May our children know kindness
May our children know peace
May their planet be healthy
May their wisdom increase
May they know that they matter
May they know they are loved
May they live life with courage
May they live life above
pettiness and imitation
bullying and limitation
May our children know kindness
May they know they are loved
Amen.
Karen Molenaar Terrell
Here’s the link to the podcast.
I’ve been in a funk today – I feel like I’ve been treading water just to stay afloat – mourning friends and family who have passed on in the last several years. But just now – as the sun slipped beneath the horizon – I left my house for a quick walk and stepped into magic. I was instantly surrounded in evening smells and sounds – frogsong and birdsong and the perfume that comes from the spring flowers as the evening wraps around them. I looked up at the night sky and saw a light shining down on me – I think from a planet – and then, further away, a star twinkled at me. And I was just suddenly so grateful. So grateful to live in a place where I’m safe to walk around the block on a fragrant spring evening. So grateful that the sounds I hear are coming from birds and frogs, and not cannons and guns. So grateful that the sky is clear and clean and I can see the stars on a sweet spring evening.
I looked up at the stars and could feel my friends and family with me. I felt a part of something cosmic and divine.
I step out of the door for a walk
around the block
and am instantly surrounded in the magic
of a spring evening in the ‘hood –
immersed in birsong and frogsong
and the fragrance of spring flowers
as the cool air embraces them
and in the sky a star twinkles at me
connecting me to the divine –
to a cosmos bigger than my problems,
enveloping me in Its peace and joy
I am a part of something amazing
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
The son and I talked about the tree
on the drive home.
850 years it had lived on this planet!
It had been seeded in the late 1100’s –
around the time of Genghis Khan
and England’s King John,
before Mansua Musa or Marco Polo,
da Vinci or Michelangelo.
Before Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare,
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mooji.
It rooted into the soil as a tender seedling
and grew during the Black Plague; grew
while the ash from Krakatoa blocked the sun;
and while factories sprouted up across
the northern hemisphere. It grew while
soldiers fought to end slavery; while
World War I and World War II raged
across Europe; while our planet warmed;
and while division and despair
made humans sometimes wonder
if our planet was beyond repair.
It grew.
Quietly, without fanfare or medals
or approval or star ratings –
it lived, created oxygen, and grew –
because that is what trees do.
And maybe when it was older and sturdy,
indigenous children played in its bends
and called it “friend.”
I like to think that’s true.
Yesterday I visited my wise friend, Charles.
He could tell I was scared about our world.
“Just be present,” he said. “Be a tree.”
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(From *Looking Forward: More Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist*.)
https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Forward-Adventures-Christian-Scientist-ebook/dp/B0C3G5H57Q/
I guess I can say something now because Wikipedia has made it official. The extraordinary Tom Hornbein died early yesterday. He was a remarkable man – and not just because of his mountaineering feats, but because of his beautiful heart and soul. His decades-long friendship with my dad, Dee Molenaar – and his outreach to Dad in his last years – meant so much to us.
The last time he and Dad were together in the person was in April 2018. Jim Wickwire, Bill Sumner and Tom all visited Dad at his adult family home, and brought a book about K2 with them. Dad and his mountaineering buddies looked through the photos in the book and shared memories of mountains climbed. I was able to be there with all of them that day, too – it was an amazing experience to be sharing the same space with all these mountain legends.
Tom called Dad on Dad’s 100th birthday a few months later to wish him a happy day. It was touching to watch these two old friends talk to each other. We borrowed someone’s iphone so Dad could see Tom’s face and Tom could see his face. I think they knew, as they were talking, that this was probably the last conversation they would ever have with each other.
Tom made the world a better place – through his work as a medical doctor, as a mountaineer, and as a friend. I will miss seeing his emails pop up in my inbox and I will miss hearing his voice on the phone. I will miss knowing he’s here on the planet with us.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
“DOVE. A symbol of divine Science; purity and peace; hope and faith.”
-Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health
Wrestling with fears in a fierce battle of clutches and holds –
all twisted up in knots, throwing Bible verses and Eddy quotes
into the battle in a quick succession of stretches and locks
tangled up my own ruminations – I stop mid-thought.
And I surrender. Give up. Let go.
It’s right and natural to be fear-free, I know.
It shouldn’t feel like a battle to let fears go.
Hanging on to the fears takes a lot of energy
that I could better spend in happy reverie –
filling my thoughts with Truth, Life, and Love –
with the good things that come on the wings of a dove.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.”
-Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 210
“Fear never stopped being or its action.”
-Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee…”
-Isaiah 41:10
Excerpt from Looking Forward: More Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist. Now available on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and other favorite bookstores.
***
In 2016 we moved Mom and Dad from the apartment in Tacoma to an assisted living place in the artsy little town of La Conner, about twenty minutes away from Scott and me. It had become clear that Mom was evolving into Dad’s caretaker – actually, maybe she had been his caretaker for years and we just hadn’t realized. We recognized that both Mom and Dad could use some support in this new, and last, adventure in their lives on this planet.
A couple weeks after Mom and Dad moved to La Conner, I had the great good privilege to return to the local Unitarian Universalist church as their guest speaker. Oh, but I love that little congregation!
My husband and I brought Mom and Dad with us this time – we wanted them to meet their new neighbors at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship – I knew they’d be made to feel welcome and at home. And sure enough! – as soon as we entered the doors to the hall we were met by friendly hand-shaking people and surrounded by cheery laughter and smiles. In fact, one of the members was the widow of one of Dad’s old mountaineering friends and they immediately got in conversation about old times and mutual friends.
This was no hushed, sanctimonious, dignified fellowship. There was no one standing at the doors trying to usher people to seats, or bid them be quiet. There was no one trying to maintain any kind of decorum. Everywhere was laughter and old friends greeting each other, and new friends meeting for the first time, and love expressed. Everywhere was joy.
Mom and Dad sat in the front row of the church with Scott and me. There was a big smile on Mom’s face as she looked around the hall. In the front of the auditorium there are three beautiful, quilted panels of tapestry, depicting a scene in the Cascade Mountains – and I could see Mom’s eyes resting on the mountain scene, and appreciating its beauty. “My memorial service could be here,” she said. I smiled and told her that wasn’t something we needed to think about for a long time.
Dad, meantime, was perusing the agenda for the service and saw my name in it. He pointed to my name and asked me why my name was there. “Because I am a big deal,” I told him, grinning. He grinned, too, and nodded his head in acceptance – like, of course I am a big deal.
About ten minutes after the service was supposed to begin, the celebrant finally saw an opportunity to close the doors to the room and chime the service into being. Songs were sung, announcements were made, there was the sharing of griefs and joys – and laughter throughout. Attending a Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service is like being at a comedy club. I always feel at home there.
By the time it was my turn to speak, any nervousness I might have felt had disappeared in the laughter.
“The Healing Power of Love” was the subject of my talk. I talked a bit about my upbringing – raised by a non-religious father and a Christian Science mother – and how my parents had raised me to be a really happy skeptic: My dad taught me to question political and religious dogma; my mom taught me to question everything I saw, heard, and felt with the material senses. “My parents might not have shared the same religious beliefs, but they shared the same values,” I observed, “and they taught my brothers and me to keep an open mind, to not be hasty to judge others, to appreciate the beauty of nature, and to look for the good in people.” My UU friends nodded their heads at this – open mindedness and looking for the good in others is probably one of the cornerstones of the Unitarian Universalist church. Now and then I would bring my mom (who was sitting in the front row with my dad) into my talk – at those times I felt like George Burns feeding lines to Gracie Allen. Mom could have been a stand-up comedian.
I explained that I don’t speak for any other Christian Scientists when I speak about Christian Science – I’m only speaking for myself and my own experiences with this way of life.
I talked about how “God” is defined in the Christian Science church and gave the seven synonyms the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, gives for God: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Lately I’ve been practicing substituting the word “Love” for “God” in my favorite Bible verses, and I shared some of those verses with the UU congregation: “Fear not, for Love is with thee… Be still, and know that God is Love… All things work together for good to those who love…” and here the congregation filled in the blank with me, “Love.”
I’ve come to a place in my life, I told the congregants, that if something doesn’t come from love or lead to love, I don’t want to waste my time with it. And they nodded their heads in agreement. I love these people.
Then I shared a healing I had experienced by drawing my thoughts close to Love: When I was in labor with my second son, I was told I would need to be given a cesarean – my son was in distress. As I was being wheeled down to the operating room, I asked my mom to call a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support. When I got to the OR they hooked me up to a machine to monitor the baby. I prayed – and in Christian Science prayer doesn’t mean to plead with some anthropomorphic god to come down from the clouds and help us – praying, for me, just means to draw my thoughts close to the presence and power of Love.
I could feel the love from the doctors and nurses – I knew they wanted to help my baby and me. I knew that everything was unfolding as it should – under the direction of Mind. I found a place of peace. And suddenly the medical staff was looking at the monitor, looking at me, looking back at the monitor – and then they were all yelling, “Push! Push!” and my baby was born the old-fashioned way. One of the nurses was crying – she said she’d never been able to witness a vaginal birth before, and it was so beautiful. When I asked the midwife what had happened to allow my baby to be born naturally, she said, “We don’t know.” And when I asked my mom what the practitioner had told her when she called her, Mom said the practitioner had said, “Life loves that baby!”
It tells you something about the UU congregants that I felt completely comfortable sharing that healing with them. I knew they would understand the feeling of love that lay behind it. (After the service one of the congregants whose father was in the hospital thanked me and told me how helpful my thoughts had been to her – that meant so much to me.)
Maybe the thing I enjoy most about the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is that they let me have fun with them. They know how to laugh. They are natural Humoristians.
And they know how to love.
It brought me such joy to have Mom and Dad with me at that service.
even the cats are asleep
when I come downstairs
to see what I might reap
from the middle of the night
this is the hidden hour
safely tucked away in the dark
a time of quiet power,
alone in the tower
of my thoughts
but connected to the cosmos
with rainbow threads of Love
from star to star and coast to coast
extending beyond now and here
and beyond all fear
everything Good is nearer than near
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
It just hit me. In the past when I wrote a “Madcap Christian Scientist” book, my mom was one of the first people I’d share it with. She was my biggest fan. And, just now, for a moment, I forgot she was gone, and I thought: I need to give Moz a copy of this. And then I remembered.
Whoah.
I’m on my own with this one.
So this is what I’ve been working on the last month or so. A new book – Looking Forward: More Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist.
It would be a spectacular understatement to say that there have been some new developments since my last Madcap Christian Scientist book, The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New, published in 2014. Since that book, my parents moved from their home of 48 years; my mom died; my dad died; friends died; pets died; I retired; the world experienced a pandemic; my country survived an insurrection; new pets arrived; the sons found life-partners and had pandemic weddings; and we have a new grandchild on the way. For example.
And through all the “new developments” I have felt Love with me – guiding and directing me, comforting me, and connecting me to my fellow passengers on this boat of life as we forge our way through high waves.
We have some catching up to do, my friends.
This is the fourth book in the series. In order:
Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist (2005)
The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Middle Book (2012)
The Madcap Christian Scientist: All Things New (2014)
Looking Forward: More Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist (2023)
The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Middle Book (a collection of Christmassy stories) (2014)
(Also available on Kindle.)
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 