Hello, dear ones! This Sunday I will be speaking at the Skagit UU Fellowship at 10:30. The topic is “Choose Love.” You are invited to attend in person or via zoom. The fellowship hall is located at 500 W Section Street in Mount Vernon, Washington (right behind the post office). Here’s the zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83222201810
It would be lovely to see you this Sunday and celebrate Love together!
Love, Karen
Let’s…
Choose Love over hate. Choose Love over fear. Choose Love over selfishness. Choose Love.
because…
Fear is not the boss of me. Hate is not the boss of me. Selfishness is not the boss of me. Love is my boss. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Feeling unsettled. What’s going on? Scared of what might come. Don’t think ahead. Focus on now. Okay. Can you breathe? Yes. Then do that. Be grateful for that. Can you sing? Yes. Then use your voice and sing yourself a song. Can you love? Yes. Then love. Love like there’s no tomorrow. Love like there’s only now. Okay. Feeling better? Yes. Thank you, Karen. Any time. I’m always here. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I wake in the early hours of the morning – all is still and dark. I try to identify my feelings. I am scared. I’m scared for the people detained unlawfully in prisons. I fear for those in danger in lands at war, and in my own nation. I’m scared.
I reach my thoughts out to my God, to Love.
The voice says, “I’m Here.”
Like, “I’m here with you.” But also like, “I am Here – that is My name.” And I respond, “I’m here, too.”
And for just a moment I have a glimmer of the God Who is Here – all-present, filling all space, always, with no possibility of separation between Creation and Creator. I see nothing can separate any of us from Love – not governments, nor presidents, nor kings, nor war.
I feel a weight lift from me. I feel the power of Love with all Creation and know no one is outside the power of that Power – the power of Here.
I wrap myself up in the peace of the early hours of the morning and rest in the arms of Love.
Just when I begin to sink into despair, something happens that fills me all up with joy and hope. It’s only noon, and already my day has been filled with Good, with the recognition that nothing – absolutely NOTHING – can stop Love from reaching us and blessing us.
A really remarkable thing happened this morning right after I got myself out of bed and dressed. (I had considered just staying there for another hour or two – but this voice told me to get up – that something good was coming!) There was a knock on the door and Scott went to answer it. I heard him talking to a woman, and then I heard him ask the woman if she wanted to talk to me.
I went to the door and saw one of my former eighth graders standing there! Diana had been in my first class of eighth graders in Burlington – back in 1992! I hadn’t seen her for maybe twenty or thirty years! She told me that she’s living in Minnesota now, but she’s home to visit her mom, and she just had to stop in and see me.
And pretty soon we were hugging and crying and it was such a beautiful coming together that my heart just filled up with joy. Diana told me that she’d been wanting to write me, but the words just never came, so she’d decided to talk to me in the person. She told me that her eighth grade year with me had been the most important year in her life and it had stayed with her. She said I’d made a difference in her life – that I’d treated all of my students like I was their mother, and I’d nurtured them like they were my children. She said she’d never had that from a teacher before and it had meant something to her, and she wanted me to know that.
She remembered at the beginning of the school year when I’d invited all the parents and students in to meet me how I’d walked around with my baby (he would have been about nine months then) on my back, and how he’d burped up baby stuff on my shoulder, and how I’d laughed about it. She said she’d never met another teacher like me before.
Diana was a gift from the Cosmos this morning. The love in our space was palpable.
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
So here’s where I was when I woke up in the middle of last night: I was feeling discouraged about the hate and lack of civility in the world; feeling disappointed in my own flaws and failures; feeling a deep sadness. Then I noticed Clara Cat wasn’t in her usual place on the chair. I thought maybe somebody had let her outside and she hadn’t gotten back in before we all went to bed. I looked for her on the back deck and on the front porch – but nada. And I got scared. We have coyotes and bobcats and eagles here.
I decided to read the weekly CS Bible lesson-sermon. This week’s was on “Love” – my favorite topic! And I got all wrapped up in reading and thinking about the God who is Love and Her love for us. And when i finally finished and looked up, I saw Clara lying on the top of the chair – all stretched out and casual – looking at me.
And that one thing – seeing Clara healthy and content — put everything else in perspective and made the world look better. It was like a gentle pat on the back – a pat of reassurance from the God who is Love.
NIGHTLY NEWS: …death of…the city’s destruction …earthquake hit… wildfire out of control… missiles attacked…civilians killed… indicted on… newest COVID variant (commercial break – cool new drug name… disease you’ve never heard of before that needs to be treated with the cool new drug name… people smiling and laughing because they took this drug with the cool new drug name…side effects may include diarrhea, dizziness, cancer, death)… Trump ordered to pay… Biden orders strikes on… refugees starving…today the house majority refused to pass a bill that will keep our economy going…(commercial break – another cool new drug name…another disease you’ve never heard of before… tell your doctor about this cool new drug name… more people smiling and laughing…side effects may include dry mouth, drowsiness, depression, may lead to thoughts of suicide)… we’ll end our news tonight with a tribute to a good person who died yesterday.
OR
Alternatively, we could conduct our OWN end-of-the-day nightly news, I guess. Today four people exchanged smiles with me me in the supermarket and we made room for each other as we passed in the produce aisles. I saw a field of daffodils about to spring into bloom. My cat jumped up on the arm of my chair and purred and rubbed her head against me. I got a card in the mail from a dear friend. Scott had a warm fire going for me in the woodstove when I came downstairs this morning. I have a solid roof over my head. My belly was filled with granola and pizza today. My oven works. My washer and dryer work. My toilet works. My hot water heater works. I found another well-crafted British television series to watch by the fire while it snowed outside. The swans are still here, arching their backs and spreading alabaster wings across the local fields. I saw a flock of snow geese, too – fluttering around each other and honking in a beautiful cacophony of geese sounds. I don’t have any aches or pains. My eldest son and his wife and our grandbaby are coming from Australia soon. My youngest son and his wife live near, and I know they are safe and secure, and I will see them soon. I have a new great-grand niece! I felt love today.
“Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually… We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.“ – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesp. 248
“The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it… We should master fear instead of cultivating it.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p 196-197
“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
It is just what it is – no worse than that – it doesn’t portend – it’s not the start or end – it’s a stand alone piece of life – don’t make it a door to something more – deal with it now and here and move on without packing it along with you
Trust. Feel the arms of Love enfolding us all in one universal cosmic hug. Feel the pull, the tug towards Truth, Life, Soul, Love gathering us together, breaking the fetters, cutting the tethers that keep us bound in hate and fear. We’re free in Love right now, right here. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 