“Old age” comes little by little, I think – little surrenders of who we are to the experts and authorities, to convenience and comfort – someone tells us we need to stay out of the sun, to eat only certain foods, to travel only at the right times and to the right places, and to wash our hands after every handshake and human touch – and we listen and obey.
And so we spend our days in “preventative” exams – counting the pills into our trays – hoping to increase the number of our days. And little by little we relinquish the small pleasures that make life meaningful – the joy of adventure, noon-time lunch with our faces turned towards the sun, whipped cream on our cocoa, shaking hands with new friends, and listening to our own hearts to create lives worth living.
And we lose our lives in a fear of death. – Karen Molenaar Terrell (Originally published January 8, 2017)
In the week after our midterm elections, I turned on the television to watch my beloved Seahawks football team play the Buccaneers in Munich, Germany. At the beginning of the game, members of the armed services unfurled a huge American flag and held it above the field, making it ripple in waves. And then a Black servicewoman stepped up to the microphone and sang our national anthem. I found myself singing along with her: “…o’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave…” and, for the first time in a long time, I felt the truth of those words. My country has been through a lot in the last six years – the biggest trauma being the day of the violent insurrection on January 6th, 2021. But this week it feels, for me, like my country is finally rising from the ashes of that horrible day.
Later in the game, when the German members of the crowd in the stadium joined voices to sing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” tears filled my eyes.
It feels good to be an American again.
(The photo below is of Sean and his daughter, Imani, taken by me at a local 2013 Fourth of July footrace – it just feels like it belongs here.)
Earlier I posted, for my friends, a photo of an agate I found on a walk around the block. Here’s a little more about that:
I’d been watching the Seahawks-Buccaneers football game on television. It was down to the last two minutes. I could see my beloved Seahawks were not going to win this one, but I was, weirdly, okay with that. They’d played well in the last half and I was proud of them.
It looked beautiful outside, though – sunny and autumnal – and I didn’t want to waste even one more moment in front of the TV. So I zipped up my coat and went outside to see what I might find out in the great outdoors.
I lifted my face to the sun and just soaked in the warmth. I actually felt like I was breathing in sunshine (maybe I’ll write a poem about that some time). And… I felt this… rightness with the world. I felt immediately enveloped in Love – pure, whole, unlimited, universal, undiluted Love. And I thought of my friends and family and brought all of the people I know into that hug of Love with me.
And then I looked down onto the street, and found this agate just sitting there, waiting for me, glowing up at me in the sunshine.
I was in some pain last night – I think it was from the digging and planting and hauling I did yesterday- and I couldn’t sleep. I came downstairs and sang the hymns Mom used to sing to me when I was a little girl and wasn’t feeling well. I could picture her face and hear her voice and feel her love as I sang to myself and it was comforting. I began to feel better and the pain faded away.
And as I was feeling full of gratitude for that, Sparky Cat suddenly jumped up and lay down next to me, leaned his head against my lap, and let me pet him. For you to understand what that meant to me you need to know that Sparky was a feral kitty when Scott brought him into our house five years ago, and he’s still very wary of being too close to people. He likes belly rubs from Scott and sometimes he’ll sit next to my chair and let me pet his head, but he’s not one of those cats that jumps in your lap and will allow himself to be picked up. He is skittish about too much contact. So this was huge!
Years ago, when I was teaching high school social studies, I came up with a lesson wherein my students brought in a special object to class and we used that as an “artifact” – we pretended we were archaeologists from the future unearthing these artifacts and trying to guess how they were used and what they meant. At the end of the period we went around the class and the students claimed their “artifact” from the artifact box and shared what their “artifact” actually meant to them.
There was one student in my class – a young man – who was very quiet and reticent – sat in the back of class and never spoke. When we came to him, he went up and collected a medal from the artifact box. Quietly – but clearly – he explained why the medal was special to him.
He told us the medal had been given to his family after his father’s death in Vietnam. His father had died before he was born. It was the only thing he had left of his father. And that’s why it was special to him.
