We Are One Body

Head, foot, and elbow
shoulder, hand, and big toe,
right, left, and center,
every race, nationality, and gender –
all part of the same Body,
the same planet, the same universe –
there’s no last and no first,
no best and no worst.
We are One
in One.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

podcast link: https://madcapchristianscientist.com/2023/11/25/we-are-one-body/

One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.
-Mary Baker Eddy

“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.”
– I Corinthians 12

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

Everything Good Is Nearer than Near

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

Blue Cosmos (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)

And So It Begins

Last sunset of twenty twenty-two
rotates into first sunrise of twenty-three
connecting yesteryear to a year that’s new
and what we were to what we’ll be.
I pull off the road to take this year’s
first photo and a man stops his car
to check if I need help and gives me
my first kind smile of the year.
I thank him and tell him I’m fine –
just taking in my first sunrise of a new time.
He laughs and says he understands
and watches with me as a swan lands
and we wish each other a good year.

And so it begins.

-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Everyone Is a Part of My Humanity

Everyone is a part of my humanity –
him and her and them and you.
We are connected in our beauty
and flaws; what we feel and what we do;
our mourning and joy; our hopes and fears;
our struggles; our victories;
our laughter and tears.
That’s why we can forgive others
and rejoice with others, too.
We are all one – sisters, brothers,
sons, daughters, fathers, mothers –
family.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell