There’s something really satisfying about going out in the backyard on a quiet Tuesday morning and picking the last of the blueberries on our bushes, then folding them into a pie crust I made my very own self, filling the house up with pie-baking smells, and enjoying cocoa and a slice of blueberry pie as the leaves turn autumn-gold outside my window. Run-on sentence, but I ain’t apologizing.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Scotty and I went up to Paradise yesterday to walk around in the autumn colors. Last week the weather forecast had predicted sunshine up there, but… that changed. 😀 It was pretty wet up there, but it was still beautiful. I thought my camera was doing some sort of weird automatic “vignette” with my photos (fading my photos out at the corners), but then I realized my lens filter was actually all fogged-up on the rim. 😀
Highlights: On the drive up to Paradise from Longmire, I glanced over at a parking lot by the Nisqually Glacier (or where the glacier USED to be), and saw a familiar van – I was pretty sure this was the same van I’d seen at Mount Baker last week, and I was pretty sure it belonged to my new friends, Cecelia and Bob. Whoah. So I messaged them, and learned that they were at Rainier, too! That was kind of cosmic. (We passed them on the way back down, but I don’t think they saw us.)
We went into the Paradise gift shop at the Visitor Center and chatted with the pair of salesclerks behind the counter. I told them I’d worked in the old Visitor Center almost 50 years ago – back when the Visitor Center looked like an alien spacecraft. They laughed and said the old Visitor Center had flown back to the Mother Ship.
I found one of my Dad’s books in the giftshop – it’s always fun to come upon his books or maps in tourist hangouts. It helps me feel he’s still here with us.
At Myrtle Falls, we came upon a couple of National Park employees getting the trails ready for winter. I thanked them for their service and we chatted for a bit about climbing. Noah and Carter were pretty fun and graciously agreed to let me snap a photo.
Then, as we were coming back from the Falls, a little family of sooty grouse (I mistook them for ptarmigans at first) crossed our path (literally) and we snapped some quick pics.
***
We visited the Ashford Creek Pottery shop on the way up to Rainier yesterday to visit its proprietor, our old friend Rick Johnson, and to take pictures of the artwork of Dad’s that Rick has hanging on the walls. I also got Rick to pose with art by Todd Horton (who, coincidentally, lives in the same Skagit Valley communicty as us), and to pose with one of Dad’s books.
(I think the painting that most tickled me yesterday was one Dad had painted depicting mountains of Alaska – and in which he’d whimsically added the Matterhorn in the background. I was looking at the painting, and then thought, “Whoah. That’s the Matterhorn there. What’s THAT doing there?” 😀 It put a grin on my face. Dad. Hahhahhahahar!)
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
It’s dark and still when I wake
I feel wrapped in soft velvet
No hurt feelings or rejection, no pain,
discouragement, disappointment, or dismay
Before I let the news or messenger or FB
Determine my day
I let myself bask in the love of Love
For a moment – feel the peace and joy
And all-encompassing beauty,
Of the one Mind, Life, Love.
I have no opinions of my own,
No personal beliefs or feelings –
No fear, indignation, or dejection-
All I can feel is what Love feels –
I am Her reflection.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
I heard the telltale thump on the dining room window and ran around the house to see if I could help. The robin was lying on the ground, not moving, but I could see he was still breathing. I gently scooped him into my hands and began to talk to him: “God is your Life. You are the perfect, whole, complete expression of Love. You live in the realm of Good – you are never outside of God’s governance – never separated from Love.” And I softly sang one of my favorite hymns to him: “Everlasting arms of Love are beneath, around, above.”
The robin watched me and listened to me and seemed to be comfortable in my hands. He didn’t seem at all scared of me.
When I first picked him up his beak was open, and I wondered if his beak was injured in some way. I saw blood in my palm and realized he had a wound on his breast. I continued to affirm to myself and to the little robin that he was safe and whole and embraced in Love, and slowly his beak closed.
I brought him up to the deck and put him in a flower box on the railing. I kept stroking his back, and talking to him, and he stayed there, listening. Then I asked, “Are you ready to fly now?” And he lifted up his wings – just like that! – and flew over to the fencing around the blueberry patch.
I whooped to him from the deck: “Have a wonderful day, little one!”
I knew I was walking on holy ground.
In the stillness of the night
I commune with the Cosmos –
feel the presence, power, might
of Love enfolding me –
and this is what I trust –
my own experience with the Divine.
