Category Archives: religion

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

 

“Till Time and Space and Fear Are Naught”

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“If Ban could restore himself to what he had been—withdrawing every atom of himself from any other time but the present— the crack in the cosmos would heal itself, like a force-bubble across a door or window. But it was impossible. He could not do it. There was only one thing he could do, which would have the same effect. He could repair the fabric of reality by not ever having been…

“Ban raged. It is not too bad a thing to die. All men face it sooner or later, and there is a secret knowledge which comes to every man at such moments. The knowledge is that it is not the end. But Ban was required to make a greater sacrifice than death. It was demanded of him that he surrender ever having been. He was required to embrace extinction…

“He remembered innumerable things, and now not one of them would ever have been real. Because he would never have been, and Urmuz would not teach him soldier-craft, nor his companions ever sing or drink with him, nor his father try to hide his pride in a swaggering son who would be Warden after him. These things would be worse than forgotten. They would never be thought of. They would go into that limbo of possible things from which so few ever emerge to become actual.”
– Murray Leinster, from Isaac Asimov’s 15 Short Stories

I just finished reading an anthology of short stories by Isaac Asimov. I was a huge Asimov fan in high school, but haven’t read him much since then –  it was really fun to connect with his writings again. The last story in the collection was written by Asimov and four other science fiction writers. The quote I copied above came from Murray Leinster’s contribution to the story.

His passage got me thinking.

I am at an age where I’m not as springy or light as I once was. Sometimes I think back nostalgically to the person I was in my physical prime – quick and strong and confident in my abilities to get up mountains and out of adventures gone awry. Sometimes I wish I had that body again.

But after I read Leinster’s passage in 15 Short Stories I had this moment of – whoaaah. If I could wish myself back in time to, say, the age of 24 or 25 – that would mean I would never meet my husband, and my sons would never be born. And if I wished myself back to, say, 40 and stayed there – my sons would never have the opportunity to grow up into the amazing young men they are.  If I had the power to stay at one age in one time forever – and never know my husband or sons or all the friends I’ve made afterwards – that would really stink.

And then it occurred to me (as I was still pretending I had the power to make time stand still) that by allowing ourselves to grow older we’re actually sacrificing our youth for our children – as they will sacrifice their youth for their children, and so on.

Of course, this is all from a strictly mortal, human perspective – and a science fiction one at that. We as humans don’t (yet) have control over time.

Here’s how the founder of Christian Science defines “time” in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

TIME. Mortal measurements; limits, in which are summed up all human acts, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, knowledge; matter; error; that which begins before, and continues after, what is termed death, until the mortal disappears and spiritual perfection appears.

Eddy writes: “One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity. This exalted view, obtained and retained when the Science of being is understood, would bridge over with life discerned spiritually the interval of death, and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown. Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God’s measurement of Soul-filled years.”

Whoah. I know. Cosmic, right?

Eternity in contrast to time. Now in contrast to past and future. One infinite moment filled with everything good in contrast to a ray with a starting point, moving one direction, divided into segments. There is a lot to think about there. 🙂 And I’m really hoping I have eternity to figure it out.

I climb, with joy, the heights of Mind,
To soar o’er time and space;
I yet shall know as I am known
And see Thee face to face.
Till time and space and fear are naught
My quest shall never cease,
Thy presence ever goes with me
And Thou dost give me peace.
– Violet Hay, Christian Science Hymnal

SAMSUNG CAMERA PICTURES

(photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

 

 

The Best Prayer of All

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is Love…and it’s maybe the best poem of all, too. 🙂

best prayer

Guest Poem: “I Cried”

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From my friend, Nikkita – 

I cried
By Nikkita

I cried today.
I cried for my family, my town, my country.
I cried for our world.
I cried for people I love. People that love me.
I cried as I listened to our president justify hate.
Justify bigotry
Justify Racism.
Justify terror.
—
I wept today.
I wept as I saw my cousin, my beautiful biracial cousin, crumble in my arms.
I wept as she asked why, why, why
I wept because I don’t know why
I wept as she asked if he, her president, cared at all
As she asked how he could defend them
Defend those bigots
Defend those racists
I wept as she asked wasn’t she worth loving
Worth saving
Worth caring about by the man who holds the highest office in our land.
I don’t know why.
I don’t know.
—
I screamed today.
I screamed in my head, so loudly, because my vocal chords can’t.
I screamed as the president tore down reporters
I screamed as people defended his behavior
I screamed as the replays of disgusting people chanting “Jews Will Not Replace Us” filled the screen.
—
I cried today.
I cried because I don’t recognize my government
I don’t recognize my nation
Anymore.
I cried because these are the groups, the very same groups,
That believe my Jewish grandmother
My black cousin
My gay best friend
My disabled friends
And me
Should be cleansed off this earth and
The president defended them.
—
They aren’t good people.
Never good people.
For if you are not a Nazi
But can protest with a Nazi
And chant their chants
And stand and say nothing
You are worse.
Worse than the Nazi
Worse than the KKK
Worse than their hate
Because you claim to not be filled with hate
But you stood there. You stood there.
And you said nothing.
—
I wept today
For my country, my world.
I wanted to smile
To be joyful
Full of love
And light
And peace.
But not today.
Today I cried.
Tomorrow?
Well, tomorrow
I FIGHT BACK.
—
I will fight hate with love
Bigotry with acceptance
Racism with inclusion
Ethnic cleansing with diversity
And terror with peace.
—
I FIGHT BACK
I will fight back with my voice
My actions
My deeds
My heart.
—
I FIGHT BACK
By saying no
By insisting that my government say no
By demanding equal rights
Equal love
Equal care.
—
I FIGHT BACK
By refusing to let this go
We can’t let this go
We can’t normalize this hatred
We can’t pretend.
Pretending got us here.
Pretending he would change
Got us a president
Who defends Nazis.
—
I cried today
Tomorrow I might smile
And the next day I might laugh
But not today.
—
Today I cried
Because tears and outrage
Horror and Disgust
They are the only correct reaction.
I cried today.
Tomorrow I fight.
The next day I love
And the world WILL change
For good
Because
You and me
And everyone good
Will not forget
Ever.
In memory of Heather Heyer, H. Jay Cullen and Berke Bates

Love is everything

What are they so afraid of?

