Category Archives: poetry

This Is What I Hope

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I want to know if the mother in labor, killed
in the Ukraine, is holding her new baby close
wherever she is now,
and rejoicing in Life never-ending.
This is what I hope for her.

I want to know if the young Russian conscript –
who texted his mother just before he was killed
in a war he wasn’t expecting –
is hugged safe in the arms of Mother-Love.
This is what I hope for him.

I want to know if the man who started this war
will wake up someday on the other side of this life
and meet the mother and her baby and the conscript
face-to-face and see what he has done and feel
the pain of loss they felt in their last moments on earth,
and feel shame.
This is what I hope for him.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

World in Mourning

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A world in mourning.
Weeping in the dark of night.
Praying for the light.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Joy Wins

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Does it make sense to sacrifice
the very things we’re battling to win?
To give up our joy, and lose our love,
would be to let hate and fear win in the end.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Cause and Consequence

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The joy is always here, you know.
War and famine, pestilence and pain,
can’t stop joy from bubbling up,
unrestrained.

Love is always with us, too –
unhampered, irrepressible, strong –
heedless of whether you’re the “wronged”
or the “wrong.”

The thing about Love and joy
is they don’t depend on circumstance,
happenstance, or material substance.
They are both cause and consequence.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

With Old Friends, Laughing

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Sitting in a bubble of joy
with old friends, laughing.
For a couple of hours
the world’s fear and terror
have no power.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Dee Molenaar and Tom Hornbein, 2018

Holding Eye Contact

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Have your eyes ever held onto someone else’s
during labor, an earthquake, storm, tumult?
And, while conflict and terror rage around you,
you feel safe held in that eye contact –
you feel the calm, the courage, the strength
coming through the space between you.
You know, whatever happens, you’re not alone.

I want to be that for you.
Look here. Look at me. You’re not alone.
I’m with you in the storm.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

***

Holding eye contact
with God – with Truth, Life, and Love –
focused on what’s true.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Sun Shining Through the Clouds. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.




Love, Open My Eyes to See

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Love,
Open my eyes to see
there’s no separation
between You and me.

Help me see no one
in any nation
is beyond salvation.

Help me know there’s no wall
dividing the good of one
from the good of all.

-Karen Molenaar Terrell




Is It Selfish to Feel Joy?

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Is it selfish of me to feel joy
when there are people dying?
Or
is it selfish of me NOT to feel joy
when I’m able
and can share it with those
who need it?
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Grateful to be alive.
Grateful for sunshine through my window.
Grateful for the fragrance of spring.

Field of Daffodils (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)



My Mother-Heart Breaks

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My mother-heart breaks today.
Stop!
Stop sending our world’s children
into wars they don’t want.
Their lives are worth more than that.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Joan Baez singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

“Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth… the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places…”
-Isaiah 43

“The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.”
-Mary Baker Eddy

“Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.”
-Mary Baker Eddy

I Believe Again

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I felt a spark of hope inside me
– a moment when I remembered
what it was like before the invasion
before the insurrection
before the division in our nation
and our world –
a distant memory of good will
and peace.

And remembering, I believe again.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell