Revelation!
I’m not angry, I don’t hate you –
all that happened then –
the unfairness of it, the injustice –
was a part of the healing. It was
all good – all of it – the people,
the place, the circumstances –
and it led to the healing –
it brought me to the place
prepared for me – a place of purpose
and joy. And I see you now –
and my feelings are benign towards
you. I wish you nothing but good.
How could anger and hate ever
abide where there is healing?
I came upon two earthworms on the sidewalk today –
their noses suspended in the air, frozen by the heat
of the sun – dried out and stiff
and I reached down and plucked up the first
and carried him to the dirt.
I dug a little hole for him and covered him
with earth – a grave to bring him back to life.
Gently I used my fingers as tweezers and pulled
the second worm from the sidewalk
and lifted him to the moist soil, laid him down,
and covered him with a wet leaf.
Fare thee well, my new friends –
May you revive and spend the rest of your days
happily leaving a trail of rich earth in your wake.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, earthworm lover
“Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping over lofty summits, persevering in its intent.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
My dear Humoristian hooligans,
As the sun dawns over another day, may you rise with hearts full of benificent (I’m pretty sure that’s a word, right?) good will to all – armed with jocularity – ready to bring humor to the humorless, to transform the stodgy and stingy wherever you may find them, and to lighten the burdens of the scared and lonely. May your good-natured love of life bring a smile to all whom you pass on your journey today. May the barbs and slings of envy, impatience, anger, and fear clink harmlessly off your armor of joy and kindness. And may you see all the beauty and feel all the love surrounding you. Go out there and make them smile!
Amen.
Karen
Passing Thoughts
Lingering, flitting, wispy, clear –
thoughts passing through me today:
Aunt Junie’s laugh filled my mental ears
and my heart filled with love when I
remembered her support through the dark years;
Then my thoughts turned to a man
I once thought a terrible trial –
I saw him last week as I sat in the bank
and he came up to me and smiled
and I smiled back and we
made small talk for awhile,
and I felt nothing – not anger, nor tension –
and I was kind of surprised by that.
I guess Life has moved me past
the past, and the love has stayed,
but the bad didn’t last.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“FRIENDSHIP IS A SPIRITUAL THING. It is independent of Matter, or Space, or Time. That which I love in my friend is not that which I see. What influences me in my friend is not his body but his spirit. He influences me about as much in his absence as in his presence.” – Henry Drummond, from The Greatest Thing In the World and Other Addresses
Happy day, Kathi!
Today you celebrate the beginning of another journey around the sun. May your journey be blest with all the wonder and beauty that you are.
To celebrate this day I give you a box full of jewelry:
A ring made of the October blueberry bushes I saw on a hike to a mountain pass in the North Cascades.
A ring made of the blue sky and bay along the boardwalk in Bellingham.
A ring made from the gold of the autumn leaves on a tree outside the Village Green.
A necklace made from the purple flowers along a trail through the forest.
A ring made from the waters in the Sound connected to the Pacific connected to the Atlantic connected to you and the hike we took together once along a Nova Scotian shore.
Thank you for all the kindness you have brought into my life. Thank you for the inspiration, the wisdom, the encouragement, the spiritual support. I am blest to know you, and to call you friend.
Love you,
Karen
photo jewelry by Karen Molenaar Terrell
There will be magic today. You deserve whatever you can find.
Snowgeese and trumpeter swans in a field in Bow, Washington. (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
Let’s be glad and rejoice in it! 🙂
Ode To Boxing Day
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 care, 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 (from A Poem Lives On My Windowsill)
.
Waiting for the Christmas Spirit
The kitsch and spangles and baubles and bangles,
And department store Santa, just really can’ta
Seem to bring me the spirit of Christmas.
And I’ve been waiting to feel it –
the real Christmas spirit
Hoping it’d come by now.
The stockings are stuffed,
the tree is all buffed,
The cookies are baked and frosted and fluffed
But there’s still something missing –
a feeling, a tingling
that’s supposed to come every Christmas.
Except…
Maybe that Christmas feeling,
that energy and tingling
Is something I can have every day –
It doesn’t depend on spangles, or jingly-bell jangles
Or jolly men dressed all in red.
It comes in the sharing
of laughter and caring
And the comfort in words with love said:
To all – Peace! Joy! Hope! Every moment of every day.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book
T’was Two Weeks Afore Christmas
T’was two weeks afore Christmas and all through Eff Bee
not a creature was stirring – not a she, he, or me
We were prostrate and spent from the holiday bustle
not a twitch could be seen from the teeniest muscle.
We lay all unblinking in our respective beds
while visions of gift-wrapping swirled through our heads
And clad in our jammies and our way cool madcaps
we had the vague hopeful hope our bodies would take naps.
Holiday jangles and jingles pinged through our brains –
Presley, Crosby, and Mathis taking us down memory lanes –
and would we remember every member to be gifted?
We mentally went through our lists, hoping none were omitted.
There were homes to be decorated and cards to be sent,
parties, caroling, and cookie-making, and we hadn’t made a dent.
But with a collective sigh we remembered there and then
that it’s really about good will to all creatures, women, and men.
And so our thoughts finally settled and our bodies relaxed
as we thought of those we love and a world festooned in pax.
With our hearts wrapped in kindness and the world as our ‘hood
We’re all brethren and sistren – and verily, it’s all good!
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book)
photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 