I don’t think any of his classmates had known this about him. I remember tearing up, and seeing tears on the faces of his classmates, too.
When I think of the sacrifices our veterans have made in their lives – I always think of this young man. I don’t remember his name any more. But I remember him. And I remember the gift he gave us all that day by sharing his story – and the story of his father – with us.
sustained and maintained by the body of Life – we are nothing less than the whole perfection projection reflection affection of Love held in the never-ending connection with all that is Good -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Look at them! Perfect little round balls of juicy sweetness – the last harvest of the fall – planted and watered by me tended by honey bees – planted in the spring in a pot on the deck growing in the summer sun watered by the rains of autumn – it took three seasons to get them here – me and the bees and the sun and the rain – connected in the magic of these perfect red orbs.
Someone wrote a new review on Goodreads for one of the books in my Madcap Christian Scientist series, The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New. I so appreciate it when folks take the time to do this for authors. Thank you to Katherine A.
Katherine wrote:
“Loved the familiar writing. I settled into book 3 after devouring books 1 and 2. The author’s humor was spontaneous and contagious, and dare I say that word again I’ve used way too much….familiar. As someone who often finds herself at the intersection of the human and the divine scratching my head,, The series gave me encouragement and permission to look at things a little differently.”
I am mostly oblivious about what I look like these days. I take a quick look in the mirror in the morning and then go about my day. This seems to work for me. But yesterday I saw a photo of me taken by Scotty as I walked through the Longmire parking lot, unaware I was being photographed – and…it really depressed me – I was looking at an old lady and I was like, “Who IS that person?!” (Scotty didn’t see what I saw in the photo – he told me I looked “cute,” but I saw something different.)
I almost stayed in bed this morning. Embarrassed about presenting myself to the world. But here’s what happened instead:
I thought about what the voice of the Cosmos has been telling me in the middle of the night for the last year: “You are not a body; you are a part of my body.” I realized I could make a choice to not let mortal ego impose itself on me. It hit me that – although I maybe can’t instantly change the appearance of my physical form – I can instantly change my attitude, my thoughts, my mental approach to life: My joy isn’t dependent on my physical form, or what others think of me, or my age or gender or weight. I don’t have to stop having adventures or living my life or sharing joy with others because I’ve gotten older. There are no limitations to joy or love or kindness.
“Oh! Someone said the snow geese are back! Let’s go check that out!” I said to myself.
I got dressed and got in the car. I’ve been listening to the same CD for the last six months, and thought maybe it was time to change it out – but I realized I’d brought my other CDs to Scott’s car when we went on our trip to Rainier. So I settled in to listen to my old faithful CD, and pretty soon I was on the road to Fir Island. And pretty soon I saw a pair of eagles sitting in a tree. And pretty soon I saw some way cool old barns. And pretty soon I heard snow geese honking in the air above me – and saw flocks of them winging through the sky in perfect formation. Such joy to see them again!
I decided to stop at the supermarket on the way home. When I was loading my groceries into my car, I moved a bag that had been sitting in there for who knows how long and found it was filled with old CDs! There was a John Denver one in there that was still wrapped in its cellophane – it was priced at $5 and I’m thinking I must have picked it up as an impulse item somewhere and then forgotten about it. I stuck that baby in my CD player and listened to the folksy tunes of John Denver singing about climbing Colorado mountains and farming Kansas wheat fields and the country roads that lead to West Virginia. A flood of sweet memories came back: My friend, Perky, playing her John Denver Christmas album as we celebrated “Christmas in August” at Rainier; my friend, Renee, playing her John Denver “Rhymes and Reasons” record in our dorm hall; going to a John Denver concert in Seattle with my friend, Carol. And here was John Denver, singing , “Yes, and joy was just the thing that he was raised on/ Love is just the way to live and die…” in my car. John Denver, who died almost exactly 25 years ago, still lives in his music.
Magic! Nothing – not age or ego or even death – can stop the magic.
Photos below taken by Karen Molenaar Terrell in Skagit County on October 17, 2022.
10-17-22: Eagle in a tree near Bow, WA. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 