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Christian Science: Lobbying It or Living It?

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Regarding exemption from prosecution for child neglect: I don’t believe ANYone – regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion or non-religion should be exempt from prosecution for willful neglect of a child.

Karen Molenaar Terrell's avatarAdventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist

The letter of Science plentifully reaches humanity to-day, but its spirit comes only in small degrees. The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science, – pulseless, cold, inanimate. – Mary Baker Eddy.

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In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy defines “Church” as the “structure of Truth and Love” and says the role of Church is to rouse “the dormant understanding… to the apprehension of spiritual ideas…”

Lately some individuals have been busy lobbying their politicians for exemptions for Christian Scientists from health insurance and laws regarding child neglect. And I’m sorry, but I have to ask – how is exempting Christian Scientists from health insurance laws and child neglect laws in any way going to help rouse anyone’s “dormant understanding” to the “apprehension…

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My Two Little Brothers

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My parents found an old photo album that I hadn’t seen before and looking through it brought back a flood of happy childhood memories…

I have two “little brothers” – Pete and Dave. I can’t remember a time before Pete – he’s only 13 months younger than me, and my accomplice in toddler shenanigans. I see those old black-and-white photos of us, our heads together, big grins on our faces after we’ve managed to escape unscathed from some new exploit. We were always up to something. We kept Mom on her toes. And there’s my youngest brother, Dave – he’s four years younger than me and I DO remember the first time I met him – I remember looking in his crib as he slept and whispering in awe to my mom, “He’s got long legs!” And he did. And he does. At 6’3″, my “littlest” brother is now a full foot taller than me.

Pete and I both went to Washington State University and worked at Mount Rainier during the summers – we climbed to the summit of Rainier together back in ’76. Dave took a different route – went to Western Washington University to study marine biology and spent time with NOAA, traveling on Japanese fishing boats around the Pacific. Life took us separate directions – to our own careers, travels, adventures, marriages, children, trials, failures, achievements, successes (among other things, my long-legged youngest brother, Dave, turned out to be an ultra marathon runner – yup, he’s one of those dudes who runs 50 miles a day on mountain trails for the fun of it). But a few times a year we all come together again to tromp around in the mountains together, or to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays.

Just a few weeks ago we met up to celebrate Dad’s 96th birthday. At some point in the festivities Pete and I found ourselves standing together at the folks’ fence, looking with some longing towards the fields and woods at the back of their property. Neither one of us had been back to the creek for a really long time. There were thistles and thorns and an over-grown trail between us and the creek. Pete was wearing shorts; I was wearing capris, and sandals. Trying to bushwack our way to the creek could be tricky. We put our heads together, as we ‘d done when we were toddlers, and once again conspired shenanigans. “How hard could it be?” “What’s the worst that could happen?” And then – just as we’d done when we were toddlers – we set out together for a new adventure – Peter opened the gate and we maneuvered our way around the thistles, stomped down the thorny things, and set out for the creek. Half-way across the field, we turned around and saw that Dave and his son, Casey, and my husband, Scott, and our son, Andrew, had seen us, and were all coming to join us.

The creek holds some really rich memories for my brothers and me. Over there, under the canopy of cedar branches, was my “Secret Place” – the place where I’d go to be alone and watch the squirrels doing their high-wire act in the treetops.  Past my Secret Place, my brothers had made forts and bridges in the woods with their friends, and, later, our own sons had built the imaginary little community of “Bridgeport”. While Casey and Andrew went off now to check on the fate of Bridgeport, the older generation stood by the creek and breathed in the rich smells of wet earth and green growing things – skunk cabbage and cedar trees and wet ground cover.

It hit me, then, how very glad I am to have my brothers. We’ve known each other since the beginning of our lives. We’ve been there for each other during the good times and the bad. They hold my history in their memories, and I hold theirs. I am proud to be their big sister, and grateful for our sibling friendship. How different my life would be without my brothers, and how very glad I am to have them in my life.

Sibling relationships — and 80 percent of Americans have at least one — outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.
-Erica E. Goode, “The Secret World of Siblings,” U.S. News & World Report, 1994 January 10th

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other’s hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.
-Clara Ortega

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply…
-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

Tony Kushner: “…With Key to the Scriptures”

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“Oh God, I’m going to now read this Christian Science text… and it’s going to be heavy sledding… and I was stunned to read this absolutely magnificent kind of prose… Mary Baker Eddy was a wonderful writer… she writes gorgeously… and I kind of fell in love with it… I didn’t become a Christian Scientist, but I found it tremendously moving.” – Tony Kushner, talking about the title to his new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.  http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201405151000

If you were to venture onto Amazon and scroll through the reviews for Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the textbook for Christian Science, you would see a lot of reviews from people who really loved this book, or really hated it, but very few reviews from people who walked away from this  book with an “eh-so-so” feeling about it. (There are 51 five star reviews, 14 one star reviews, and only 4 people who gave the book two to four stars.  http://www.amazon.com/Science-Health-Scriptures-Authorized-Trade/dp/0879520388/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0X6VT8G4FVS730E7129P)

I think one of the reviewers, Tobin Sparfield, explains this disparity really well in his review: “It should be addressed here… that many reviews are about the Christian Science Church rather than the book itself. Some individuals have had negative experiences with the Church/religion, and while their experiences are certainly valid, I am not about to defend the shortcomings of a human institution in this space. I do feel the need, however, to distinguish between a religion and its book.”

Although I might not be considered a very religious person, I am very grateful for what the study of Christian Science has brought into my life – the healings and my growing understanding of the Consciousness of Love. And I’m very grateful to Mary Baker Eddy, the author of Science and Health, for bringing us the textbook for Christian Science. Science and Health was published back in 1875, but it’s still timely today. Even in 1875 Eddy was talking about consciousness, the nothingness of matter, invention and discovery, evolution, and atomic power – topics that we see being discussed among those who study quantum physics and other physical sciences today. And the topics that are still being debated on religion discussion forums today are topics that she addressed and dealt with almost 150 years ago. God, she told us, was not an anthropomorphic being, but “God” was just another name for Love, Truth, Life, Spirit, Mind, Soul, Principle. Hell and heaven were not literal places, she told us, but states of mind. For her, the story of Adam and Eve was an allegory, not an actual event. She was progressive, far-thinking – a visionary.

The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, – he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed. Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man  through its supposed organic action or supposed existence. Error will be no longer used in stating truth. The problem of nothingness, or “dust to dust,” will be solved, and mortal mind will be without form and void, for mortality will cease when man beholds himself God’s reflection, even as man sees his reflection in a glass. – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures

 

 

When does a person stop being a miracle?

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??????????

Just saw a commercial on the TV. It showed a man carrying around a tiny infant while he did laundry. Not sure what the commercial was advertising, exactly – appliances maybe? or… laundry detergent? – but the line that caught my attention was something about making miracles – alluding, I guess, to the baby in the father’s arms.

And, of course, being a mother myself I thought about my own “miracles”  –  sons now fully-grown. And it occurred to me that they didn’t stop being miracles to me once they grew out of babyhood. And then I started wondering… well… a lot of things. Like, for instance, we all started out as babies, right? So to society we all started out as little miracles. And… at what age do most people in society stop thinking of each other as miracles? Two? Four? Eighteen? Ninety? Should we EVER stop thinking of each other as miracles?

And then my thoughts turned to those little girls kidnapped in Nigeria, and that pregnant woman in Sudan who’s been sentenced to death for her religious beliefs, and it’s obvious to me those little girls and that pregnant woman are miracles, too – and I’m wondering how anybody else can fail to recognize that?  And THEN I realized that… well… the man who sentenced the woman to death, and the men who kidnapped those little girls…  they were all babies once, too – taking their first breaths, opening their eyes and looking on the world for the first time, wrapping their little arms around their mammas’ necks, taking their first steps – and I tried to see them through the eyes of their mothers… and are not they miracles, too?

