It’s a great time to be alive, ain’t it?
(This is the time you’ve been given to live –
if you don’t live now, when are you planning to do it?)
There’s never been a better time to love.
(This is the time you’ve been given to love –
if you don’t love now, when WILL you love?)
There’s never been a more perfect time to be you.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Last week when I had my ridiculous scare with the health exam (see the post dated 10/4) I turned – as I often do when I’m ascared or troubled – to my Christian Science literature for inspiration, and… well… I ended up reading my own Madcap Christian Science triology. I hadn’t read these books for a really long time. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever read them one after the other before. There have been books I’ve written that, when I re-read them again later, I did not like so much – but last week when I finished reading the first book in the trilogy, Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist, I found myself saying out loud – with some surprise – “Dang! This is really good!”
I wrote the first book back in 2005, as a response to other books I’d read about being raised in Christian Science. I’ve never discounted other people’s experiences with Christian Science – but I felt impelled to share my own story – which seemed to be much different from the stories other people had shared. My experience being raised by a Christian Scientist mother wasn’t scary or gloomy or depressing. I wasn’t neglected. Sickness wasn’t ignored. My childhood was full of joy and light and love and happy adventures. My mountain-climbing father got me into the Great Outdoors, and my Christian Scientist mom introduced me to the healing power of Love. I was blessed, and my book was a means of expressing gratitude for those blessings.
The second book, The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Middle Book, was about my experience dealing with massive depression during My Year of Insanity. I included messages from my friends, David Allen and Kathi Petersen, that inspired me then, and inspired me again when I read them last week. As I read the book anew, I gave thanks once again for the wonderful community of friends and neighbors who helped me survive that year.
The final book in the trilogy, The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New, chronicles my adventures as I transitioned out of my work as a public school teacher into work teaching at a non-profit alternative high school. As I read it last week, I remembered, again, that year of change and all that I learned, and all the wonderful new students and colleagues I met.
It was cool to be able to go back to those books – to remember the things I’ve learned and the progress I’ve made – and then use all that to help me through the challenges of last week. When I wrote those books I was hoping that they might help others get through challenging times. It never occurred to me that someday they might help ME get through a challenging time. 🙂
“At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Stopped by the Mall this evening to spend some time at the memorial for the shooting victims. Went into the Macy’s afterwards. To my surprise, I was a little scared to go in there, but once I went through the doors it was alright. A sales lady approached me and asked me if she could help me. I asked her if I could give her a hug, and she graciously reached out to me and let me hug her…
I really needed that hug this evening…
Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Moon from Bow, WA (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.
– Mary Baker Eddy
A few years ago there was a news story about an “elderly woman” who got swept away in a flood. I felt so terrible for this poor elderly woman when I started to read the story – I could picture her frail elderly arms struggling helplessly against the flood and my heart went out to her. But when I got to the end of the story, the writer wrote, “The sixty year-old woman…” and… yeah… although I still felt horrible for the poor lady… WHAT THE HELL?!!!… the writer considered this sixty year-old woman ELDERLY?!!!… SERIOUSLY?!!!!!
That story stayed with me.
Last week I turned sixty.
None of my other birthdays freaked me out – 40? I had a two year-old at home – who had time to think about getting old?? 50? Piece of cake – I’d just gotten my Master’s, published my first book on Amazon, and was about to have a story featured in *Newsweek* – the fifties were looking good. But 60 – the prospect of turning 60 was freaking me out big time.
Coincidentally, I’d been asked to do the readings at church on the eve of my birthday. Seeing as how my readings are usually “all about me,” the topic I chose was – duh – “aging.” I read the story of Abram picking up and moving cross-country at the age of 75 and his wife, Sarai, giving birth at the age of 90. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, I found: “The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age… Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun. As the physical and material, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with bright and imperishable glories.” And: “Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.” And in the next paragraph: “Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.”
I thought of my 98 year-old dad. His life didn’t stop unfolding “wisdom, beauty, and holiness” for him when he hit 60. He’s continued to paint his watercolors, and explore the world, and learn. He’s grown in wisdom, patience, and appreciation for others through the years. His life hasn’t been marked by borders of delineation between “young” and “old” – it’s been one continuous, flowing unfoldment. I believe that, had he appeared to “pass on” at 60, his life would have continued to unfold on “the other side” and brought him to the same place he is here and now at 98. I don’t believe death could have stopped his unfoldment, any more than age has.
Putting together those readings was really helpful to me.
