A No Car Day

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections.
– Mary Baker Eddy

The sons, husband, and I had a No Car Day yesterday. It was lovely. We went for a walk to the old cemetery, and then came home and made a fire in the wood-stove, and brought our the old board games – Stratego, Monopoly, RISK. We filled the DVD up with old favorites – Christmas Vacation, The Christmas Story, Pirates of the Caribbean – and our bellies up with garlic mash and turkey. The cat sat on top of the chair, the dog lay on her bed at our feet. Christmas lights sparkled from the mantel and the Christmas tree, and reflected off the wrapping paper littering the floor.The sound of convivial board game competition and laughter filled the air.

Ah! Bliss! 🙂

photo of Christmas wrapping paper (Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Ode to Boxing Day

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

It’s a humble holiday, tucked in between
Christmas and New Year’s, but it’s really keen.
Things look a little bedraggled, it’s true
The tree’s a little droopy and no longer new

The movies and music of the Christmas season
Are getting on our nerves now, and we’re seeing no reason
To eat even one more sugary oversweet sweet
It’s time for broccoli and carrots (maybe hold on the beets)

The pressure for perfection comes off on this day,
The toys have been opened, and it’s come time to play.
And if before we were wearing faux holiday cheer
To blend in with the others and not Scroogey appear

It’s time now to be genuine, and honest and real
The food banks are empty, people still need a warm meal
The homeless and hungry and jobless and alone
Still need love and caring, still need a home.

So maybe we can celebrate the day after Christmas –
By keeping the spirit of hope alive, we might make that our business.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

Happy Boxing Day, my dear hooligan Humoristians! Let’s continue in our conspiracy to spread good will and humorosity throughout the universe!

(excerpted from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book)

Feeling Christmas

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My Address Book

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

I brought out the old address book this weekend to work on my Christmas cards. I’ve had that book about 30 years – I can no longer remember exactly where I got it or when – but when I first started writing names and addresses in it I’m sure I didn’t realize how significant it would one day become to me. It has become a chronicle of sorts – a record of friendships and family ties.

My mom was the youngest of ten children and my dad the middle of three – at one time I had 11 aunts and uncles – and their names and addresses are still in my address book, though they are all gone now – Mom and Dad are the only ones remaining in their generation. As I l started flipping through my address book, this was brought home to me. “I don’t have any more aunts or uncles to send Christmas cards to,” I told my husband, sort of in shock. My cousins, Julie and Skip and Chris, are gone now, too. And Craig and Mark. And I’ve lost friends through the years – Kim has passed, other friends have moved away and on, and I’ve lost my connection to them.

For a moment I was overwhelmed by sadness as I realized how many dear ones are no longer walking this earth with me.

But then, as I started working my way towards the back of each alphabetized section, I started finding more recent names and addresses – a record of new friendships and a younger generation of family members with their own homes. There was something about that discovery that lifted the sadness from me a little. Yes, I’ve lost loved ones through the years, but I’ve also gained new friends and new family. In the last ten years I’ve added the names of new friends living all over the world – people I’ve met through the internet or through my books – addresses for new friends in Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Ontario, Nova Scotia, England, Kenya – people I never could have imagined knowing when I first got my address book all those years ago.

Although the book is pretty full now, I am happy to note there is still room for more addresses, more friendships. There will always be room in my address book. If I have to, I’ll just tape in more pages. It’s cool to think of all the new names and addresses my address book might hold in the future.

We Are Family

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

I had an experience a few years ago that has stayed with me. I was at a local Starbucks – drinking cocoa and working on some stuff at one of the little tables there when a pair of young policemen came in and sat at the table next to mine. I – being who I am – couldn’t help but listen into their conversation. I expected them to talk about their work – busts they’d made, “bad guys” they’d caught. But they began to talk about their wives – meeting and courtship and marriage. Then one of them told an hilarious story about a trip he’d taken to Alaska – I started chuckling at this point and they both looked over at me. I explained that I was really enjoying their conversation – they grinned at me and carried on. I realized as I listened to these guys that I’d been carrying around some prejudices about law enforcement types – and that these fine fellows didn’t fit the stereotypes I’d maybe built up for police officers. It was eye-opening for me.

