Truth is the only power and presence – the Creator of all that is real. Love fills all space, reaching to infinity. Life is infinite and universal and eternal. All that Love creates expresses Love. All that Life creates manifests infinite Life. All that Truth creates is the reflection of Truth. All that is good comes from God, and God is all. All is good.
We are the image and likeness of Love; the reflection of Truth; the manifestation of Life; the children of the one Mind. We are the expressions of Good, God.
The belief that we can feel fear, anger, hate, or confusion is a lie for we are made by divine Mind and all we can feel is what divine Mind feels. There isn’t the teensiest, tiniest part of us that can feel fear or anger or hate because we are made wholly in the image and likeness of divine Mind. The belief that we have our own little mortal mind is a lie. Mortal mind is no part of our real identities as God’s children. Fear is no part of us. Hate is no part of us. We were made by Love and for Love, and anything that’s not of Love is a lie and has nothing to do with us.
God – Life, Truth, Love – governs the universe in perfect, indestructible harmony. God governs Her creation with the unfailing, unceasing, irrepressible, unstoppable, insurmountable power of Love. The belief that God’s government can be usurped is a lie for nothing can usurp Love’s governing of Her own creation. Nothing has the power to usurp Truth’s government.
Feel the presence and power of Love enfolding you in Her loving embrace. You are safe. You are loved. You are Her precious child, never separated from all that is good. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
A month or so ago an old student of mine from Emerson High School texted me to see if we could meet for coffee. I was surprised, but not, to hear from Hector.
I’d been thinking of him – remembering the time we’d been taking turns reading out loud from an astronomy book, and he’d read a passage that said something like: “The stars you see in the night sky are bringing you a story from thousands of years ago.” His head had popped up and his eyebrows had come together in a puzzled frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he’d asked.
I told him that the light we see from the stars took thousands of years to reach us – so we’re not seeing the light from the stars as they are right now – we’re seeing the light from the stars as they were thousands of years ago.
His eyebrows lifted then and his eyes got huge. “WHOAH. That’s CRAZY!” he’d exclaimed. And then he’d started talking about how cool it would be to be an astronaut.
I hadn’t seen Hector for several years and was wondering how he was doing – hoping all was well with him – so when he’d texted out of the blue, it felt like a cosmic coincidence to me.
We arranged to meet today at Whidbey Coffee in Burlington. And oh! It was so good to see Hector again! He is a remarkable young man.
We hugged and I bought us coffees (he told me I didn’t need to buy his coffee for him, but I insisted) and we settled into a couple of comfortable chairs near the window. And for the next two hours we talked and laughed and got caught up. Hector’s life has changed a lot since I last saw him. He felt the need to make a new start for himself and moved to Seattle to work with his brother in carpentry.
He loves his work as a carpenter – he showed me the houses he’d helped build – he said he did everything in building the houses except the drywalling. He’s excited about all he’s learning on his job. He showed me photos and videos from his backpacking trips – he said he found a group of friends in Seattle who introduced him to hiking and rock-climbing – and he’s totally hooked on outdoors adventures now. Last summer, he told me, he hiked 25 miles in one day in the Enchantments. I told him I’d backpacked there years ago with a friend, and remembered how beautiful it was. He showed me his photos from the trip – and his photos showed his talent for capturing the beauty around him.
Then Hector told me that he’s gotten big into jujitsu – trains for competitions – and during the course of his training he discovered one of his favorite sparring partners was a pastor at a church in Seattle. And in connecting with this pastor he found a church community and found God. He was so excited about all he’s learning about God’s love, and so eager to share what he’s learned.
He said one of his favorite passages in the Bible is the one about building your house on sand. When we’d talked about Hector’s carpentry, we’d talked about the importance of a house being “plumb” – if the first floor is plumb, square, and level then the floors above the first floor will be, too. So the parable of the house built on the sand means something to Hector, the carpenter. He said if you build a house on the sand you can keep adding on to it – floor after floor – more and more – and it can be a 10-story house, but if that first floor is built on sand then it’s all going to come down in a windstorm. You need to build your foundation on the rock, he said – on God.
