For my friends who are saying that race and gender shouldn’t have any bearing on who a person votes for in the presidential election, let’s look at two hypothetical candidates then and think about who would make the better president, regardless of race and gender:
Hypothetical Candidate 1: White male. Was ordered to pay $83 million for defamation against a woman he raped in a dressing room. Was ordered to pay $25 million to students for creating a fake university to collect their tuition money. Was convicted of illegally influencing the 2016 presidential election by paying hush money to a porn star (whom he had sex with while his wife was pregnant) and hiding where the money came from. Kept classified government documents in his home after being asked to return them. Tried to overturn an election found to be legal and valid by every judge – both Republican and Democrat – who looked at it. Asked his vice president to discount the votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for the other candidate and to declare him the winner. Urged his supporters into a violent insurrection on the nation’s capitol building.
Hypothetical Candidate 2: African-American/Asian-American female. Served as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County and then assistant district attorney in San Francisco before being elected Attorney General for the state of California. Was elected and served as a U.S. senator for four years before being elected as vice president of the United States. She has been happily married for the last ten years and been praised by her step-children and her husband’s ex-wife for her role as a step-mother.
Who, would you say, is the better candidate to be president of the U.S.A. – hypothetical candidate #1 or hypothetical candidate #2?
Dear Pres. Biden, I would like to give you a heartfelt thank you for all your years of service to our country. I’m teary-eyed as I write this. You are brave and honest and have always put our nation before your own personal interests. Thank you for having the courage and wisdom to pass the torch on to the next generation of public servants. You are an honorable man. Respectfully, Karen Molenaar Terrell
Right now we’re in that place – that desperate place – where we can see no way out. The greed, hate, and selfishness seem relentless and it seems inevitable that they will win. But, more than once, I’ve been in a place that seemed hopeless – I’ve been in a place where I could see no solution and no way out. More than once I’ve been in a desperate place. And every time Love has opened up a way through. Every. Single. Time.
Love owns the “waiting hours,” too. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
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Mother’s Evening Prayer
“O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight! Keep Thou my child on upward wing to-night.
“Love is our refuge; only with mine eye Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: His habitation high is here, and nigh, His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.
“O make me glad for every scalding tear, For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear No ill, — since God is good, and loss is gain.
“Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing; In that sweet secret of the narrow way, Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: ‘Lo, I am with you always’ — watch and pray.
“No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain; No night drops down upon the troubled breast, When heaven’s aftersmile earth’s tear-drops gain, And mother finds her home and heavenly rest.” – Mary Baker Eddy
Lake Padden Forest (Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
This is an old blog post (September 14, 2013), but it came to my thought just now and I thought maybe Pride Month was a good time to repost it:
Okay, I just watched a youtube clip that still has me wiping the tears from my face. I was so moved by this clip – so completely inspired by it. It went waaaay beyond your typical proposal of young man on bended knee proposing to young woman – no, this proposal included a choreographed dance to Betty Who’s upbeat song, Somebody Loves You, and an ensemble cast of parents, friends, youngsters, oldsters – all there to support the handsome couple. This marriage proposal was testament to the power of community and the power of love. And part of what made the proposal so extraordinary, for me, was that the couple wasn’t a man and a woman at all – the couple was a man and a man… in Salt Lake City… Utah. And… did I mention that their mums and dads were there? Friends? Little girls in pinks tutus doing cartwheels? Babies? If you haven’t seen this clip, you gotta watch it – you just gotta!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4HpWQmEXrM
This is the way it’s supposed to be. Acceptance. Support. Celebration. Love.