I am praying. I am praying  to see the power of Love and Truth at work in our world,  to see Love expressed, and Truth acknowledged. I am praying to know the powerlessness of hatred and cruelty – to see that hatred and ignorance can never, never overcome Good. Darkness vanishes with the light. Hatred disappears in the radiance of Love. Error dissolves before Truth.

And you -yes,  YOU – you are still a miracle.

When the divine precepts  are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: “Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”
– Mary Baker Eddy

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day to Nurturers and Reflections of Love Everywhere!

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“… when I came home from school, and told Moz that I didn’t think my first grade teacher liked me so much and that she was a crabby old lady, Mom’s response was, “Well, Sweetie, we just need to love the hell right out of her then.” Moz didn’t commiserate with me, didn’t call up the school and complain about this teacher – nope – instead she used this opportunity to teach me a life-long lesson about the power of love. I started my Campaign of Love the very next day,..”

Karen Molenaar Terrell's avatarAdventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist

Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which indicates His tender relationship to His spiritual creation. – Mary Baker Eddy

Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality,  the infinite Father-Mother God. – Mary Baker Eddy

I love this video of Mom – it totally captures the essence of who she is – warm, loving, joyful. Here’s Moz, at age 80, singing her unique version of  Mamma Mia:

I couldn’t have been more blest than I’ve been to have this beautiful reflection of motherhood for my mom.

Moz was wise: I remember coming home from school in the first grade, telling Moz about my day. My first grade teacher was not what most people envision when they think of a first grade teacher – she was not sweet-voiced, smiling, or nurturing. She was, to put it starkly, kind of cranky, and didn’t seem…

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“Kinship with All Life”

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I went out to my garden and the bunny was there again… I was really close to him… he sprang up and looked like he was ready to race away, but I started singing to him and after a moment or two he got himself comfortable and stayed until I was finished singing. I love that bunny…

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I just finished reading Kinship with All Life, by J. Allen Boone, and I so enjoyed it….

J. Allen Boone relates how he was able to open communication with all manner of creatures – starting with Strongheart, the great movie star dog, and then moving on to ants, a family of skunks, and Freddie the fly. In essence, what he tells us is that he had to learn to get rid of his stereotypes and prejudice about his fellow creatures, stop looking on them as inferior beings, and start talking to them “horizontally” rather than down.

Boone writes: “I had to discard my eyeballs as reliable reporting factors… and to begin using my thinking to see with… our five organs of sense give us a kind of ‘feel’ of the universe and the various things that it contains, but they do not help us to experience things as they really are… The great spiritual explorers who have searched for the real facts behind all appearances have told us that the universe is faultless in its conceptions, faultless in its purpose, and faultless in its operation.” Boone continues…”… behind every object which the senses can identify, whether the object be human, animal, tree, plant or anything else, and right where the object seems to be, is the mental and spiritual fact functioning in all its completeness and perfection.”

Boone talks about the difference between an animal trainer and an animal educator. A trainer uses the “make ’em or break ’em technique” – employing a reward-and-punishment process with the animal. But the educator is entirely different. Boone writes:”The animal educator does just the reverse of all this. Moving into the situation with insight and intuition, he places full emphasis on the mental rather than on the physical part of the animal. He treats it as an intelligent fellow being whose capacity for development and expression he refuses to limit in any direction.” Writing about Larry Timble’s technique in transforming Strongheart into the star he became, Boone writes: “Trimble discovered that deep within the big combat dog, but solidly imprisoned there, was a wealth of magnificent character qualities. Those talents and graces, buried beneath the dog’s tough physical exterior, did not need to be developed but liberated. That is what Trimble proceeded to do.”

Boone talks about the important lesson he learned from a fly he named Freddie: “Before Freddie the Fly came to live with me, my decreeing about flies had been supplying me with a continuous harvest of disagreeable and troublesome results. I expected flies to be unfriendly, and they were. I expected them to annoy me, and they did. I expected them to bite me, and they accommodated me in that manner too. With the accuracy and precision of an echo, I had been getting back in ourward experience just what I had been mentally and vocally decreeing and expecting… Freddie was nothing more or less than the state of my own consciousness about him being made manifest in an outward experience”

There are some really valuable lessons there, I think.

