Category Archives: religion

Semi-Annual Job Review for Our President

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Semi Annual Job Review
Dear Pres. Trump –

Bless your heart. You must be feeling mightily frustrated. You’ve discovered by now that being President of the U.S. isn’t at all the same as being the CEO of a corporation. You can’t just fire people from citizenship in your country if they don’t do what you order them to do. You can’t boss Senators and Representatives around like they’re your employees. You can’t scramble around the laws of the land like they don’t apply to you. You’ve discovered that you don’t actually own America. You are not the boss. You’re supposed to work for the people now. You’re supposed to be their servant. You are the employee. Your actions can be questioned. Your sketchy alliances with foreign powers can be scrutinized. You can be removed from your position.

I know. I don’t blame you if it’s all making you a little grumpy. But take heart. There’s hope for you. You can learn. It’s not impossible. You can take this opportunity to actually make the country a better place for your employers. Maybe you’ll hear what Bernie Sanders has to say about health insurance for all – and you’ll be like, “Oh! What a great idea! Let’s do that one!” Or maybe you’ll take the time to talk to the athletes who are using their First Amendment rights and kneeling, and you’ll find out why they’re doing that – and you’ll be, like, “Oh! Let’s see how we can fix that for you!” Maybe you’ll visit Puerto Rico and realize it’s, like, actually a part of the United States – and maybe you’ll decide to do what you can to help the people there. Heck, maybe you’ll decide to do what you can to help your neighbors who are dealing with death and destruction in Mexico, too.

– Karen, one of your employers

You Know What to Do

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My dear Humoristian hooligans –

Whatever it is you’re going through – you are not alone. You’ve got a legion of people beside you who care, and who believe in you. You are making a difference. Every kind smile, every act of courage and self-sacrifice, every gesture of wisdom and good will is making our world a better place. There will be challenges today – “friends” may falsely disparage your character; you may be treated without consideration or appreciation – but you’re above all that. You know how to invest your time and energies. You know what you need to do and be to heal our world. Go out there and work your magic!

– Karen

love-hath-made

Stealing Integrity

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So you want to force people to stand for the anthem
whether they want to or not?
You want to force them to pretend to believe
what you believe?
You believe you can force respect from others
by stealing their integrity?
How do you see this happening, exactly?
All the players standing in a coerced line,
hands super-glued over their hearts?
Simons says. Puppets on a string.
With no right to disagree or question
or protest what they feel is wrong?
And how is this going to help anyone?
Or make anything better?
Wouldn’t it be better if we fixed the system,
healed the hurts, so everyone wanted
to honor the symbols that represent freedom?
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

 

Protecting and Defending the Constitution

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Here is the oath the President takes when he gets sworn into office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

When a President bullies those who are practicing their First Amendment rights and says they should be “fired” from their jobs, he is neither protecting nor defending the Constitution of the United States. He is, figuratively, pissing on it. And HE should be fired for not carrying out his oath of office.

Amen.

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love the hell

“Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind…”
– Mary Baker Eddy

A Political Vent (you might want to skip this one)

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I voted for Hillary Clinton in November 2016. Because Trump.

But I wanted Bernie.

Hillary Clinton is telling us now that the lack of respect from Bernie and his supporters “hurt.” But the manner in which the Democratic party (under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz) ignored Bernie Sanders, ignored the huge rallies and the enthusiasm of his supporters, “hurts.” Clinton’s narrow-visioned, egocentric take on the presidential election is proof to me that she should never have won the Democratic nomination for President. I wished then, and I wish now, that Clinton would have stepped aside when she saw the wave of enthusiasm that Bernie had behind him. He would have won the presidency and we wouldn’t be dealing with what we’re dealing with now.

I remember thinking “big deal” when Clinton won all those states in the south in her race to win the Democratic nomination. I knew those southern states weren’t going to vote for Clinton in the general election. Winning those southern states meant nothing. I could see that it was the northern states, the Pacific states, the states in the northeast – the blue states – that mattered in the race for the Democratic nomination. The southern states were going to vote Republican in the end. They were not going to vote for Clinton in November.

If Clinton had really had the best interests of the country at heart, rather than her own single-minded, blind, dogged determination to be the first woman President, she would have seen that, too. But she didn’t. The fact that she STILL doesn’t see it is testament to me that she should never have been the nominee for President.

Clinton did a terrible disservice to our nation by not stepping aside and letting Bernie Sanders lead the charge. To feel “hurt” because he didn’t drop out of the race right away has me shaking my head. The presidency of the United States is not some prize to be won by the biggest ego. Neither is it supposed to be a job promotion to whoever gives the most money and time to her (his) political party. The President of the United States is supposed to represent ALL Americans – not just Democrats, not just Republicans, and not just the wealthy and powerful.

And for those of you who are posting a defense of Clinton and telling your readers they aren’t allowed to respond to your post in a negative way: tough bananas. This is still America and I am still allowed to openly disagree with you.

Please can we have a viable candidate in 2020?

 

Long Live Humoristianity!

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On August 20, 2007, Karen says:
I’ve decided to create a new religion. People belonging to this religion will call themselves “Humoristians.” Here are the 5 tenets:
1) You must be able to laugh at yourself.
2) You must be able to recognize how ludicrous your beliefs might appear to others.
3) You must want nothing but good for everyone, everywhere in the universe.
4) You must have a natural aversion to meetings, committees, and scheduled events (as we will be having none of those).
5) You must enjoy the humor of Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Tom Lehrer, and Jerry Seinfeld (if you’re a Jerry Lewis kind of guy, you might want to think about starting your own religion – although we wish you nothing but good).

