Category Archives: inspiration

“You are not alone.”

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“Many people need desperately to receive this message: ‘I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them.  You are not alone.'”
– Kurt Vonnegut

Something very cool happened this year: People I never knew existed suddenly appeared in my life voicing the same concerns I’ve voiced, sharing the same values as me, befriending me, offering their support when I’ve felt discouraged or afraid, and letting me know I’m not alone.  It’s been amazing, really, how we’ve all managed to find each other in these unsettling, dark times. Just as the metaphorical batteries in my flashlight start to die, and the light starts to go out, suddenly someone will appear out of nowhere and shine his light out of the darkness and offer help, and tell me I’m not alone.

It has meant the world to me.

There have also been friends who have “defriended” me in the last year, too, of course – because I am so controversial and badass and stuff 🙂 – but I’m thinking for every friend who felt the need to defriend me, three more new friends have suddenly appeared to offer friendship.

I am rich with true friends – both old friends and new – I am wealthy beyond imagining.

My dear Humoristian hooligans –

May you bring your abundant kindness and wisdom into today. May you lighten the hearts of the scared and despairing with your courage and good will to all mankind, and may you bring healthy, healing laughter to the stodgy, stingy, and staid. May you find hope and beauty in the good continually unfolding around you. May you make a new friend, find a new song, and leave behind something beautiful. Amen.

Go out there and work your magic!

Love, 
Karen

Happy solstice, everyone! “Let there be light!”

let there be light

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

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

Shameless Merchandising (because, you know, it’s Christmas and stuff)

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The Good You Seek

I want to take a break, I said.
Can I step out of life for a moment,
or maybe stay in bed?
Can things go on without me?
Can you just pretend I’m not here?
For life is a messy business
and I’m tired and I’m weary
I’ve made too many mistakes to count today
And I’d like to not make anymore, not any.

And the still small voice reached into my thought
– gentle, peaceable benediction –
“All the good you seek and all that you’ve sought
you can claim right now – and that’s no fiction –
for Love is yours to express, to feel, and to be
– you are wealthy beyond description.
Nothing else matters, there’s no other power
no warring opinions, no need to cower
You are loved and you’re loving
and that’s all there is to it
Love’s loving child, and there’s nothing else
but loving, simply nothing.”
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from
A Poem Lives on My Windowsill <-purchase it here

Teardrop

A tear welled within my eye.
I held my breath and kept very still,
and for that few seconds,
the world was much clearer
through the lens of the tear.
– Xander Terrell, from
Dream Voyage <-purchase it here

Review for Finding the Rainbows: Lessons from Mom and Dad
“I read this book cover to cover with a smile on my face the whole time. The author’s engaging conversational style takes the reader along on her journey to resettle her parents from farm to assisted living and the love, gratitude, and simple joys of life she experiences during the transition. I highly recommend this book and it would make a great gift.”

Review for The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book:
“Charming and endearing to read. You sit with a grin on your face while reading.”

Review for Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist:
“Karen has touched my soul with her heartwarming and hilarious rendition of the road less traveled. Everyone I know has had to listen to me go on and on about how great a read this is! Whether you want to laugh, cry, or just smile about life again, read this!!!”

Review for The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Middle Book:
“I think Karen has reached into my heart,and planted the seeds of love. This book gives inspiration and hope to all that read with open hearts and love.”

Review for The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New:
“How inspirational, fun, and enlightening! As with the author’s two other Madcap Christian Scientists’ books, I thoroughly enjoyed this one for its honesty, spirit of adventure and enlightenment. It uplifted me without being preachy. The author graciously gives us a peek inside her life and mind and reader beware!!! She dares go there and everywhere! A great, fun read that I will recommend to others as I have with her other two. My only complaint was I truly wished she had written more and that’s just me being greedy!!”

Karen’s author page.
Xander’s author page

book covers 2016

xanders-book-cover-dream-voyage

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Not Giving Up

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So there’s this site called singsnap that’s a karaoke site – let’s you record yourself singing songs to the site’s backup music. My friend, Kathi, introduced me to this site back in 2013, and I made some recordings on there over that summer and then pretty much forgot about it and moved on to other diversions. 🙂 But this morning I was thinking about a Jason Mraz song, I won’t Give Up, and went back to my recording of it on singsnap. It was the first song I recorded on there and I didn’t really know what I was doing – this is not a professional recording or anything. But I feel impelled to share it today. It’s a song for my country and my world. Here’s the link to it: Karen’s recording of I Won’t Give Up. 

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up, I’m still looking up.
– Jason Mraz

“Graciously Preparing Me”

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“God had been graciously preparing me during many years…”
– Mary Baker Eddy

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes that “God had been graciously  preparing” her for many years for her discovery of spiritual healing. How did God “graciously prepare” Mary Baker Eddy? Well, let’s see… she lost a beloved brother at a young age; she was widowed shortly after she married her first husband; she was separated from her only son when he was just four years-old, and he was taken across the continent and raised by others; she was challenged with chronic health problems; and endured a failed marriage… for starters.

I’m grateful to say that nine years ago God “graciously prepared” me, too, for future challenges that I couldn’t foresee at the time. Nine years ago I began my journey through a massive depression. At the time I was going through the depression I didn’t see an end to it – I feared I would spend the rest of my life in mental agony. I felt hopeless, helpless, guilty, and fearful. I contemplated ending my life, lost my appetite, and felt like I’d lost myself, too. My struggles turned me to God, Love, in a way I’d never before turned to God. I clung to Love like a drowning man clings to a board on a stormy sea. In time, I learned not to battle the waves, but to surf on top of them. I learned that if I could love I had a reason to live. I learned I could be happy even when I was sad. I learned to focus on now and move from moment-to-moment, step-by-step. And when, in a year, I came out the other side into the light, I recognized my own strength, and the tender love God has for me, and for all Her creation. I came out of the depression with a fearlessness that I hadn’t had going into it. I felt reborn.

The other day I realized that I needed that experience in my life – it helped prepared me for the challenges my world is facing right now. At the time it seemed like the worst thing I’d ever experienced. Now, looking back, I realize it was a wonderful blessing.

 Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart…
– Psalms 10: 17

(Click here to behold a way cool rendition of Godspell’s Prepare Ye the Way that I found on youtube. This’ll get you in the Christmas spirit. 🙂 )

The Earth Rises

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earth-rises

Philanthropy

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“Philanthropy is loving, ameliorative, revolutionary; it wakens lofty desires, new possibilities, achievements, and energies; it lays the axe at the root of the tree that bringeth not forth good fruit; it touches thought to spiritual issues, systematizes action, and insures success; it starts the wheels of right reason, revelation, justice, and mercy; it unselfs men and pushes on the ages. Love unfolds marvellous good and uncovers hidden evil. The philanthropist or reformer gives little thought to self-defence; his life’s incentive and sacrifice need no apology. The good done and the good to do are his ever-present reward.

“Love for mankind is the elevator of the human race; it demonstrates Truth and reflects divine Love…”  
– Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellany, p 287-288, *Prose Works*

bring-love