Bow, WA: A no car day. Walked to the post office and saw tulips and blossoms and green growing things, and red-winged blackbirds flitting among tall stalks. Picked up my mail. Had a scone and mocha at the bakery across from the post office – sat at a little table and felt my body soaking up the friendly warmth from the sun. Finished my scone, hitched my backpack back over my shoulders and started the hike home. Birds singing and people waving and smiling as they drove past me. Collected some cans and plastic lying on the side of the road – thought that seemed like an appropriate thing to do on Earth Day. And then came home and pulled up weeds and spruced up my garden a little. Finished Season 2 of “Stranger Things.”
It has been a lovely day. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
“EARTH. A sphere; a type of eternity and immortality, which are likewise without beginning or end…To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea.” – Mary Baker Eddy
“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” – Isaiah 55: 12
(The audio podcast for this post can be found at this link.)
Feel Love’s presence. Feel the power of Love.
Listen to Love’s voice:
You are so loved. You are My precious child. You are always with Me. And I am always with you. You are Love be-ing. The belief that you can ever be separated from Me is a lie, for you are embodied in My Body. You are one with Me. You are in the womb of Love. There is no power that can usurp My government or the governing of My own ideas, for I am ever-present, all-powerful, glorious, magnificent, never-ending Love.
(The audio podcast for this post can be found at this link.)
Recent events in the world have made me think about my irrepressible, intrepid little sunflower of two years ago. I’m thinking it might be time to retell that story…
(Originally published on July 13, 2020.) One happy story has emerged from the Slug Battles this summer: The Story of the Intrepid Little Sunflower.
The slugs and snails have been voracious this year. When my little sunflowers first sprouted I covered them every night with jars. When they outgrew the jars I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and go on Slug Patrol – looking for any snails or slugs that might be chowing down on my sunflower youngsters (in the morning I would take the slugs and snails out to our wetland – what I’ve dubbed my “Snail and Slug Refuge” – and ask them to please stay down there). Eventually I started wrapping copper tape around the bottom of the sunflowers’ stems and that seemed to work pretty well – UNTIL one morning I found a slug or snail had chomped through the stem of one of the sunflower youngsters and the top three inches were hanging from the bottom three inches by mere threads. I tried to tape it together, but that didn’t work well. Finally, I pulled the top part off and – finding I didn’t have it in me to toss it in the compost – I put it in a little bottle filled with water and put it on top of a book case, and waited for nature to take its course.
But the little sunflower did not die. In fact, it appeared to me that it even grew a few inches.
A couple weeks went by and the leaves started turning yellow. It was obvious to me my little sunflower teenager needed nutrients. On impulse, I put about half an inch of soil in the bottom of the bottle and made sure the bottom of the sunflower stem touched the soil – I hoped the plant would somehow suck up the nutrients it needed – maybe it would grow roots? I wasn’t sure how that worked – but it seemed possible to me.
And today when I looked over at the sunflower teenager he seemed to have grown six inches overnight! I looked at the bottom of the bottle and there were roots in there!
I planted him in a planter out on the deck. Right now he is out there, straight and getting taller, and waving happily in the breeze at me.
(Originally published on September 13, 2020.) 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 the Intrepid Little Sunflower.) -Karen Molenaar Terrell
In 1953 Pete Schoening saved my dad’s life, and the lives of four other men, with his belay (known as “The Belay” in mountaineering circles) on the slopes of K2, the world’s second highest mountain. If not for Pete’s belay, a lot of us would never have been born. Pete’s grandson, Brian Schoening, recently invited me to chat with him about “The Children of the Belay” on his podcast. To listen to the podcast, click here.
Here’s a photo of The Children of the Belay taken when the descendents of the 1953 K2 climbers were able to get together in Leavenworth, Washington, in 2006.
I’m thinking about the stone that Love has been rolling away from my heart over the years – the ego, blame, self-will, guilt, fear, anger, selfishness, sense of being “put upon” and treated unfairly – and I’m so very grateful for the progress so far – so grateful for the light that’s reached me – so very glad to be alive – to be able to experience the birdsong and blossoms and sunshine of an Easter morning.
“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” – I Corinthians 15
There was some police action on the beach the day we arrived. We walked by the crime tape, the team of investigators, the canopy over the scene. I stopped to ask another woman walking on the beach if she knew what was going on. Valerie said she’d seen a couple in the parking lot earlier who’d looked shaken and she wondered if they’d found something. She was pretty sure there was a body under the canopy. She noted that the crime tape had already been up a few hours so it had to be something pretty serious. The winds had been high the night before and she wondered if maybe a body had come in on the surf. A man named Billy stopped to chat with Valerie and my husband and me. He wondered what was going on, too.
My husband and I continued on our walk, looking for agates, watching the antics of the seagulls as they chased each other around for food, enjoying the sunshine and the salty air. Every now and then, though, I’d look back at the crime canopy and wonder.
Billy rejoined me a while later to tell me that a friend had confirmed a body had been found in the sand. Billy said that the night before he’d passed a man on the beach who looked distressed and lost – the man seemed a little “off” to him – but he’d shrugged it off and continued on his walk. He wondered now if this body belonged to the man he’d seen the night before, and if it had been a suicide. For a moment neither of us spoke, each thinking our own thoughts. Then we wished each other well – told each other to stay safe – and parted ways.
Later the local news confirmed that the body of a man in his thirties had been found partially buried in the sand. I went into my mother-of-sons place then. I grieved for the man and his family. I prayed and tried to reach my thoughts out to the man – letting him know he was loved, whoever he was – that he wasn’t alone. I wished him peace. And, eventually, with the help of the ocean and the seagulls and the kites and the ever-tumbling waves, I found my own peace.
A few days later, as we got ready to leave, a rainbow arched across the sky. There’d been a rainbow after my mom’s passing, and a rainbow after my dad’s passing, too. I idly wondered who might be manifesting THIS rainbow. And then I thought of the man whose body had been found the day we arrived. And I knew he was alright.
Life is so much bigger than these forms we see – so much bigger than body-hieroglyphs of “you” and “me.” Death has no power to end our Life – Life fills all space – exists beyond form and time and place. I feel my loved ones ever-near – both those who have “passed” and those who are still “here.” Death can’t destroy the love we feel, and nothing can stop the healing of what needs to be healed. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Whoah. Now here’s a thought: What if I just pulled myself out of the game? No one’s forcing me to play, after all. I have a choice to participate in the shame and blame, or let that ball fall, and not get pulled into the brawl.
Remember what Jesus said to those who wanted to stone that woman? “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” And then he stooped down and wrote on the ground as the shamers went away one by one until there were none.
They had wanted him to play in their game, but he had more important things to do with his time here – heal the deaf, blind, the lame, and establish a new way of living – a true way of caring for each other and our world.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 