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What are these people so afraid of? Do they really think the Jews are going to try to “replace” them? What does that even mean? Replace them, how? Do they really think the “liberal snowflake lefties” are going to rise up and ambush them in their sleep and then… what?… force them to watch foreign films with sub titles or something? Make them eat tofu? I mean… seriously…? The people I saw armed with guns in Charlottesville were not the snowflakes. It wasn’t the left-wing ministers and priests standing elbow to elbow, talking of love and fellowship, who had the AK-47s, or who drove a car into a crowd of people. Or who killed anyone.

Sorry. I’m a little fired up at the moment…
Karen

tofu

“Hating on people is not going to improve your life…”

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No, you are not going to be arrested for saying “God bless America” or for going to whatever church you go to, or for voting as your conscience dictates. And yes, you can hate whoever you want to hate – so long as you don’t actually cause harm to come to other people or take away their rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – but I would advise against hate. I’m pretty sure hating on people is not going to improve your life in any way. And it’s surely not going to make America a better place.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell

“paranoia: a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.”

“God bless the whole world. No exceptions.”

Hating

Sympathizing with Error

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Yes, our country needs to unite – but not behind the KKK, the NAZIs, or our current President.

And yes, Love is the answer. But Love shouldn’t be confused with that fear-based thing where we stop ourselves from doing and saying what we know needs to be done and said because we’re afraid of “making waves” or we’re afraid of confrontation. Sometimes evil needs to be confronted and called out. We need to love. We don’t need to appease. We don’t need to placate, mollify, or pacify. If someone’s feelings are hurt because we happen to disagree with them – that shouldn’t stop us from saying and doing what we know is right. We shouldn’t let ourselves be controlled by others like that. That’s not Love. That’s being a chicken schit.

“Neither sympathy nor society should ever tempt us to cherish error in any form, and certainly we should not be error’s advocate…Attempts to conciliate society and so gain dominion over mankind, arise from worldly weakness….If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters? What is there to strip off error’s disguise?”
– Mary Baker Eddy

“Here’s the thing: If you’re with a group of people and they’re chanting things like ‘Jews will not replace us’ and you don’t immediately leave that group, you are not a very fine person.”
– Jimmy Kimmel
Great Jimmy Kimmel video clip here.

kind-people-unite

 

As Another Day Comes to a Close

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My dear Humoristian hooligans –
As another day comes to a close may you rejoice in the fellowship you have experienced today – may you remember every act of kindness, every smile, every exchange of good will. May you remember every puppy who wagged its tail at you, every kitty who jumped into your lap, every hand shake, hug, and high five. The world is full of beautiful people. You are one of them. May you remember THAT, too. 🙂

You are not alone out there. We are all in this together.
Love,
Karen

together

“Today it hurts to be human…”

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Dear Moz,

Today it hurts to be human – to see my fellow men and women hating on people just because of the color of their skin or the place they were born. My heart weeps.

Today I was remembering how you stood up to the racist man in the Sears store when I was just a little girl. As a black family walked by, the bigot turned to you – expecting probably to get agreement from a fellow white person – and said, loud enough so the family could hear, “Those people should stay in their own part of town.” And I remember how your face turned red with indignation and you almost shook with the fury you felt, and you said, “That family has as much right to be here as you or me!” And I was so proud to be your daughter.

I remembered the day Dad wanted to visit his old home in a part of Los Angeles that most white people would have probably avoided then – I remembered how Dad knocked on the door of his old house, and the look on Pearl’s face as she saw him standing on her front stoop. Dad explained this was his childhood home and asked if he could come in and look around – and Pearl opened the door wide for him and shook his hand, and welcomed him in. And I remember the young black men who opened the door for my dad 42 years later, when he was 98 and living in a retirement home – I remembered how Dad made a special effort to turn and thank them, and how they said it was no problem and wished him a good day.  And I was so proud to be his daughter.

And today a young black man and I were so polite to each other in the bank – “No, you first… No, really, YOU first… No, I insist…” – that I started laughing at the pair of us – my heart just so full of his kindness and generosity that I wanted to hug him.  And later there was a black man who crossed the street in front of me when I stopped for him, and turned to thank me, and saw me smiling back at him, and smiled and waved. And later still – at the teriyaki place – there was the Asian man with the beautiful smile who had to reach in front of me to get the soy sauce – and he apologized and excused himself – and I joked with him: “No, you can’t have it.” And he started laughing with me. And the simple beauty of these encounters was just so poignant today – as on the other side of my nation racists hurl their fear and hatred out into the world – that I felt myself tearing up.

You and Dad showed me how to open my heart up and feel the pain and love of others and, though sometimes it hurts terribly, I would not have it any other way. I’m grateful for this gift of empathy. Thank you, Moz.

I love you.
Karen

Interracial Kindness 4