Years ago, when I taught a Peace unit, I’d ask my students at the beginning of the unit: “What IS peace?” and then I’d ask them to draw pictures of what peace looks like for them.
I’ve been puttering around on pixlr.com the last couple days – doodling pictures – and when I finished this doodle I remembered my old Peace unit, and thought, “This is what peace looks like for me!”
“Owe no man anything, but to love one another…” – Romans 13:8
In the last couple of days I’ve come to this really freeing realization that I don’t owe anybody anything, and nobody owes anything to me. I’m not talking about money here (although that’s always nice, too) – but I’m talking about… well… I don’t owe anybody any explanations for why I don’t want to do this, or why I want to do that; I don’t owe anybody my silence when I disagree; I don’t owe anyone an apology if he chooses to get offended by something I say or do. And no one owes me an apology, either, if *I* choose to be offended or affronted or aghast or indignant by something someone else says or does. And isn’t that just GREAT?!!!
I am under no obligation to please others.
“There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure; for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. ‘I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.'”
– Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World
My dear Humoristian hooligans,
As the sun dawns over another day, may you rise with hearts full of benificent (I’m pretty sure that’s a word, right?) good will to all – armed with jocularity – ready to bring humor to the humorless, to transform the stodgy and stingy wherever you may find them, and to lighten the burdens of the scared and lonely. May your good-natured love of life bring a smile to all whom you pass on your journey today. May the barbs and slings of envy, impatience, anger, and fear clink harmlessly off your armor of joy and kindness. And may you see all the beauty and feel all the love surrounding you. Go out there and make them smile!
Amen.
Karen
You’re safe.
I was scanning through the Amazon Religion Discussion Forum the other day and came upon this question: “If you could rewrite the Ten Commandments, what would yours be?” I love questions like that – questions that ask us to think in a deeper way about concepts that we often just accept without question.
So I thought about the question – and then, using the original Ten Commandments as a sort of framework, I came up with these:
1) Thou shalt have no other gods but Love.
2) Thou shalt share your wealth: Thou shalt not make unto thee any tax-free institutions or corporate loopholes to acquire money or power; Thou shalt not bow down to money or corporations; Thou shalt bring fairness and equality to the disenfranchised, the down-trodden, the underpaid, unemployed, and homeless.
3) Thou shalt respect the power of Love and Truth, and use that power to bring peace to your planet.
4) Remember to set aside time every day to appreciate all the good around you, and to use your talents – whatever they may be – to share the beauty you see in the world.
5) Honor all those who have nurtured and cultivated the best in you, and nurture and cultivate the good in others, also.
6) Love without discrimination, prejudice, or condition.
7) Keep your integrity
8) Be grateful for all that you have.
9) Look for the good in others.
10) Care for your environment and your fellow creatures.
I’d love to hear what any of my readers might come up with for this question. Care to share? 🙂
To help you get started, here are the original Ten Commandments (from Exodus 20):
1) Thou shalt have no other gods
2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images or likenesses… Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them
3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
4) Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
5) Honour thy father and thy mother
6) Thou shalt not kill
7) Thou shalt not commit adultery
8) Thou shalt not steal
9) Thou shalt not bear false witness
10) Thou shalt not covet
Passing Thoughts
Lingering, flitting, wispy, clear –
thoughts passing through me today:
Aunt Junie’s laugh filled my mental ears
and my heart filled with love when I
remembered her support through the dark years;
Then my thoughts turned to a man
I once thought a terrible trial –
I saw him last week as I sat in the bank
and he came up to me and smiled
and I smiled back and we
made small talk for awhile,
and I felt nothing – not anger, nor tension –
and I was kind of surprised by that.
I guess Life has moved me past
the past, and the love has stayed,
but the bad didn’t last.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“The soul is healed by being with children.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
I’m at a deli market buying a sandwich when this young mother comes in with two small children. The little boy – he’s maybe three years-old – looks up at me for awhile, kind of speculatively, and asks me if I can sing the “Papa Song.” I tell him I don’t know that one, but I’ll sing him another one if he wants. He nods and I start to sing “Zippity Dooh Dah” for him. He gets this big grin on his face. His mom is totally cracking up. As I’m leaving, the sandwich lady says to the little boy, “Looks like you picked the exactly right person to sing for you! She has a great voice and everything!”
Made my day.
“DAY. The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love. ‘And the evening and the morning were the first day.’ The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded. This unfolding is God’s day, and ‘there shall be no night there.'”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Now – as I’m rubbing the sleep from my eyes – now is the moment when i choose what kind of day I’m going to have.
Let’s see… I think I’ll choose a day full of friendly smiles. And there will be laughter, for sure. I’m going to find something good in everyone I encounter today. I’m going to accept all the joy and love that Love presents to me – there will be no snubbing of good. I’m going to treat others fairly, and I’m going to expect to be treated fairly by others. I’m going to expect wonder and magic.
Today is a gift and I’m not going to wait to open it up and see what waits for me inside… 🙂
I walk with Love along the way,
And O, it is a holy day;
No more I suffer cruel fear,
I feel God’s presence with me here;
The joy that none can take away
Is mine; I walk with Love today.
Who walks with Love along the way,
Shall talk with Love and Love obey;
God’s healing truth is free to all,
Our Father answers every call;
’Tis He dispels the clouds of gray
That all may walk with Love today.
Come, walk with Love along the way,
Let childlike trust be yours today;
Uplift your thought, with courage go,
Give of your heart’s rich overflow,
And peace shall crown your joy-filled day.
Come, walk with Love along the way.
– Minny M.H. Ayers
“FRIENDSHIP IS A SPIRITUAL THING. It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That which I love in my friend is not that which I see. What influences me in my friend is not his body but his spirit. He influences me about as much in his absence as in his presence.” – Henry Drummond, from The Greatest Thing In the World and Other Addresses
Happy day, Kathi!
Today you celebrate the beginning of another journey around the sun. May your journey be blest with all the wonder and beauty that you are.
To celebrate this day I give you a box full of jewelry:
A ring made of the October blueberry bushes I saw on a hike to a mountain pass in the North Cascades.
A ring made of the blue sky and bay along the boardwalk in Bellingham.
A ring made from the gold of the autumn leaves on a tree outside the Village Green.
A necklace made from the purple flowers along a trail through the forest.
A ring made from the waters in the Sound connected to the Pacific connected to the Atlantic connected to you and the hike we took together once along a Nova Scotian shore.
Thank you for all the kindness you have brought into my life. Thank you for the inspiration, the wisdom, the encouragement, the spiritual support. I am blest to know you, and to call you friend.
Love you,
Karen
photo jewelry by Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 