Category Archives: religion

Irrepressible Light

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“Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

The darkest day will be here soon
and then the light will return –
unstoppable, irresistible, irrepressible –
and all that was hidden in the darkness
will be revealed.
Behold the glory of Truth and Love!
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Arise shine

“Let there be light!”
– Genesis 1

The Christmas Dog

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The Christmas Dog

Christmas Eve, 1988. I was in a funk. I couldn’t see that I was making much progress in my life. My teaching career seemed to be frozen, and I was beginning to think my husband and I would never own our own home or have children. The world seemed a very bleak and unhappy place to me. No matter how many batches of fudge I whipped up or how many times I heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” I couldn’t seem to find the Christmas spirit.
 
I was washing the breakfast dishes, thinking my unhappy thoughts, when I heard gunshots coming from the pasture behind our house. I thought it was the neighbor boys shooting at the seagulls again and, all full of teacherly harrumph, decided to take it upon myself to go out and “have a word with them.”
 
But after I’d marched outside I realized that it wasn’t the neighbor boys at all. John, the dairy farmer who lived on the adjoining property, was walking away with a rifle, and an animal (a calf, I thought) was struggling to get up in the field behind our house. Every time it would push up on its legs it would immediately collapse back to the ground.
 
I wondered if maybe John had made a mistake and accidentally shot the animal, so I ran out to investigate and found that the animal was a dog. It had foam and blood around its muzzle. She was vulnerable and helpless – had just been shot, after all – but instead of lashing out at me or growling as I’d expect an injured animal to do, she was looking up at me with an expression of trust and seemed to be expecting me to take care of her.
 
“John!” I yelled, running after the farmer. He turned around, surprised to see me. “John, what happened?” I asked, pointing back towards the dog.
 
A look of remorse came into his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry you saw that, Karen. The dog is a stray and it’s been chasing my cows. I had to kill it.”
 
“But John, it’s not dead yet.”
 
John looked back at the dog and grimaced. “Oh man,” he said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll go finish the job. Put it out of its misery.”
By this time another dog had joined the dog that had been shot. It was running around its friend, barking encouragement, trying to get its buddy to rise up and escape. The sight of the one dog trying to help his comrade broke my heart. I made a quick decision. “Let me and my husband take care of it.”
“Are you sure?”
 
I nodded and he agreed to let me do what I could for the animal.
 
Unbeknownst to me, as soon as I ran out of the house my husband, knowing that something was wrong, had gotten out his binoculars and was watching my progress in the field. He saw the look on my face as I ran back. By the time I reached our house he was ready to do whatever he needed to do to help me. I explained the situation to him, we put together a box full of towels, and he called the vet.
 
As we drove his truck around to where the dog lay in the field, I noticed that, while the dog’s canine companion had finally left the scene (never to be seen again), John had gone to the dog and was kneeling down next to her. He was petting her, using soothing words to comfort her, and the dog was looking up at John with that look of trust she’d given me. John helped my husband load her in the back of the truck and we began our drive to the vet’s.
 
I rode in the back of the truck with the dog as my husband drove, and sang hymns to her. As I sang words from one of my favorite hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal– “Everlasting arms of Love are beneathe, around, above” – the dog leaned against my shoulder and looked up at me with an expression of pure love in her blue eyes.
 
Once we reached the animal clinic, the veterinarian came out to take a look at her. After checking her over he told us that apparently a bullet had gone through her head, that he’d take care of her over the holiday weekend – keep her warm and hydrated – but that he wasn’t going to give her any medical treatment. I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think the dog was going to make it.
 
My husband and I went to my parents’ home for the Christmas weekend, both of us praying that the dog would still be alive when we returned. For me, praying for her really meant trying to see the dog as God sees her. I tried to realize the wholeness and completeness of her as an expression of God, an idea of God. I reasoned that all the dog could experience was the goodness of God – all she could feel is what Love feels, all she could know is what Truth knows, all she could be is the perfect reflection of God. I tried to recognize the reality of these things for me, too, and for all of God’s creation.
She made it through the weekend, but when we went to pick her up the vet told us that she wasn’t “out of the woods, yet.” He told us that if she couldn’t eat, drink, or walk on her own in the next few days, we’d need to bring her back and he’d need to put her to sleep.
 
We brought her home and put her in a big box in our living room, with a bowl of water and soft dog food by her side. I continued to pray. In the middle of the night I got up and went out to where she lay in her box. Impulsively, I bent down and scooped some water from the dish into her mouth. She swallowed it, and then leaned over and drank a little from the bowl. I was elated! Inspired by her reaction to the water, I bent over and grabbed a glob of dog food and threw a little onto her tongue. She smacked her mouth together, swallowed the food, and leaned over to eat a bit more. Now I was beyond elated! She’d accomplished two of the three requirements the vet had made for her!
 