I told him it seemed that God had been leading him to this spiritual place, and he smiled and nodded and agreed. He asked me, then, about my own experience with God – and, for the first time – because he’s no longer my student – I felt free to share my own spiritual journey with him.
I asked Hector what had led him to text me. He thought for a moment and then said that he’d had struggles in high school, hadn’t really liked school until he came to me as a contract-based student, working with me one-on-one. He said he felt heard when he was with me. He felt safe. He felt loved.
I started tearing up then. The Cosmos knew what I needed today – and the Cosmos sent me Hector. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I’ve been debating with myself if I should put this out there – most of us have probably already voted by now, and I’m pretty sure nothing I write here is going to make any difference anyway. But… on the flip side, I think I’d have a hard time living with myself if I didn’t say something. So. Yeah. Here goes.
I’m pretty sure the swing states are getting bombarded with a lot of political ads that never reach us here in Washington State. But every now and then – usually when we’re watching some nationally-televised sports show – one will pop up. And there’s this one I’ve seen a couple of times now that triggers something in me every time – and I don’t think I’m triggered in the way the politician who sponsored the ad expects me to be triggered.
This ad shows this tall, masculine-looking athlete playing sports on a women’s team. And then the narrator says this: “Kamala’s for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
And that, right there, is just so…. just writing this I’m finding myself triggered again. “Us versus them.” This is the language of haters. This is the language that politicians use to divide us, and to incite violence in us. This is the language politicians use to bring the fearful and ignorant to their flag. This is bigotry, pure and simple. And it scares me for the safety of my LGBTQ friends.
I’m a Boomer AND a former English teacher who, in the olden days, spent time correcting my students’ improper use of the words “they” and “them” – “they” is the plural I’d tell my students and “her” is the singular. I grew up in a generation of people in which society was divided into male and female – and, being a heterosexual female who’s always felt female-ish, I never really thought too much beyond society’s binary system for the sexes. I had friends and acquaintances in the olden days who I knew were gay, but it was never a big deal to me who other people were attracted to and it never occurred to me that I should hate anyone or judge them because of their sexual orientation.
Now, as time has gone on and my circle of friendships has grown, I also have had the opportunity to develop friendships with several transgender people – in the case of my friends, they were assigned the label of “female” when they were born, but have never FELT female, and self-identify as male. And, in recent years, I have witnessed my friends – good, caring, kind, brave people – become more urgent in their cries for help as they’re bullied, threatened, legislated against, and hated on.
And I’m scared for their safety.
So when I see that poltical ad from the Trump campaign, targeting transgender people, I’m triggered. Feeding the fear and hate – feeding the “feargnorance” in others – is shameful and low. It’s despicable. That ad validates, for me, that I voted for the right person by NOT voting for Trump.
Shouldn’t our president be for ALL of us?
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one and the same in Christ Jesus.“ – Galatians 3:28
I have friends who tell me that Donald Trump didn’t expect there to be violence on January 6th – that it was actually “leftists” who brought the violence to the capitol to make Donald Trump look bad. And I keep coming back to this one question: What did the people who showed up for Trump’s “rally” expect was going to happen on that day? Did they really think that they were going to stand peacefully outside the capitol, holding their signs and yelling “STOP THE STEAL!” or whatever other lies they’d been told and that the legislators were going to go, “Oh, okay. Let’s discount the votes of the more than 81 million people who voted for Biden, and the 306 electoral votes he got, and just give this to Trump”?
Did Donald Trump really think he was going to change the results of the election by sending his followers to the capitol building to peacefully protest? Seriously?!
In the stillness of the night I commune with the Cosmos – feel the presence, power, might of Love enfolding me – and this is what I trust – my own experience with the Divine. I don’t need to be told what to believe, what to think, what to feel, when to stand and when to kneel. I know in my own heartt what’s genuine, what’s real.
Googling Hamas, Israel, Gaza, Harris, Trump, polls, politics, war, peace, causes, Ukraine, Russia, death tolls, species endangered, glaciers receding, earth’s poles melting, I’m adrift and seeking, googling for inspiration, googling for help, googling for answers, googling myself.
But none of what I’m looking for is housed in this computer – not peace, not hope, and not myself – nor the guarantee of a future.