I had an epiphany one morning. I think it’s something that a lot of people recognize on some level and it’s nothing new I’m going to say, but I am going to say it anyway. 🙂

You know how when you look up at the stars at night you get the feeling that you’re a part of something really amazing and awesome? And, for me, it feels like I’m part of some big purpose, too. 

So when I had my epiphany I was sitting on a boulder on a beach on the Puget Sound – I had the beach entirely to myself – and as I looked out at the water, and watched the little sea creatures in the tidal pool next to me, I got that same feeling – that I’m part of something awesome, and that I’m part of some universal purpose. And it came to me that the purpose of everything, the purpose of the universe, is to love. And everything else – the mistakes we make, and the struggles we have – if those things lead us to understand love better, and lead us to love more – then that’s all that matters, really. 

And right after my epiphany, this family came around the corner, and their dog came barreling straight for me and leaped on me and licked my face and just showered his slobbery love on me… it was great!

Those times when I’ve encountered and connected with expressions of life on its own turf, beach, and limb have been magic for me – as cool as meeting and communing with aliens from another planet…

 

All of God’s creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible. – Mary Baker Eddy

An Agate Addict Speaks Out

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.

– William Blake

When I was in fourth grade my teacher, Mr. Whittle, loaded us all up on a bus and took us to a hill near Tenino, Washington, where we took out shovels and proceeded to dig for agates. I knew a little something about agates before we went to Tenino – my dad’s a geologist and he introduced me to Rock Basics – obsidian, pumice, quartz, granite, petrified wood, and agates. But actually having the opportunity to get out a shovel and dig for my own agate-treasure kindled in me the beginnings of an agate addiction.

Later – when I was in my early twenties – I would now and then visit my beloved Aunt Junie on the Oregon coast. Junie taught me the art of beach agate-hunting. The trick, she showed me, is to scan over the beach while you’re facing towards the sun – the agates glow as the sun shines through them, and they pop out at you. When I married my husband, I showed him the art of agate-hunting, too, and on our annual pilgrimages to the Oregon coast agate-hunting became one of our favorite pastimes.

After I became a middle school teacher I used the agates we found as Christmas gifts for my students. I’d call my students up one-by-one, and tell them to pick out one agate from my agate bowl that “spoke to them” – this was their “magic agate” and they were to keep their agates forever and every time they looked at them remember how much I loved them. Then I’d take a moment while my students were holding their agates in front of their classmates to tell each of them what I loved about them. Every now and then I run into students I had years ago who make a point of letting me know they still have their “magic agates.” That means a lot to me.

This week my husband and I once again made our annual pilgrimage to the Oregon coast – and lookee what I found… 🙂

Lincoln City, Oregon: 1984-2013

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The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. – Robert Ingersoll, The Great Agnostic Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the…

Marriage Equality

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I feel a real yearning for other folks who love one another, and are brave enough to make a commitment to each other, to be allowed to have what my husband and I were allowed to have.

Karen Molenaar Terrell's avatarAdventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist

wedding photo

Happiness is spiritual,born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it. – from the chapter titled “Marriage” in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

I believe that every citizen – regardless of race, ethnicity, social and economic status, religion, non-religion, gender, or sexual orientation – should have the exact same rights as every other citizen – including the right for consenting adults to marry whom they love.

This weekend my husband and I will celebrate our 29th anniversary.  Every year about this time I find myself thinking back to that happy day and the days leading up to it.

