You are my precious child. Feel yourself embodied in my body – embodied in the body of Love. I AM Love, all-power, all-presence, always with you. I AM impenetrable Love, all encompassing – the only presence or power or Mind. You are never separated, isolated, or apart from Love. There is no place you could go, or be taken, that is outside of Love. You are never apart from Love. You are never in danger because you are never outside of what is Good. You are in an impervious armor of Love. You are a part of the Life that fills all space and never ends. You are the expression of never-ending Life itself. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
The son and I talked about the tree on the drive home. 850 years it had lived on this planet! It had been seeded in the late 1100’s – around the time of Genghis Khan and England’s King John, before Mansua Musa or Marco Polo, da Vinci or Michelangelo. Before Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mooji. It rooted into the soil as a tender seedling and grew during the Black Plague; grew while the ash from Krakatoa blocked the sun; and while factories sprouted up across the northern hemisphere. It grew while soldiers fought to end slavery; while World War I and World War II raged across Europe; while our planet warmed; and while division and despair made humans sometimes wonder if our planet was beyond repair. It grew. Quietly, without fanfare or medals or approval or star ratings – it lived, created oxygen, and grew – because that is what trees do. And maybe when it was older and sturdy, indigenous children played in its bends and called it “friend.” I like to think that’s true.
Yesterday I visited my wise friend, Charles. He could tell I was scared about our world. “Just be present,” he said. “Be a tree.” -Karen Molenaar Terrell
There are nobler things than “shows of strength,” stronger things than greed, more worthy things than ego, better things to feed. There’s Love and Truth and Life itself – all-power, always beautiful, always here. Greed and ego don’t have a chance against the Love that we draw near. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Draw nigh to Love and love will draw nigh to you.” -James 4:8
I could write a poem right now – find a word that rhymes like vow, bow, DOW, maybe cow – but I don’t wonna and instead I’m gonna go back to bed and sleep. -Karen Molenaar Terrell, great 21st century nut
Here is a picture of a cow with her new baby. Photo by me.
Five years ago today we brought Moz into our home. The nurturers from hospice came in and showed us how to care for Mom. Moz and I spent the afternoon telling each other how much we loved each other. At the end of the day it became hard for Moz to speak, but I was greedy. I needed to hear it one more time. “You love me, don’t you?” And I’ll never forget the expression in Moz’s eyes as they locked onto mine and poured her love into me. I knew exactly what she was saying to me with her eyes: “You KNOW I love you!”
No one loved me like Moz loved me.
Early the next morning, as I lay sleeping on the couch next to her bed, she passed on. I could feel her brush by me in my sleep – it was this beautiful, joyful dream – full of peace and joy and love.
Since Then
It’s been almost five years since then, but it feels like yesterday that you left, brushed by me as I slept, on your way to the other side of infinity. There are still days when I think I should pick up the phone and give you a call. But I know I don’t really need a phone to talk with you. I feel you with me – here and now. The sons are both married now; and Dad has gone – joined you on the other side of infinity; I’m retired, sort of; and we have a new president. Everything has changed and nothing has changed since then. I feel your love. You must feel mine. -Karen Molenaar Terrell, from Since Then
The Brush of Angel Wings
The end was like the beginning – the oxygen machine breathing, making the sound of the womb, a soothing rhythm in the room as she slept on the bed next to me. All is quiet, but for the pumping of O through her mask. In my dreams I feel the light brush of angel wings and fear is replaced by freedom and limitless joy that comes through an opened heavenly portal. I open my eyes to see the battle over and done. She has won. I rise and stand on holy ground. -Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Brush of Angel Wings
Moz
“…individual good derived from God, the infinite All-in-all, may flow from the departed to mortals…” – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
These are the people who know me and love me anyway – just as I am. I don’t need to hide away the pain and be the ever-smiling savior for them – they don’t dump shame on my head for being human or for saying the wrong thing or sometimes making the wrong choice or sometimes raising my voice. They know what’s in my heart and trust me. They see the good in me and help me see it, too, through their eyes. They are my refuge and my shelter, and my home. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I sit at my laptop at 5:00 in the morning waiting to see what will appear and my poet-son (“Stealthman”) quietly joins me with his notebook and pen and sits near. Poet-son and his love looked at apartments yesterday and I know they’ll be moving out soon – I know wherever they are they will bloom. The cats are fed and one puts his paw on me and meows for me to stroke his hair while the other watches us from the top of a chair – watching the poet-son and me as we wake and write and type. I feel it. The day is just starting, and ripe with possibilities of what might be. I enjoy this perfect moment, with the cats and the son close by me. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
“To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings.” -Mary Baker Eddy
And now it’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? on Roku one of my favorite movies and we’re just at the part where the Soggy Bottom Boys are singing the blues in the studio, singing with their hearts and our cats are awake now and wanting to be fed maybe I’ll feed them and then go back to bed -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I awake at three in the morning the magic hour and go downstairs to find some way to use this gift of extra time Ten Things I Hate About You is free on Roku that’s cool so that becomes my background movie while I scroll through Eff Bee and write a poem – this poem and now Heath Ledger is singing “I love you, baby!” as he dances his way across the bleachers – up and down – and I try to imagine who he’d be now if he was still with us here and you’d think there’d be something somewhere in here that rhymes time rhymes with rhyme, but it’s too far back in the poem to count sometimes free verse is what it’s all about -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Two years ago the son landed in Vienna and called to ask me to pray – he’d picked up some weird virus along the way. Two years minus a month ago he wrote to say he’d just faced wild pigs in the Black Forest, on a most epic day. Two years minus two months ago borders were closing behind him as he traveled from where they spoke German to where they spoke Dutch, and I wished I could touch him again and worried a mama’s worries. And now he sits on the floor of our family home, quietly assembling a side table for the family room.
It’s amazing how much joy I get from watching my son assemble a side table for the family room. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 