I was really blest as I was growing-up to be raised by parents who took a very dim view of prejudice. There weren’t many African-Americans in my community when I was a child,. but I do remember one time when Mom and my brothers and I were walking through a Sears store at the local mall, and a young black family with small children walked by. A white man standing near us turned to my mom and said, “Those people should stay in their own place.” My mom – I am proud to say – was trembling with anger at his words. She told the white man in no uncertain terms that that little family had as much right to be there as anyone else and that we were all God’s children.

I think I’ve shared before the story of a trip I took down to Los Angeles with my dad back in 1975 – only a few years after the Watts race riots. Dad had decided to return to his old neighborhood and check out the home he’d grown up in, and soon we found ourselves driving through an area of LA that was very similar to Watts. I noticed this. Dad did not. And even if he had noticed, he wouldn’t have noticed – if you know what I mean. Dad is one of those people who doesn’t take much note of differences in skin color. He pulled up next to his childhood home, and without hesitation walked up to the door and knocked. A black woman opened the door to us and seemed a little surprised to find these white people standing on her stoop. Dad explained that he’d like to check out his childhood home, and Ruby opened the door wide to us, and let us in. Dad glanced around the home and then walked out the back door and into the yard he’d played in as a young boy. I remember him looking around the yard, commenting on the avocado tree growing there, and mentioning how much bigger the yard had seemed when he was growing up. Then he came back inside the house, shook Ruby’s hand, and thanked her for letting us in. On the way out of the neighborhood we stopped at a gas station to get gas, and the black attendant there seemed as surprised to see us as Ruby had been. After he’d filled up our gas tank for us he thanked us for coming, and said, “Come back again!”

When I think about those policemen at the Starbucks and Ruby and the gas station attendant in Los Angeles, it occurs to me that there’s not really all that much difference between them. Ruby’s home was full of pictures of her children – it was obvious her family was important to her – and the policemen’s stories were full of anecdotes about the people in their lives whom they loved. Ruby and the policemen and the gas station attendant had all been friendly and kind to me. All of them had a sense of humor and knew how to laugh.

Humanity walks on a common ground. I think almost all of us have people we love and care about in our lives. We all laugh. We all grieve. I think most of us want to do right by each other.

It might be helpful to humanity to remember our common ground – to see that whether we’re black or white or red or yellow we are all the children of Love. It might be useful to try to see each other as loving parents might see their offspring – to see each other through the eyes of God, Love, Life.

With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science.
– Mary Baker Eddy

Peace and Good Will to All Creation

Posted on December 20, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

Photo of trees on Stevens Pass, Washington by Karen Molenaar Terrell

Yup. I Am Incorrigible.

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The Christmas Cat

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

(Originally published on December 19th, 2011)

I’ve told you about the Christmas Dog. Today I have a Christmas CAT story to share… 🙂

A few days ago my son came home from his walk with Sam the Dog, to tell me that they’d found a bloodied little calico cat on the side of the road. She seemed to be injured, wasn’t moving much, had just enough energy to hiss at the dog, but not much energy beyond that. I grabbed a towel (the yellow Pittsburgh Steelers towel my dear in-laws from Pennsylvania sent us several years ago when the Seahaws and the Steelers were duking it out in some bowl game – I figured if any of my towels was going to end up bloody, it might as well be that one) and followed the son to the kitty.

She was curled up on the side of the road, not moving much – except for one twitchy ear. She hissed defensively when I reached down to hold her, but I wrapped her up in the towel so she couldn’t scratch and held her close to me. I told the son to get my car keys and purse and meet me at the car, and I slowly carried the kitty back to our house.

Once I was holding her, she stopped hissing and fidgeting, and when I sat down in the car with her, she relaxed against me, laid her head on my arm and began to purr as I petted her head and ears. As the son drove us to the vet’s I sang the song I’d once sung, years ago, to the Christmas Dog. “Everlasting arms of Love, are beneath, around, above…” (words by John R. MacDuff) and the kitty looked up at me with the same look of trust and love that the Christmas Dog had once shown me.