To find those things I’ll need to stop and get off of my whirring laptop.
I breathe in deep, and close my eyes, and feel Love pulsing around me. Right here. Right now. As near as my thoughts – the Good I seek is right here with me.
a world shaken and six more lives taken (“May we be blessed by their memory.”) the world seems to be hemorrhaging what gives it meaning and beauty for some misguided duty to kill all who don’t have the same beliefs as the ones who hold the guns when will war be done?
I’ve always enjoyed the process of writing – I’ve kept journals for decades – and at some point the idea came to me that it was time to share my experiences as a Christian Scientist with other people in an open and honest way. I wanted to “demystify” CS – to introduce folks unfamiliar with CS to an actual CSist (me). I felt that others would be able to relate to my life experiences, and I hoped my book would be a way for me to connect to my fellow human be-ings.
Once I started writing Blessings the words just flowed out of me. At times I felt like I wasn’t the one writing this book at all – like I was just a transmitter or something. And whenever something would happen that discouraged me – problems with the printer or my computer – I’d get a call out of the blue from Mel Schoening, the wife of the man who’d saved my Dad’s life on K2 – and she’d encourage me to keep working on this book. She’d tell me that what I was doing was important, and that she loved what I was sharing with her. (I’d sent her an early chapter about her husband’s heroics on K2, and it had really touched her.)
I got the first draft of my book done by Mother’s Day and presented copies to my mom and her sisters, Elsie and Junie, as gifts. I dedicated the book to them.
And at some point, one of my friends who’d read the first draft, suggested I look into print-on-demand publishers. I found CreateSpace – a publisher that gave me the tools to format my book for publishing, and would sell my books through Amazon and other book stores.
In those days I didn’t have any platform, really, to advertize my book – Facebook, instagram, WordPress, TikTok, Twitter – none of these social networks existed then, or if they did, I wasn’t familiar with them. But I sent out copies of my book to my friends and they ordered copies and sent them to THEIR friends, and, in a very modest way, I began to sell books on Amazon. And then I began to get reviews on Amazon. That was pretty cool.
Here are some samples:
On New Year’s Eve in 2007, when I was struggling with a massive depression and needed some reassurance from the Cosmos, I found this review waiting for me on Amazon by a man named Fred Lloyd, who had written his review just that day: “One reviewer recommends this book to those who may need a lift. I recommend this book for anyone, including devoted Christian Scientists. When I came across it I wondered if it would be appropriate as a Christmas gift to my wife who is a Christian Scientist. I think it is a wonderful sharing. Karen becomes your friend, someone you know and love and you know if she knew you, she would love you the way you want to be loved. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe anyone else could have written this book. It is a stand alone item that gives us a window of life that is rare indeed.”
RobertJ wrote: “To echo the reviews of others, I did laugh, I did cry, this book touched my soul. My wife and I read it out loud on a snowy New Hampshire day and there were numerous times when I had to pause as the lump formed in my throat. I’ve been a Christian Scientist for most of my adult life and this book tells my story and the story of many fellow travelers. I recommend this book highly for anyone who would like to see how prayer can make a difference in your life, in ways both large and small.”
VoIP-Dragon User wrote: “OK, after reading the reviews, I thought this might make a nice Christmas present for a friend. When it arrived I decided to ‘peek’ at a few pages, but couldn’t put it down. I finished reading it in one sitting. But how to review the book is a challenge. It leaves you with such a joyful uplifted feeling and one of appreciation and relevance. At first I found myself saying, ‘I want to know this woman’ and after I finished the book I felt I did. Karen brings very positive reinforcement into the reader’s experience and the easy flowing style just melts in your mouth like comfort food. I found dozens of instances where I saw a parallel in my own life, that were entertaining and inspirational in a down to earth sort of way. I’m wearing a smile having read this and can’t think of a better way to pass an evening than this quick roller-coaster ride through another’s eyes of refreshing gratitude. It touched my heart and soul. Highly recommended.”
I now have 33 reviews and 47 ratings on Amazon: 37 five-stars, four four-stars, five three-stars, and, yes, even one one-star (which comes with no review and no name to go with it – but what kind of namby-pamby writer would I be if someone didn’t hate my book enough to give it a one-star?).
