problem.
Having personally experienced mental illness I know the one and only thing that can reach through the fog of insanity and heal mental illness is love.
We need to recognize that those individuals who are experiencing and exhibiting mental illness right now are not themselves. This isn’t THEM. Their real identity – OUR real identity – is secure and safe – “hid with Christ” in Love – where goodness and purity and intelligence and wisdom and kindness and honesty are eternally, indestructibly qualities of who we ALL really are.
13 years ago I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to today – I contemplated suicide daily. But look at all I would have missed if I’d given up on life then! – All the beautiful new friends I wouldn’t have met! The sunsets and sunrises I wouldn’t have seen! The lessons I wouldn’t have learned! The changes I wouldn’t have been able to make! The love and laughter I would have denied myself! When I was deep in the depression I couldn’t imagine a happy ending to my story. I couldn’t imagine I’d ever get out of it. Couldn’t imagine it ever ending.
But then one day the fog lifted and I awakened from the nightmare. I looked out on the world and I was connected again – connected to the joy and the beauty and a sense of well-being. I had myself back again. Now I’m really grateful for that year of learning – that year of shedding the chrysalis (and that feels like what the whole world is doing right now). I learned a new appreciation for the power of love; gained a new appreciation for the power of a moment and a good, deep breath; I came to appreciate the power of choice; and gained renewed gratitude for all the beauty in Nature and mankind; I gained greater humility, empathy, and compassion for others; and a stronger commitment to my own spiritual journey.
I learned I can be happy even when I’m sad.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“There’s nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”
– Richard Buckminster Fuller
“The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
You can try to censor Truth –
but you can’t make It go away
you can try to destroy It –
try to stop what people say
try to stop teachers from
teaching and journalists
from revealing what they find,
but trying to stop Truth is like
trying to stop the sun’s shine –
It’ll light the darkest cave;
bounce off the moon onto
the night’s ocean wave;
cross political borders and lines;
fill our hearts and make us brave.
You can’t corrupt It, change It,
or take away Truth’s power.
It stands solid – a rock,
a beacon on a tower.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, ‘as when a lion roareth.’ It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear.”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p 559
“In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live and move and breathe…”
– Christian Science Hymnal #144
A morning poem-prayer for the world:
There is no spot where Love is not.
There is no spot where Truth is not.
There is no spot where Life is not.
Love fills all space –
we can never be separated from Love –
there’s no place where we don’t feel
Love’s presence, enveloping us in peace
and pure tender kindnesses that heal
us – bringing sweet renewal like the gentle
rains and the morning dew upon the grass.
In dauntless joyful humility we kneel
to give thanks. To praise. To serve.
Love’s presence is all-powerful.
NOTHING has the power to usurp
Love’s governing of Her own creation.
We are the manifestations, expressions, reflections,
ideas, children of Love – made in Her likeness.
All we can feel is what Love feels.
All we can know is what Truth knows.
All we can be is what Love made us to be.
We exist by Love and for Love and with Love.
“For Love alone is Life” (Mary Baker Eddy)
Fear, hatred, greed, condemnation,
and self-righteous indignation
have no place in Love’s creation.
Give them no power. Pay them no heed.
Let Love be our guide; Let Love lead.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
See? This is why we shouldn’t put business executives in charge of our schools, prisons, courts, military, environment, or nation. Business executives think in terms of financial profit, rather than social progress; competition, rather than cooperation; what we can do for THEM, rather than what they can do for US. They aren’t going to go out of their way to help you if your home is burning, your family is sick, you’re being attacked by racists – unless there’s some way for their company to gain something from it. A CEO’s goal is to beat out and squash the competition (anyone who doesn’t work for their financial company) and win the race for the most wealth accumulated. Their goal is to prepare students to serve them in their corporations. Their goal is to privatize prisons, health care, schools, parks, and the postal service to make a profit. Their instinct is to use the natural environment for short-term financial gain, rather than to conserve and preserve it for future generations.
Are business executives “bad” people? Nope. But if they want to work as public servants, they can no longer be business executives – they need to give up their positions, wealth, and instincts as business people and shift their perspective – look at the world in a whole new way – because business and politics don’t mix.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
My joy is not dependent on matter –
not dependent on flattering chatter –
my clothes can be in tatters,
my ego-dreams all shattered,
and possessions scattered –
but I’m alive! I can love! I can learn!
Joy is not something I have to earn –
not something I need a reason
or a special season
to feel.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
– Habbakuk 3:17,18
“Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
You may remember the story about the intrepid little sunflower who was sawed in half by a slug earlier in the summer and grew new roots in a bottle. I transplanted her to a pot and put her out on the side of the house by her sister – where she’d originally been when she was attacked in the infamous Slug Wars. She thrived and grew out there and now she’s blooming!
Because she’s in a pot I was able to move her away from the dark background of the house for a photo of her in the sunlight. Check it out…
Here’s a photo history of her journey…
“And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”- I Kings
The “still small voice” – that quiet comforting presence – THAT, for me, is God. My God isn’t responsible for earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, or wildfires. My God is found in the love and courage that overcomes the fear and destruction. My God isn’t found in destructive material forces, but in the things of the “spirit” – in “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance…” and “against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) There is no law, no material force, that can over-power love and steal it from us. Love goes on. Love heals. Love brings us comfort and solace. Even after the physical forms of the ones we love are gone, the love we have one for another continues on. Not earthquake, wind, or fire can destroy the presence and power of Love – of what I call “God.”
My God is the still small voice – that quiet presence that guides, rescues, and protects us. And I don’t think this presence and power is just for a select number of us – I believe all of creation has access to this power. As Eddy writes: “In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as ‘a very present help in trouble.’ Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals.” https://madcapchristianscientist.com/2015/08/25/after-the-fire-a-still-small-voice/
We have a boa constrictor house
big lumps of boxes and books and sacks
pass through and fill closets and shelves,
nooks and crannies, corners and cracks –
before what’s left empties into “free” piles –
parents’ and sons’ and our life’s culls
expanding and shrinking the belly
of the beast – full, then purged, then full
again – in a never-ending cycle of recycling.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