I’ll be honest, the picture was not pretty. She looked to have been hit in the head by a car. Her jaw was out of alignment, and her eyes were filling up with blood. In my thoughts, I tried to establish who this little kitty was, as an expression of God – tried to establish her in my thoughts as God’s perfect idea, held whole, complete, and untouched by accident, in the consciousness of Love. What gave me some courage and confidence about the whole situation was the kitty herself – she seemed totally calm, totally unaware that she looked a mess, and completely content just resting on my lap, wrapped up in the towel. She was…well…she was very matter of fact about it all, to tell you the truth.

When we got to the vet’s I carried her inside (she was still purring), and the dear receptionist and assistant there immediately, but gently, removed the cat from my arms and whisked her away to a backroom. Before I left her there, they told me that a microchip had been found on her and that they’d try to contact the owners. I told them that if they couldn’t find the owners, I’d be willing to take responsibility for the kitty. (In the short drive to the vet’s she’d already managed to capture my heart.)

The next morning I called the vet’s to get an update, and was relieved to learn that the kitty was still alive, was actually doing “pretty good,” and was still purring. The owner had come in and decisions were being made as to how to proceed regarding the kitty’s jaw, which had been shattered.

This morning, on our way to church, we noticed our next-door neighbors had a sign in their front yard that read “Slow down” and we wondered if there might be some connection between that sign and the kitty-cat we’d found near their house two days ago. Tonight I knocked on their door and found that they were, indeed, the owners of that sweet kitty. They brought me in to look at her. She was snugly ensconced in a kitty carrier, half-dozing, and looking much better than she did when I first met her. The neighbors were happy to learn that I’d been the person the doctor had referred to as “The Good Samaritan” – “Mystery solved!” said Robert with a grin – and I was happy to learn that my neighbors were the owners of that dear kitty – I know she’s in a good home if she’s living with them.

And here’s the really cool thing: Because the little calico cat lives right next door to me, I’ll get to see her all the time!

Post Script: A year has passed since I originally published this post. The calico cat still lives next door to us and she is one of the sweetest, friendliest little cats I have ever known – she comes over and visits with us a couple times a week, lets herself be picked up and petted, and has even wandered into our home once or twice. And she’s still purring… 🙂

Joy! Peace! Good will to all (and I’m not just talking those with two legs)!

(excerpt from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book)

“There’s nothing more beautiful than a tree…”

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Karen Molenaar Terrell

“There’s nothing more beautiful than a tree,” Alain Le Goff liked to say…

Photo of 700 year-old tree at Deception Pass, Washington by Karen Molenaar Terrell

“Look how they’re working …They’re linking the earth to the sky. That’s very difficult, son. The sky is so lightweight that it’s always at the point of taking off. If there were no trees, it would bid us farewell …You can see that the trunk of a tree is a thick rope. Sometimes there are knots inside. The strands of the rope work themselves loose at each end so that they can fasten onto the sky and the earth. At the top they’re called branches, and at the bottom, roots. But it comes to the same thing.”– Pierre-Jakez Helias, Horse of Pride

I love trees. They give us shade, shelter, and oxygen. They hold the soil to the hillside, fruit on their branches, and our tire swings above the ground.

Down the road from our house is a tree that I’ve come to think of as “The Giving Tree” – there are now two honey bee nests thriving inside its trunk, a little gardner snake home at its base, and a bird’s nest at the top…

: The Giving Tree

: bees’ nest

Every year a little fir tree on the path along Bellingham Bay slowly begins accumulating Christmas decorations on its branches. Why this particular tree was picked to be the path’s annual Christmas tree, I do not know. But she’s a very jaunty little tree, and it brings me great joy to contribute to her Christmas finery, and to see her all gussied-up for Christmas.

“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” – Isaiah 55: 12

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” – Psalms 1: 3