via Prayer
I am typing one-handed at the moment because I have a kitty purring under my chin. She is watching my fingers move on the keyboard. She seems fascinated with the workings of humans and their machinery. She is keeping me sane.
And now a prayer: Please, Love, give me courage. Fill my heart with kindness and hope. Help me nurture what is good in the world. Help me heal what is not.
Amen.
I’ve been thinking a lot about “communication” – how I can do it better; how I can recognize true communication from “fake” – and this quote from Science and Health (by Mary Baker Eddy) has been helpful to me: “The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man.” I’m trying to know that nothing can stop God’s communication (the only real communication) to us; that none of us is outside the reach of God’s communication; and that we’re all – each and every beautiful one of us – receptive to Truth.
“Come now, and let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18) “Fake news” isn’t just the news we don’t happen to like, and “facts” aren’t just opinions that we happen to agree with. I know that all of us, as the reflections of Mind and Truth, have the ability to reason and recognize the false from the true. And no one individual is closer to Truth than anyone else.
Not even me. 🙂
– Karen
I think there are things coming to the surface right now that need to come to the surface. And no – it’s not just about Trump – in the last few years I’ve seen corruption exposed in both of the major parties, and in big corporations, health insurance, and the way we’ve treated our environment, women, and minorities. I’m grateful it’s coming to the surface so we can correct it, but it sure ain’t pretty to behold.
I want to add this: I’ve also witnessed a reverse kind of bigotry – directed towards people who happen to be white, straight, and male. I think we need to be careful not to get sucked into that kind of bigotry, either. There’s a lot of self-righteousness and puffed-up indignation coming from both sides. I find myself doing it, too. I’m trying to be conscious and self-aware. I’m trying to be grateful for those times when my own flaws and foibles come to the surface. But it ain’t always easy to admit to them. Ego does not like to be shown it’s wrong.
I’m thinking we’re all dealing with our own nonsense – each and every one of us. Let’s give each other grace. We’re all in this together.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Ignorance, subtlety, or false charity does not forever conceal error; evil will in time disclose and punish itself.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
“A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality… A sinner is afraid to cast the first stone. He may say, as a subterfuge, that evil is unreal, but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling fast to iniquity.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.
– Matthew 10:26
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
via T’was Two Weeks Afore Christmas
Christmas Lights
Revisiting this one from 2016. This experience I had on the night of the presidential election has kept me going for the last three years…
Trust
Taking the dog for a walk,
the shooting star got my
attention when it flew across
the heavens on the evening
of November eighth. I stopped
in my tracks, looking skyward,
alert now, and the voice said,
“Trust. Everything is happening
as it needs to happen.
Don’t be afraid. Trust.”
And crap. I knew then. I knew
who’d won the election – why
else would I need to be reassured?
I went inside. And saw my fears
confirmed. And felt weirdly
stilled inside. Holding on
to that message: “Trust.”
The voice didn’t say what was to come
would be easy, or without struggle
or challenge. It didn’t provide
details of how, where, when or why.
It just said, “Don’t be afraid. Trust.”
And the earth rises now.
Thirsty for Truth. Joining in Love.
Crying for justice.
In the streets. From the rooftops.
Through the wires of computers
across the world.
“Everything is happening
as it needs to happen.
Trust,” said the voice of Love.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
via “Trust.”
To my fellow Christians –
If you are under the belief that God needs lies, dishonesty, and concealing the truth to accomplish His will then I believe you sorely underestimate God. If you believe that God allows corruption, hypocrisy, misogyny, racism, greed, bigotry, bullying, mocking the handicapped, inequity, injustice, greed, bribery, and extortion in order to bring “salvation” to our nation – then I believe you are missing, entirely, the whole point, the fundamental message of the Christ – “love your neighbor” – “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” – “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” – “Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me” – “behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
The God I worship doesn’t need the help of evil to accomplish Her will.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“…on earth peace, good will toward all.”
It seems to me that – whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican – you’d want an opportunity for the truth to be revealed, right? Who wouldn’t want that? The truth can prove guilt OR innocence. It seems to me the only people who wouldn’t want an opportunity for the truth to be revealed would be those people who believe someone is guilty and want to hide that.
“Love does not rejoice in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
– I Corinthians 13:6
“…he who loves will love Truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the Truth—rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe; not in this church’s doctrine or in that; not in this ism or in that ism; but ‘in the Truth.’ He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will search for Truth with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice.”
– Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World
Who? I’m thinking I need to be showing kindness to everyone, without distinction. Kindness shouldn’t just be shown to people who belong to the right political party, or religion, or ethnicity, or gender, or whatever. Kindness should be shown to everyone, regardless of (fill in the blank). And yes, it should even be shown to (fill in the blank).
What does kindness look like? I’m thinking it’s mostly seen in the little things – in a smile, in a word of encouragement and appreciation, holding the door open for the person behind you, slowing down so a car can merge in front of you, buying someone a cocoa or a coffee on a cold day, saying hi to a stranger who looks in need of a friendly greeting.
Why should we be kind? Because, really, kindness is the basis for whatever is moral and ethical, isn’t it? You’re not going to cheat, steal, or murder when you’re kind.
When should we be kind? Well. Always, right? Kindness shouldn’t be withheld until it’s been “earned.” Kindness shouldn’t come with any expectation or agenda at all.
So. That’s what I’m thinking about this morning.
“God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon your equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure.”
– Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World
There are not “two sides” to global warming. It is not a partisan issue, and it shouldn’t be a political one. The future of our species is at stake. Let’s move beyond politics, people. Sheesh.
***
“Is it correct to say of material objects, that they are nothing and exist only in imagination?
“…My sense of the beauty of the universe is, that beauty typifies holiness, and is something to be desired…
“Even the human conception of beauty, grandeur, and utility is something that defies a sneer. It is more than imagination. It is next to divine beauty and the grandeur of Spirit. It lives with our earth-life, and is the subjective state of high thoughts. The atmosphere of mortal mind constitutes our mortal environment. What mortals hear, see, feel, taste, smell, constitutes their present earth and heaven…
“To take all earth’s beauty into one gulp of vacuity and label beauty nothing, is ignorantly to caricature God’s creation, which is unjust to human sense and to the divine realism. In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: ‘I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly…'”
– Miscellaneous Writings, Mary Baker Eddy, p 86-87
Psalms 96: 11-12
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice.
Isaiah 60:13
The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet glorious.
Isaiah 61: 4
And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.
Isaiah 55:12
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.
***
(Time‘s issue on global warming brought me some hope. I highly recommend it.)
(All photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 