I look forward to that day when every citizen can share in the exact same rights as every other citizen of our land. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
The last person alive on the planet wasn’t a dictator, prime minister, or president – no, it was a cleaning woman who carefully tidied up the earth, tucked in the corners, smoothed the wrinkles, hid the plastic, glitter, and mess to try to give a good first impression to whoever lands here next – Karen Molenaar Terrell
NIGHTLY NEWS: …death of…the city’s destruction …earthquake hit… wildfire out of control… missiles attacked…civilians killed… indicted on… newest COVID variant (commercial break – cool new drug name… disease you’ve never heard of before that needs to be treated with the cool new drug name… people smiling and laughing because they took this drug with the cool new drug name…side effects may include diarrhea, dizziness, cancer, death)… Trump ordered to pay… Biden orders strikes on… refugees starving…today the house majority refused to pass a bill that will keep our economy going…(commercial break – another cool new drug name…another disease you’ve never heard of before… tell your doctor about this cool new drug name… more people smiling and laughing…side effects may include dry mouth, drowsiness, depression, may lead to thoughts of suicide)… we’ll end our news tonight with a tribute to a good person who died yesterday.
OR
Alternatively, we could conduct our OWN end-of-the-day nightly news, I guess. Today four people exchanged smiles with me me in the supermarket and we made room for each other as we passed in the produce aisles. I saw a field of daffodils about to spring into bloom. My cat jumped up on the arm of my chair and purred and rubbed her head against me. I got a card in the mail from a dear friend. Scott had a warm fire going for me in the woodstove when I came downstairs this morning. I have a solid roof over my head. My belly was filled with granola and pizza today. My oven works. My washer and dryer work. My toilet works. My hot water heater works. I found another well-crafted British television series to watch by the fire while it snowed outside. The swans are still here, arching their backs and spreading alabaster wings across the local fields. I saw a flock of snow geese, too – fluttering around each other and honking in a beautiful cacophony of geese sounds. I don’t have any aches or pains. My eldest son and his wife and our grandbaby are coming from Australia soon. My youngest son and his wife live near, and I know they are safe and secure, and I will see them soon. I have a new great-grand niece! I felt love today.
“Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually… We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.“ – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesp. 248
“The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it… We should master fear instead of cultivating it.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p 196-197
Your mission (should you decide to take it – and, really, what’s the alternative?) is to keep hope alive in yourself so that you can bring it to those lost and weary in a valley of despair. May your irrepressible joy and never-ending good will to all bring light to the desolate, discouraged, and disheartened. May your generosity and open hearts transform the stingy, stodgy, and stuffy. May the bigots, bullies, and busybodies be transformed by your relentless kindness and unfailing patience. May you bring laughter to those in sorry need of a good laugh.
It’s interesting to hear your perspective on things. It’s good to hear that you oppose the violence of January 6th – and I assume you oppose any talk of future violence, too. A violent Civil War wouldn’t be helpful to our country, would it?
Lies have been spread from right-wing news sources that people who “pretended to be Trump supporters” were part of the insurrection that day, but there has been no actual evidence of this.
What I saw in live time, from my chair in front of the television, was a mob of people, crashing over the barricades into the capitol, attacking the capitol police, filling the halls of our capitol building with uncontrolled rage and hate. What I saw was a noose set up for VP Pence because he wouldn’t go along with Donald Trump’s plan to discount the legal votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for Biden. What I saw was Donald Trump spurring these insurrectionists on with phrases like “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” As the legislators were fleeing for their lives, and the capitol police were heroically defending our capitol against great odds, and against stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats, and flagpoles – I did NOT see Donald Trump calling in the National Guard to stop the insurrection. The insurrection went on for hours before the National Guard appeared. That is not acceptable. That does not show presidential leadership. That does not show integrity.