The next day I took her out for a walk. She’d take a few steps and then lean against me. Then she’d take a few more steps and lean. But she was walking! We would not be taking her back to the veterinarian.
 
In the next two weeks her progress was amazing. By the end of that period she was not only walking, but running and jumping and chasing balls. Her appetite was healthy. She was having no problems drinking or eating.
 
But one of the most amazing parts of this whole Christmas blessing was the relationship that developed between this dog and the man who had shot her. They became good friends. The dog, in fact, became the neighborhood mascot. (And she never again chased anyone’s cows.)
 
What the dog brought to me, who had, if you recall, been in a deep funk when she entered our lives, was a sense of the true spirit of Christmas – the Christly spirit of forgiveness, hope, faith, love. She brought me the recognition that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to God.
We named our new dog Christmas because that is what she brought us that year.
 
Within a few years all those things that I had wondered if I would ever have as part of my life came to me – a teaching job, children, and a home of our own. It is my belief that our Christmas Dog prepared my heart to be ready for all of those things to enter my life.
– excerpt from Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist by Karen Molenaar Terrell
 

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“We should remember that the world is wide…”

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This passage from Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings came into my thoughts this morning. I thought it was worth sharing with y’all…

“…It is our pride that makes another’s criticism rankle, our
self-will that makes another’s deed offensive, our egotism
that feels hurt by another’s self-assertion. Well may we
feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford
to be miserable for the faults of others…

“We should remember that the world is wide; that there
are a thousand million different human wills, opinions,
ambitions, tastes, and loves; that each person has a different
history, constitution, culture, character, from all the
rest; that human life is the work, the play, the ceaseless
action and reaction upon each other of these different
atoms. Then, we should go forth into life with the smallest
expectations, but with the largest patience; with a keen
relish for and appreciation of everything beautiful, great,
and good, but with a temper so genial that the friction
of the world shall not wear upon our sensibilities; with
an equanimity so settled that no passing breath nor
accidental disturbance shall agitate or ruffle it; with a
charity broad enough to cover the whole world’s evil, and
sweet enough to neutralize what is bitter in it, – determined
not to be offended when no wrong is meant, nor
even when it is…”

“I believe we are all better than this.”

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I believe we are better than this

…God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them…And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
– Genesis 1: 27, 31

Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand.
– Mary Baker Eddy

Commonplace Death

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When I drove home from work yesterday I noticed the flag was flying at half-staff again. I knew then there’d been another shooting. When I got home I learned two students had been shot and killed at a school in New Mexico. The story of the shooting came at the end of the news program. Death by gunfire at a school is now so commonplace it’s not considered top news anymore.

The NRA stinks.

And now a poem –

Half-Staff Flag

The flag is at half-staff again
or still.
I can’t remember the last time
I saw it waving from the top
of the pole.
Days? Weeks? Months? Years?
Someday it will rise again,
someday when we put our fears
to rest, and begin
to trust each other once more,
put down our weapons of words
and steel, and pour healing
love into our nation’s wounds.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from The Brush of Angel Wings

half-mast flag

Seek Peace…

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“Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.”
– Psalms 34

Seek Peace

Sunrise in Skagit County, Washington. (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

“…bathes all in beauty and light.”

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“Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Love, redolent with unselfishness...

A rainbow arches over Padilla Bay in Skagit County, Washington. (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Can anyone guess today’s theme? :)

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“‘Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth.’ I have called this Sincerity from the words rendered in the Authorized Version by ‘rejoiceth in the truth.’ And, certainly, were this the real translation, nothing could be more just; for 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

Truth

the reach of Truth

come-from-truth

Truth is a revelation

truth cannot be reversed

“Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. ‘Let there be light,’ is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

Dear Legislators:

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Dear Legislators:

We, the American people, entrusted you with our lives and livelihoods. When we voted you into office we expected you to represent US, not corporations. You have been a sad disappointment to us. You have not served us well. You are now asking the poorest citizens of this land to pay taxes to support the richest citizens of this land. It is a scene out of Robin Hood, and you are playing the part of the Sheriff of Nottingham. We are putting you on notice. Fix this mess that you have created, or expect to be fired come 2018.

Sincerely,
An Unhappy Employer

half-mast flag

“Truth cannot be reversed…”

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Comforting words as I pray for our world..

truth cannot be reversed

“…truth cannot be reversed, but the reverse of error is true.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

“…this so-called mind, from which comes all evil, contradicts itself, and must finally yield to the eternal Truth….”
– Mary Baker Eddy