“Each success stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
I pointed my camera towards the sunset as I drove home – my eyes on the road – and clicked. I had no idea if this one was going to turn out or not… 🙂
A comforting ritual – baking
the annual Thanksgiving pies
connects me to Thanksgivings
past – decades of home and love,
laughter, food, memories of those
who’ve newly-arrived, and those
departed. This year will be
the first Thanksgiving without
Moz. And as I pour blackberries
into the pie I realize these berries
were ones I picked the summer
after she passed, and I wonder
if I might have a left-over bag
of blackberries I picked during
the summer before –Â when Moz
was still moving amongst us.
I go to the freezer in the garage
and root amongst the frozen bags,
digging, searching – and there!
I find a bag of berries marked
2016! And now a part of the world
that still held Moz in it is in
this year’s Thanksgiving pie.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Humbled and inspired –
the burden of ego lifted
from me in a moment
and understanding came –
Hush. It’s your turn to listen,
to let yourself be supported,
to let someone else share
her talents and gifts with you.
And Love gifted me
with the expression of beauty
offered by another
of Her children. Blessings
abound and surround,
here, now, all around.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Photo taken early one autumn morning, at Lake Padden, Bellingham, WA. (Karen Molenaar Terrell)
To be immortal, we must forsake the mortal sense of things…
– Mary Baker Eddy
It turns speech to singing
walking to dancing
the written word to poetry
It causes the yearning
for something more
than survival, it turns
us towards what’s true
and kind and immortal
and gives us the sight
to see beauty in the rainbow
and in Love.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
– Proverbs
Lulled by stupefying illusions, the world is asleep in the cradle of infancy, dreaming away the hours. Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal.
– Mary Baker Eddy
Sunrise on the way to work. October 2, 2017. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
There was a year in my early fifties when joy did not come easily to me. You know that whole “choose joy” thing? Yeah, speaking as someone who went through a year when joy wasn’t something I felt I could choose, let me assure you that to tell someone who’s struggling with depression that she just needs to “choose joy” isn’t going to be very helpful to that person. To tell someone that you love her, that she has purpose, that she’s needed, to ask her to go on walks with you, and to listen to her without judgment and condemnation – but with unconditional love – these are all helpful things. But to tell her to “choose joy”? Not so much.
Karen
“If Christian healing is abused by mere smatterers in Science, it becomes a tedious mischief-maker. Instead of scientifically effecting a cure, it starts a petty crossfire over every cripple and invalid, buffeting them with the superficial and cold assertion, ‘Nothing ails you.'”
– Mary Baker Eddy
It’s a miracle of perfection.
I am warm and fed and I can hear
my loved one tapping the keys on his laptop
and clearing his throat
near me
I have chamomile tea with cream and a chunk of
sourdough bread and the wind is moving
the rain-splattered screen on the window
and making the lights behind it look like they’re dancing
I feel no pain or fear
I know I’m completely safe
and I imagine coming through some terrible danger
and finding myself in this room
and what a miracle that would seem to be
and how much I’d appreciate the simple unremarkable
perfection of it
and I am filled with gratitude.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
(excerpt from A Poem Lives on My Windowsill)
I awaken at one in the morning,
eyes wide open, thoughts churning,
and pad downstairs to commune
with Love in quiet and stillness.
Calico cat comes to me then,
rubs against me, curls up next
to me and watches me open
my Christian Science Quarterly
Bible Lesson. Ahem. I am a week
behind, and travel back to last
week, and even the week before,
before starting this week’s lesson.
I underline and star verses and
thoughts of men who lived
more than 2,000 years ago,
and the words a woman wrote
and published in 1875. I am
connected to the aspirations,
hopes, and wisdom of people
no longer walking this planet.
Truth destroys death
“with the spiritual evidences of Life”
writes Mary Baker Eddy, and I think
of my mother – no longer with me
in body – but still with me in her love
for me and in “the spiritual evidences”
of her life. Death has no power
to separate me from her love.
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee…
I will strengthen thee… I will help thee…”
I read in Isaiah and I remember
all the times in my life when Love
has brought me through, healed me,
cared for me. When has Love ever
failed me? And I feel Love spreading
strong wings over me, and gathering
me up close under soft feathers.
“‘God is Love.’ More than this we cannot
ask, higher we cannot look, farther we
cannot go…” writes Eddy, and I feel
enveloped in warmth and light.
Safe. Protected. Secure.
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word,
even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself…” says Paul to the Galatians.
And I recognize the abiding truth
in those words, more than 2,000 years later.
“Firmness in error will never save
from sin, disease, and death…” writes Eddy,
and I take comfort in knowing that lies,
dishonesty, and ignorance have no reality
or power – and am reminded why it’s
useless to waste time and energy
investing in lies, dishonesty, and ignorance.
The cat stretches her paw towards me.
I pet her behind the ears and she smiles
a contented cat smile. She watches my pen
as I underline and star my Quarterly.
She is my partner in this morning’s
sacred hour.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind…”
– Mary Baker Eddy
This morning when I stopped to get my breve at the Sisters Espresso, Brooke sang the birthday song to me. The lady ahead of me in the line thought Brooke was singing to her, because it was HER birthday today, too – isn’t that cool?!
In the afternoon I realized that a part of me had been expecting a birthday phone call from Moz today, and it hit me – this is my first birthday without Moz. She always gave me flowers on my birthday, and a card, and sang the birthday song to me.
And then… my dear friend, Teresa, asked me where I wanted to go for dessert – and she took me up to Bellingham – and she bought me a bouquet of roses – she said she felt Moz telling her to do that – and she bought me CHOCOLATE at the Chocolate Necessities and Gelato shop. And her gesture was so sweet that… I’m tearing up right now just writing about it.
I am so blessed – my life is so rich with family and friends. I am wealthy beyond belief.
photo of butterfly by Karen Molenaar Terrell
“…seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
– Matthew 6:33
–
“Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth Life, and Love are substance…man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of spirit, not matter… To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and obey as God. The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint…”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 