I don’t need to be told
what to believe, what to think,
what to feel,
when to stand
and when to kneel.
I know in my own heartt
what’s genuine, what’s real.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
And now a poem-
Imagine a world without labels
Imagine a world unboxed
Imagine a world where people
Don’t assume to know you
Before you’ve had a chance to talk
Karen Molenaar Terrell
When Xander was in kindergarten I went to teaching half-time for the last part of the school year so that I could be off on the days Xander was off from kindergarten. One of the best days I’ve ever had was the day when Xander and I went to Washington Park on one of our days off and hiked down to Green Point together. We stayed there for a while, just relaxing, and then he turned to me and asked, “Isn’t this nice, Mommy?” I asked him what was nice, and he said, “Just sitting here in the sunshine with you.” And that. Right there. That sweet memory has stayed with me for twenty-five years.
I went back to Washington Park today and walked down to Green Point again. I ran into a little family – father, mother, baby, grandma – and enjoyed watching them spend time together, enjoying each other, and thought of the day I spent there in the sunshine with Xander.
I had the opportunity to talk to the family for a bit. I learned that the little one, Fiona, was just a few months younger than my granddaughter. She was sitting on her daddy’s shoulders – flapping her arms up and down like my granddaughter does when she’s on my shoulders or Scott’s. Then Fiona turned and pointed to me – just as my granddaughter does – and I pointed back. Fiona started grinning, enjoying our game.
I learned this was the first time Fiona’s grandmother had been able to see her and spend time with her, and she was leaving to go back to her home in Pakistan on Wednesday. My grandma’s heart went out to her. I know this feeling.
I thought at first that there were colorful shreds from popped party balloons strewn on the grass at Green Point. Then I realized the colorful shreds were actually rose petals. Rose petals seemed fitting for the day.
she points at me
like a celebrity
on the red carpet
and grins her sweet grin
then toddles to me
and reaches her arms up for me
to lift her onto my hip
we go out to the deck
and sit in the sunshine
and I sing to her an old Beatles ballad:
“Who knows how long I’ve loved you…?”
and she bops her head to the beat
and then rests
her head on my chest
and I melt with the sweetness of it
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
There are things that we agree on, and there are things we don’t. It’s not important, to me, that everyone agrees with me. I don’t take that personally, and I hope you won’t, either. I have found that it’s possible to disagree with people, and still like and enjoy them.
Although in the absolute of Christian Science all of God’s ideas are the perfect and beautiful expressions of Him, mortals are not God’s children – they are the counterfeits of His creation, and there’s no need to honor and follow them when they are dishonorable and aren’t leading us to be kind and honest and humane. The mortal counterfeit Donald Trump is not an honorable or kind man. He has proven himself with his words and actions to be self-seeking, dishonest, and racist. How anyone who witnessed what happened on January 6th in our capitol can support Donald Trump is beyond my understanding. When he talks about immigrants taking “black jobs” he shows himself to be a racist. He is a convicted felon – not because he was set up by the Justice Department as he claims – but because he paid off a porn star he had an affair with so that he could influence the 2016 presidential election. He put himself in that position, not the Justice Department. It was HIS actions and decisions that have made him liable for criminal charges and convictions. Understand, I do not hate Donald Trump – but I do not believe he is fit to be my president.
The information you share with me comes from a place of bias. There are links and videos I could share with you, too, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be interested in seeing them, and so I’ll save us both a lot of time and energy and not bring them to you.
I hope all goes well with you, my friend. I know God is leading you down your own path in the same way He is leading me, and I know He loves both you and me without condition or limitation. We are both precious to Him. I respect your individual journey, and I trust you will respect mine.
Love, Karen
Googling Hamas, Israel, Gaza,
Harris, Trump, polls,
politics, war, peace, causes,
Ukraine, Russia, death tolls,
species endangered,
glaciers receding,
earth’s poles melting,
I’m adrift and seeking,
googling for inspiration,
googling for help,
googling for answers,
googling myself.
But none of what I’m looking for
is housed in this computer –
not peace, not hope, and not myself –
nor the guarantee of a future.
To find those things I’ll need to stop
and get off of my whirring laptop.
I breathe in deep, and close my eyes,
and feel Love pulsing around me.
Right here. Right now. As near as my thoughts –
the Good I seek is right here with me.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 