I like to think that as the distractions of youth – vanity, ego, and so forth – fall from me, I will find a freedom and lightness I didn’t have earlier in my life. I like to think Mary Baker Eddy is right about aging, and that I will continue to unfold in “wisdom, beauty, and holiness.”
And here’s some good news: When I woke up the morning after I turned 60 I was delighted to find that my teeth hadn’t all fallen out during the night and I appeared to still be ambulatory and stuff.
So there’s that…
“It matters not what be thy lot, so Love doth guide…”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Whatever the outcome
in November –
whoever gets elected –
let’s make a pact, shall we,
to continue in kindness
and in our own integrity
and in wisdom?
Let’s not let the outcome
of an election make us less
than what we are.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
I’d been having terrible kitty yearnings. In fact, a few months ago, as I was driving home from work, I actually started tearing up as I grieved the lack of a cat in my life.
On the last day of February, 2015, I lost my calico cat, Freckle Rose. I’d found Freckle at the local Humane Society when she was just a feral little ball of fur, and she’d been a part of my life for 17 years. Losing her was really hard.
I didn’t think I’d be able to get another cat, though. In 2010 we acquired a dog – Samantha. Samantha is a Labradane. She is big and exuberant and – I imagine if you’re just a wee fluff of fur – she is kind of scary-looking. I’d been afraid that if I were to bring a kitty into my home and she came face-to-face with Sam she would instantly die of fright.
A month ago I went to this little thrift shop/library near Mom and Dad’s place to look for another pair of pants for Dad. There weren’t any clothes there, so I came out and started to look at the flowers in their nursery. This woman came up to me and asked me if I’d like to see the kitties. I think she’d been watching for just the right someone to bring to her box of furry felines.
“Kitties, you say?” asked I.
There were three of them – two calicos and an orange tabby. One of the calicos was a very rare male calico (1 in 17,000) – and the woman needed to find a special owner for that one because it might end up having serious medical problems (it has xxy chromosome disorder) – he was VERY cute, but I wanted a female short hair and I didn’t think I would be the best owner for a kitty that’s going to need special care. So I told her I’d like to take the little female, and she gave me some kitty food for her and put her in a box with holes in it and away I went.
And suddenly, as I was driving home, I came out of my kitty-trance and took stock of what I’d just done: “Oh lord. I should turn around right now and bring her back! What did I just do? Sam is going to eat this poor little thing!” But I didn’t turn around. And when I reached the half-way point between my home and the thrift shop I decided to go all the way to my house and let my husband make the decision.
When I got home Scott was sitting on the front porch. He saw me coming up the walk with the box with holes in it. “What you got there?” he asked.
“It’s a kitty. And I’ll take it back if you tell me to.” He peeked inside the box to see what I’d gotten us into THIS time. Like me, he had some trepidation about the dog.
But somehow I ended up inside the house with the kitty. I took her out of the box, and she went and sat in a space between the couch and the book case. She looked up at me and reached out a paw – and boom! I was hooked.
Scott went to bring Sam into the kitchen to see how the two of them felt about each other. Sam was all excited – she wanted to meet the kitty. The kitty was scared. But as soon as Scott held her, she settled right into his hands and looked steadily back at the dog.
I was thinking this wasn’t going to work, though – Sam was just too excited – and so I put the kitty back in the box and told Scott I was taking her back – and to my surprise, and his, I found myself sobbing.
Scott looked at me, standing there with tears running down my face, and said “We’ll make this work.”
And so we have. Sam and Clara have become friends. Clara was meant to be with us.
Behold, I present Clara (my name for her) Ricki Raccoon (Scott’s name for her) Jazzy (the sons’ name for her) Calico (my parents’ name for her)…
Here’s a youtube clip of my parents with their new grand- kitty.
It’s so nice to come home to a kitty again – to hear little paws scampering across the floor to greet me and to feel kitty whiskers brushing across my arm. When I woke up on the morning of the day I found Clara I hadn’t expected I’d be ending the day with a kitty in the house.
“Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
There have been times in my life when I’ve had to make choices between this thing and another thing – between this path or that one – and I sometimes agonized about these choices. And then one day it came to me: Wherever I go, whatever I do – Love, God, is there. I’m never outside of Love’s presence or direction. I’m always in my right place.
I was feeling a little melancholy yesterday. (There are always reasons to feel gloomy, if you look for ’em.) And then this thought came to me and helped me…
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 