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A Free Press
“When the press is gagged, liberty is besieged…”
– Mary Baker Eddy, founder of The Christian Science Monitor
The job of the free press is to keep our citizens informed. When the White House refuses to let the free press do its job it is an attack on our democracy. Our government is by the people, of the people, and for the people – it is not supposed to be a dictatorship, or a corporation. Our government depends on an informed citizenry – how can we have an informed citizenry if the White House refuses to let its citizens see what it’s doing? Pictures don’t tell lies. Yes, words can be twisted, biases can be presented in the written and spoken telling of a story – but a rolling camera that films exactly what is being said and done isn’t lying – it isn’t showing bias – it’s just showing us exactly what is happening – and that is vital for a healthy democracy.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
– First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
“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.”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings
“When the press is gagged, liberty is besieged; but when the press assumes the liberty to lie, it discounts clemency, mocks morality, outrages humanity, breaks common law, gives impulse to violence, envy, and hate, and prolongs the reign of inordinate, unprincipled clans. At this period, 1888, those quill-drivers whose consciences are in their pockets hold high carnival. When news-dealers shout for class legislation, and decapitated reputations, headless trunks, and quivering hearts are held up before the rabble in exchange for money, place, and power, the vox populi is suffocated, individual rights are trodden under foot, and the car of the modern Inquisition rolls along the streets besmeared with blood.”
– Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings
Medicaid Cuts
Did you all see the video of the people getting dragged from their wheelchairs and carried out by law enforcement officers for protesting proposed Medicaid cuts outside Sen. McConnell’s office? If you missed it, here’s a clip.
Here’s what Donald Trump promised during his campaign: “I’m not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.”
And here’s what Trumpcare proposes today: Medicaid Cuts.
In grade school I was taught that the United States stood for liberty, justice, and equality. We were the good guys. We were the country that people immigrated to for freedom and opportunity – people came here to escape religious persecution, political persecution, and poverty. My immigrant ancestors came here to find better lives for themselves and their families, and, unless you are descended wholly from indigenous peoples or slaves, so did yours.
And look at us now. What have we become?! We are the only industrialized nation with for-profit health care. Health insurance corporations don’t actually seem to care about making people healthy – the corporations’ main concern is making money. That’s what for-profit corporations do: They make money. And our politicians are, of course, in the back pockets of these guys because that seems to be what their chief concern is, too – making money. (For an insightful piece about this from the perspective of a patient – click here.)
Add to this the corruption found in pharmaceutical companies (click here for a link to a Harvard University study), and if you are suffering from health problems and don’t have insurance to pay for the cost of your care, you and your family could get financially wiped out in a matter of days. (According to the HealthCare.gov site, the average cost for a three-day hospital stay is $30,000.)
This is shameful.
Our Republican legislators – the (fill in the blank) who came up with the latest health care “reform” plan should be ashamed of themselves. But somehow I doubt they are. Their proposals indicate they don’t have any kind of collective conscience. They appear not to give a hoot about the people they were elected to represent.
And this might be a good time to remind our politicians that they are not the bosses of us; we are the bosses of them. They are here to serve US – not the pharmaceutical companies, and not the health insurance corporations – but US. And if they won’t serve the people who put them in office, then it is time for us to fire their kiesters.
“The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another’s good.” – Mary Baker Eddy
New Book!
New book on the market! The Brush of Angel Wings is a collection of poetry that shares my thoughts on the passing of my mother, the changing political scene, and the nature of unchanging, eternal Love.
Here’s the opening poem from the book…:
Two Earthworms
I came upon two earthworms on the sidewalk today –
their noses suspended in the air, frozen by the heat
of the sun – dried out and stiff
and I reached down and plucked up the first
and carried him to the dirt.
I dug a little hole for him and covered him
with earth – a grave to brings him back to life.
Gently I used my fingers as tweezers and pulled
the second worm from the sidewalk
and lifted him to the moist soil, laid him down,
and covered him with a wet leaf.
Fare thee well, my new friends –
May you revive and spend the rest of your days
happily leaving a trail of rich earth in your wake.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Love is everything that matters.”
Image
A Prayer
Know that Love is all-power, all-presence,
everywhere, through all, in all, the Only.
Know there isn’t the teensiest tiniest nano
space or second that is not filled with Love.
Know that there is no time, no place,
outside the reach of Truth, the touch
of Love, the wisdom of Mind.
Truth created all, every-thing
every-one, and there’s no part of creation –
not the most miniscule micro molecule –
that can possibly be unlike its Creator –
that doesn’t fully express the beauty,
perfection, wonder, sublimity, whole-ness,
and joy of Love.
Amen.
– Karen
Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell
“We keep each other on our toes.”
“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.”
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist
A few years ago when my newly-graduated son was living with us while he looked for engineering jobs, he helped me set up a highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art recording studio (a set of Logitech headphones and the recording program on my husband’s Mac) so I could make an audiobook of Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist. It was an adventure, for sure. I do not believe I could have pulled it off without the son’s patience and technological support.
If you go to the link highlighted in blue above or click > here < – it should take you to my audiobook on Amazon. If you click the little arrow that says “Audible Sample” you’ll hear me reading the introduction to Blessings. Among other things you will hear me wax philosophical about Christian Scientists and their political affiliations.
And I was going to write a whole bunch of stuff about Christian Scientists and their political affiliations here, but I find I don’t wanna. 🙂 I want to go eat breakfast now and take a nice walk – it looks like it might be drizzling again out there, which is always fun. So I’ll just leave you with the audible sample to do with as you choose and wish you a wonderful day full of blessings and hope and kindness and progress and everything good.
The Dream About the Real World
Dad: Let’s head out into the open countryside, head towards the coast.