You know those shows you see on television where the bride spends HUGE amounts of time, thought, and bucks choosing just the right ring, dress, caterer, flowers, music, photographer, and reception venue…

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“Radical reliance on Truth”

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 The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love. – Mary Baker Eddy

Recently a fellow Christian Scientist  made a comment on one of my blog posts that got me to thinking (which is always a good thing, right?) 🙂

Don wrote: “Mrs. Eddy pushes us to have ‘radical reliance’ on God–an impossible order if one wishes to be ‘fat and happy’ in matter, too. Consequently, some individuals find ourselves taking a ‘halting and halfway position’ in our religion and at that point begin accepting all sorts of logic that veers away from true Christian Science. Loving our fellowman who has opposing views doesn’t mean ‘getting in bed with him.’ …Medicine is a mind-science. Christian Science is Mind (God) Science. There is a dramatic and opposite difference between the two, and we must be careful to keep both feet solidly grounded in that ‘Science’ which does bless us and the world–in spite of how illogical it seems to the materialist or to those of us who want to ‘play nice’ with the world. It all boils down to our responsibility, and it can’t be shirked forever by any one of us. We must take a stand for Truth (God) if we wish to grow out of mortality using the same conviction as is recorded in Psalms ‘Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” (Ps 20:7)’ “

Don’s post got me to thinking about just what “radical reliance on Truth” actually means. Is  “radical reliance on Truth”  simply a euphemism for “avoiding the use of traditional medical science”? Or does “radical reliance on Truth” mean something else entirely – something bigger, something more?

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Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized. – Mary Baker Eddy

If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form, nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its letter. – Mary Baker Eddy

I’m thinking that we need to be careful not to bury the talent of spiritual healing under the “napkin of its form.” Whatever means a person chooses to use for healing – whether it’s naturopathy, traditional medical science, Christian Science treatment, or something else – that’s the form, the means, the method. The morale, or essence, of spiritual healing is Love – Love is the power that heals and transforms us. The God I follow – Love, Truth, Life, Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit (synonyms Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, gave for “God”) – isn’t concerned with what kind of treatment we choose to use – Love is going to remain unchanging Love, and Truth is going to remain unchanging Truth, no matter what form or method we use for physical healing. Truth doesn’t have an opinion on which form of treatment is best for treating disease – because Truth doesn’t know anything about disease, to begin with. Truth knows only perfection. And Truth and Love are synonyms, so doesn’t “radical reliance on Truth” also mean “radical reliance on Love”?

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Material methods are temporary, and  are not adapted to elevate mankind. – Mary Baker Eddy

        If Christian Scientists ever fail to receive aid from other Scientists, – their brethren upon whom they may call, – God will still guide them into the right use of temporary and eternal means. Step by step will those who trust Him find that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  – Mary Baker Eddy

Christ, Truth, gives mortals temporary food and clothing until the material, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and man  is clothed and fed spiritually.- Mary Baker Eddy

        Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth. – Mary Baker Eddy

When I choose to use Christian Science for healing I know my thought is going to be “elevated” by the experience, I know I’m going to gain a greater understanding of God and of who I am as her child, and I know I will be transformed – not merely healed physically – but transformed.

I choose to turn to Christian Science for healing because it’s simple, natural, uncomplicated – it’s always available to me no matter where I am, or who I’m with, or what scrape I’ve gotten myself into “this time”. I choose to use my understanding of Christian Science to bring me healing because it has been proven to work for me.

My motives for choosing Christian Science treatment for healing have nothing to do with a fear of what other Christian Scientists are going to think of me, or because I’m concerned God’s going to be angry at me, or because I’m worried about being ex-communicated, or because I’m opposed to something else, or because I’m scared of medical science, or feeling angry, self-righteous, or smug. My motive for turning to Christian Science for healing isn’t because I feel the need to take a “stand for Truth” – Truth doesn’t need me to take a stand for it – it’s not in some battle it might lose – Truth was Truth yesterday, and will remain Truth tomorrow – and nothing I do is going to change that. Truth doesn’t need me to side with it to continue to be Truth. 

I use Christian Science because it’s natural for me to do so – it’s natural for me to draw my thoughts close to Love, to wrap myself up in the power of Truth, to free my thoughts to dance in the celebration of LIfe. And it’s natural for me to experience healing by doing so.

And THAT is radical. man! 🙂

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Students are advised by the author to be charitable and kind, not only towards differing forms of religion  and medicine, but to those who hold these differing opinions. Let us be faithful in pointing the way through Christ, as we understand it, but let us also be careful always to “judge righteous judgment,” and never to condemn rashly. – Mary Baker Eddy