So, have I told you about the time I started my own religion? After I’d been on the Amazon religion discussion forum for a month or so I woke up one morning with the voice of God (or something) in my head, telling me it was time to, yea and verily, start my own religion and stuff. I had not been on the forum long, but I had been on long enough to realize that the one thing that seemed to be desperately needed was the opportunity to laugh at ourselves. It seemed to me that some people were taking themselves and their beliefs waaay too seriously.

I started a thread called “Humoristians” and was soon joined by some of my favorite characters on the forum – atheists and agnostics, a pantheist, several Buddhists, a Lutheran, a Methodist or two, a self-avowed sophist, a couple of people with Mormon roots, a Discordian, and a host of other personalities from a wide array of beliefs, backgrounds, and geographic locations.

And ohmygosh, it was fun!

Our fledgling little church grew rapidly and reached people around the globe. One of the highlights, for me, was when we heard from a soldier in Afghanistan who told us she’d found our thread when she was recovering from an illness and our nonsensical little dialogue totally cheered her up.

Eventually we all drifted off the forum and the Humoristian temple there closed its doors. But we met up again with each other on Facebook, and Humoristianity continues to live – although in a different form. (The founding and history of the Humoristian church can be found in our book, The Humoristian Chronicles.)

I have a difficult time relating to people who can’t laugh at themselves, or let me laugh at myself. And I have a difficult time relating to people who feel the need to “correct” my thought, manage me, fix me, or “pray” for me without being asked by me to do so.

I have found that sermonizing bossy britches busybodies can be found amongst pretty much every group of people – both religious and non-religious. I tend to avoid sermonizing bossy britches busybodies – even the Christian Scientist ones. Maybe especially the Christian Scientist ones. This may sound weird, but I really have very little in common with those Christian Scientists who can’t occasionally laugh at themselves and their circumstances. We may all believe that God is “Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love” (the synonyms given by Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook), and we may all believe that God heals, but if a Christian Scientist can’t laugh at herself then her approach to life and its challenges is going to be very different from mine. I believe I actually have more in common with, say, an atheist Humoristian than I do with a Christian Scientist non-Humoristian.

Just as Bossybritches Busybodies can be found in pretty much every group of people, Humoristians can, too. I count amongst my friends Jewish Humoristians, atheist Humoristians, Christian Scientist Humoristians, and Buddhist, Catholic, and Methodist Humoristians, among others.

There are times when, if I were to be asked what religion I affiliate myself with, I think I might actually be inclined to answer “Humoristianity”. A sense of humor about life, and about themselves, is the one thing the people I feel a kinship with all have in common – whether they call themselves atheists, Catholics, Christian Scientists, Buddhists, pantheists, Lutherans, Methodists, or Mormons.

Long live Humoristianity! Long may we don her Groucho glasses and play her kazoos!
– excerpt from The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New

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Let’s Stand Defiant

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Let's stand defiant

Sex and Stuff

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Yeah. I know. That got your attention, right? 🙂

So those of you familiar with me know that I believe every citizen of this country should have the same rights as every other citizen – regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, non-religion, gender, or sexual orientation – and that includes the right to an education; the right to gainful employment; the right to serve your country; the right to live in a decent home in a decent neighborhood; and the right for consenting adults to marry and create lives together with the people they love.

I have never understood why allowing others to share in the same rights they have should be such a problem for some people.

Anyway.

So as I was reading the Christian Science Bible Lesson Sermon this morning I came upon a passage in the Christian Science textbook (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy) that I don’t remember reading before – although I’m sure I must have (I’ve read Science and Health three or four times from cover-to-cover). Get this:

Mary Baker Eddy writes: “God determines the gender of His own ideas. Gender is mental, not material… Gender means simply kind or sort, and does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or femininity. ” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 508)

Eddy writes: “Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique.” (Science and Health, p 475)

And boom. Right there. As I was reading those passages I felt like I was having a conversation with Eddy about God and the nature of man, male and female. For me, what she had to write about gender clarified, and reinforced, my own thoughts about our gender identities. “God determines… Gender is mental… does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or feminity…”

I think we need to keep things in proportion, and I think sometimes we get so focused on the “sex” part of gender that we lose sight of the bigger, more important, part of peoples’ identities and lives – men and women as the expressions of Love. Eddy writes: “The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity. ” (Science and Health, p 517)

Union of the masculine and feminine qualities constitutes completeness. The masculine mind reaches a higher tone through certain elements of the feminine, while the feminine mind gains courage and strength through masculine qualities. These different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong.
– Mary Baker Eddy

 

 

“These are the people who might save your life some day.”

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Are you all seeing the images coming out of Texas? Blacks helping whites, whites helping blacks, puppies and children being cradled in the arms of heroes above the flood waters. It’s time to put away those Confederate flags and KKK hoods and move on already. Rejoice in your neighbors – whatever color skin they have, whatever their gender or sexual orientation or religion or non-religion. These are the people who might save your life some day. Amen and amen.

“And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.”
– I Kings 19

God is Love. – I John 4

love-is-with-you