Karen: Let’s do it!
Dad: I don’t want to go into the city. I don’t want to run errands with you.
(Karen nods her head in understanding.)
Dad: (his voice cracking) I love you.
Karen: I love you, too.
Dad: It’s nice that we have each other to love.
Karen: Yes, it is!
Dad: Thank you for including me when you take these drives. (Karen smiles – she takes these drives FOR Dad.)
Karen turns onto Samish Island Road, thinking maybe she’ll go to Bayview State Park with Dad.
Dad: Have you ever been to that little island that’s connected to the land?
Karen: Samish Island? Do you want to go there?
(Dad nods his head, and Karen heads out to do the loop around
Samish Island.)
Dad: Is Mom alive?
Karen shakes her head no.
Dad: I had a dream that she’d died. (He starts tearing up.) I think I’ve already mourned her. (Dad’s quiet for a bit. They’ve almost finished the Samish Island loop now.) Let’s go some place where we can walk on a beach.
Karen heads for Bayview State Park.
After parking, Dad and Karen make their way to a bench near the beach. When she’s getting Dad’s walker out of the back of the car, Karen sees the cans of root beer she put in there months ago – she’d bought them for Dad, and had forgotten about them. Now she grabs one, joins Dad on the bench, and hands it to him. His face lights up and he smiles and takes it from her.
Dad: Do you ever dream about Mom?
Karen: Yes. I had a dream that she was sitting on the top bed of a bunk bed, dangling her feet over the edge. She had a happy, mischievous smile on her face. There was an open casket on the bed behind her. She said, “I’m done with this!” And hopped down. I felt like she was done with the whole dead-thing, and was happy. Have you had a dream about Mom?
Dad: Yes. I dreamed she died.
Karen: She loved you, and loves you very much.
Dad: She was such a wonderful person.
Karen: Yes, she is!
(Dad and Karen are quiet for a while, just enjoying the sunshine.)
Dad: This is nice here. I’m glad we made this stop. That’s a nice, gentle breeze. It smells like saltwater. (He belches and laughs at his own belch.)
When they get back in the car, Dad says he had a dream where he had to fart once, but there was no place to fart. He starts laughing – cracking himself up. Karen’s laughing, too. Then Dad asks, “Do you and Mom have a lot of nice conversations?” And she tells him that she does.
As they’re heading back to Dad’s home, he turns his head and points, “That would make a happy picture! That house all covered in flowers! But I don’t have my camera with me…” Karen turn the car around and heads back to the flower-bedecked house, and gets out her camera for Dad to snap a photo.
They get back to his home, and Dad doesn’t recognize it at first – he has moved three times in the last year, and it’s all a little confusing. Karen explains that their last home couldn’t take Mom and him back when Mom got sick. And then when Mom passed, they had to find another home for Dad. She tells Dad that they felt that Mom had directed them to this place for Dad – a place with hummingbird feeders and cats and dogs. Dad asks, “So Mom knows these people then?” And Karen thinks about this, and then nods her head yes. (Karen believes Mom does know these people, even if they never actually met in the person.)
Dad gets back in the house and doesn’t recognize anything. Karen asks him if he wants to go to his room – and he asks, “I have a room here?” Karen points the way, and once he enters he says, “Oh! I remember this place now!” He sees his paintings on the walls, and pictures of his friends and family. He realizes he’s home. He starts grinning at himself and says, “I’ve been thanking these people for allowing me to stay here.”
Dad points to a book by Leif Whittaker about Leif’s father, Jim. “I think I got that book for Christmas.” Karen tells him that she thinks Jim Whittaker gave him that book when he came to visit him here. “Jim visited me here?!” Yes, Karen tells him, also his friends Rick and Cindy, and Tom Hornbein, and Mary from the Mountaineers… Dad is shaking his head in amazement now. He says, “The things I’ve forgotten would fill a book!”
Karen: Are you going to take a nap now?
Dad: Yes, I want to make that transition into the dream.
Karen: What dream is that?
Dad: (tearing up) The dream about the real world. (And Karen knows he’s thinking about the world where Mom is still with him.)
Karen: I love you, Dad.
Dad: I love you, Karen.
Message to My Senators
“The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another’s good. ”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Message to the esteemed Senators from Washington State, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell:
Regarding the proposed budgets for Education and Health Care –
I know you will stand, as you always have, with the poor, sick, disenfranchised, and struggling. I know you will do what you need to do to help our young people receive the education that will make their lives, and our world, better. I know you will do what you need to do to ensure that health care is affordable and accessible to all our citizens.
And I thank you for that. I am grateful to live in Washington State and to be represented by you in Washington, DC.
Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
– James 1: 27
Thinking for Ourselves
Several folks have now shared the opinion that we should stop reading the news and “think for ourselves.” And… a few things:
1) The fact that several folks have parroted the almost exact same words about “thinking for ourselves” leads me to believe that they are not actually thinking for themselves, themselves.
2) “Thinking for ourselves” shouldn’t just mean making up “facts” as we go along, or pulling “the truth” out of our kiesters. To really “think for yourself” you have to be informed and knowledgeable.
3) It doesn’t take any special kind of talent to spout off a bunch of opinions – anyone can do that. To really be a thinker, you need to be able to separate opinions from facts. And to separate opinions from facts, you need to have some facts to separate the opinions from. And where do we get our facts? Well… by reading the news, right? And not by reading just one news source (one news source could easily be biased) – but by reading multiple sources. And not just by reading the editorials – which are, by definition, opinion pieces – but by reading actual news stories.
Okay. That’s all I’ve got right now. Carry on then…
“The time for thinkers has come.” –
Mary Baker Eddy