This book has also brought me many beautiful and valuable friendships. Because of *Blessings* I’ve been able to connect with new friends all over the world – with Chip and his partner, Eric, in Florida; with readers in a book club in Chicago; with members of the local Unitarian Universalist church; with Norman in Africa; and with a whole host of wonderful hooligans on an Amazon discussion forum. *Blessings* has led me into cool new communities and opened new doors for me, and the encouraging responses I’ve gotten for *Blessings* over the years has touched my heart and inspired me to keep writing.
***
Here’s the Introduction to Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist:
Years ago an old boyfriend said to me, “I can’t see that Christian Science has made you any better than anyone else.”
“I know!” I said, nodding my head in complete and happy agreement, “But can you imagine what I’d be like without it?!”
He raised his eyebrows and laughed. What could he say? He was looking at a self-centered, moralistic, stubborn idealist who saw everything in terms of black and white. But I could have been worse. I believe without Christian Science I would have been worse.
Let’s get one thing clear from the start: I am not the best example of a Christian Scientist. I’m not as disciplined as I could be. I have fears and worries and doubts. I’m a little neurotic. I am the Lucy Ricardo of Christian Scientists.
I should probably put in a disclaimer here, too—the views expressed in these pages are not necessarily the views shared by other Christian Scientists. Christian Scientists are really a pretty diverse group of people—there are Democrat Christian Scientists and Republican Christian Scientists, “Green,” and “Red,” and “Blue” Christian Scientists, and Christian Scientists with no political affiliations at all. Frankly, I like that about us. We keep each other on our toes.
I should also tell you that this book is not an authorized piece of Christian Science literature. If you want to actually study Christian Science you should probably read the textbook for this way of life, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
My purpose for writing this epistle is really two-fold (I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “two-fold” in my life, and using it now is making me feel sort of professorial. I like the feeling.):
First-foldly, to introduce you to one Christian Scientist so that if you ever hear someone talking fearfully and ignorantly (feargnorantly?) about Christian Scientists you’ll be in a position to say, “I have a friend who’s a Christian Scientist, and, although it’s true she’s a bit of a nut, she’s also…” and you can go on and talk about how your friend has used her study of Christian Science to try to make the world a happier place.
Second-foldly, I feel the need to acknowledge God’s blessings in my life. I don’t want to be like those nine lepers in the Bible who couldn’t take the time to thank Jesus for healing them. I want to be like that one leper who “fell down on his face at his feet” before Jesus and gave him thanks (Luke 17). Through my study of Christian Science I’ve witnessed some incredible proofs of our Father-Mother God’s love for Her creation in my life. God has filled my life with infinite blessings and it’s time for me to acknowledge these blessings to others.
“Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy has always believed that those who are entitled to vote should do so, and she has also believed that in such matters no one should seek to dictate the actions of others.” – from Prose Works by Mary Baker Eddy
I appreciate that in the Christian Science movement there’s no official authority telling its members how to vote on issues, or which politicians they should try to elect. Members are expected to vote as individual conscience and understanding dictate. And this, I believe, is as it should be.
Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church, was a strong believer in separation of church and state. She writes, in Miscellaneous Writings: “Progress, legitimate to the human race, pours the healing balm of Truth and Love into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror or rule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-enact, through the civil arm of governments, the horrors of religious persecution.” (Noand Yes, p 44) And, warning against the tendency of religious institutions to try to dictate the workings of government, she writes: “It is the pulpit and press, clerical robes and the prohibiting of free speech, that cradles and covers the sins of the world, – all unmitigated systems of crime; and it requires the enlightenment of these worthies, through civil and religious reform, to blot out all inhuman codes. It was the Southern pulpit and press that influenced the people to wrench from man both human and divine rights, in order to subserve the interests of wealth, religious caste, civil and political power.”
When considering the workings of politics, and separation of church and state, I’ve always found these passages in The Bible helpful:
“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” – John 6: 15
“Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
“ But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
“They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
“When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” – Matthew 22
Amen. (Excerpted from a post published on October 24, 2012.)
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 