When I listen to Donald Trump I hear him disparaging women, the disabled, and refugees and immigrants to this country. His words are full of hate. Just last night he made fun of Nikki Haley’s dress when she spoke to her followers after the New Hampshire primary. Why would any presidential candidate stoop so low as to make fun of a woman’s dress?! It’s mean. It’s unkind. It is not presidential. He talks about the migrants who come to this country through the southern border as “poisoning the blood of America” and “destroying the blood of our country” and “destroying the fabric of our country.” As a teacher who worked with children who’d migrated from Mexico, I find his words deeply disturbing. My students were hard-working, wanting to learn, wanting to excel, wanting to give back to this country. They were not “poisoning” our country. I am the grandchild of immigrants from Europe. My grandparents came to this country to make a better life for themselves and their children. And that is why my students “from the southern borders” came to this country, too. Note that Donald Trump doesn’t use disparaging words against my white grandparents. He reserves those comments for the people who come through the southern border. He appears, to me, to be a racist.
“Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 393)
I finally gathered my courage and watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix. I’d been reluctant to watch this movie because I’ve been feeling fragile lately – bombarded on the internet and television with images of disease and death, destruction and war and inhumanity – and I didn’t feel like I was ready for any more emotional breakage right now. But as I’ve been processing the movie in the last couple days, I’ve felt myself gathering courage, building a sort of steely resolve. If the people with financial and political power want us to isolate ourselves from each other, want us to be fearful and distrustful of each other, want us to cower in paranoia so that they can control and manipulate us – then, hell no! I am not going to isolate myself, or be scared or cowering.
I am going to be part of the resistance movement.
Wikipedia says this about “resistance movements“: “Resistance movements can include any irregular armed force that rises up against an enforced or established authority, government, or administration. This frequently includes groups that consider themselves to be resisting tyranny or dictatorship.”
In the textbook for Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes (on p. 29): “Christians must take up arms against error at home and abroad.They must grapple with sin in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course.”
Note that Mrs. Eddy isn’t saying we should arm ourselves with assault weapons or bazookas. She’s talking about another kind of warfare all together. She writes in Science and Health (p. 225): “A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.”
I’m going to take up arms of love and joy and hope against the would-be tyranny of hate and fear and despair. I’m going to consciously reach out with joy and kindness and patience to my fellow earthlings. I’m not going to let the images of war and hate we’re constantly bombarded with on television and in social medial deter me from my mission of kindness. I’m not going to let the advertisements and commercials filled with images of disease keep me shackled in fear and isolated from others. “Hell no! We won’t go!” there. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
***
P.S. As I was pondering “resistance” the climactic scene from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle came into my thoughts. In this scene the protagonist, Meg, is resisting the hate and tyranny of IT. She’s been told she can fight IT with something she has that IT doesn’t have – and she’s trying to figure out what that is. IT is trying to get control of her thoughts, and she’s starting to lose the battle:
“…as she became lost in hatred she also began to be lost in IT…
“With the last vestige of consciousness she jerked her mind and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn’t have. IT knew all about hate…
“‘Mrs. Whatsit hates you,’ Charles Wallace said.
“And that was where IT made ITs fatal mistake, for as Meg said, automatically, ‘Mrs. Whatsit loves me; that’s what she told me, that she loves me,’ suddenly she knew.
“She knew!
“Love.
“That was what she had that IT did not have.
“She had Mrs. Whatsit’s love, and her father’s, and her mother’s, and the real Charles Wallace’s love, and the twins’, and Aunt Beast’s.
“And she had her love for them…”
“She could love Charles Wallace. Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always takes care of me. Come back to me, Charles Wallace, come away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles. Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them…
“I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart. I love you. I love you. I love you.
“Slowly his mouth closed. Slowly his eyes stopped their twirling. The tic in the forehead ceased its revolting twitch. Slowly he advanced toward her.
“‘I love you!’ she cried. “I love you, Charles! I love you!’ Then suddenly he was running, pelting, he was in her arms, he was shrieking with sobs. ‘Meg! Meg! Meg!’
“‘I love you, Charles!’ she cried again, her sobs almost as loud as his, her tears mingling with his. ‘I love you! I love you! I love you!’”
You are worthy of love. You are worthy of healing. You are God’s beautiful child, the expression of Her Be-ing. You don’t need to wait until something in you changes. Healing is yours right now – no need to turn any more pages. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 