I have a post on my Facebook wall about trauma – how we shouldn’t expect others to admit to the trauma they’ve caused us, and that it’s enough to know that we deserved more (via MJ Schweiker in “The Feral Spiritualists” group) . And I just need to say this – in my long life, I’m guessing that *I* have been a trauma-giver myself at times. I can imagine saying or doing something thoughtlessly – never with the intent to hurt, but just without thought – and I hope that anyone I might have unintentionally hurt will forgive me, and know that you didn’t deserve to be hurt – that the burden for that hurt lies with me, not you.
Sidenote: Recognizing my own human fallibility and flaws has been a huge gift to me. It’s made it easier for me to forgive others THEIR flaws and foibles. I think most of us are doing the best we can – sometimes under very difficult and challenging circumstances – sometimes in situations where it might not have seemed clear what was “right” and what was “wrong.”
I think if we start with Love, and let Love lead us, we’ll find ourselves in heaven right here. And that’s what I wish for everyone.
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.” – Jesus
“And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” – Jesus
“And Love is reflected in love.” – Mary Baker Eddy
(Photo of Mount Shuksan by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
Yesterday I found myself ruminating on a difficult situation I’d found myself in a dozen years ago. I thought I’d moved on and left it all behind me – the difficulties of that time had impelled me to launch myself out into the Great Unknown and given me the opportunity to find a wonderful new place for myself, and I was grateful for that.
But yesterday I found myself thinking about the unfairness of what had happened to me a dozen years ago, and the mean-spiritedness of the people involved. Yesterday I found myself having a hard time letting go of the resentment I discovered I still felt towards the people who’d made my life so challenging all those years ago.
I prayed about this.
And as I was reading this week’s Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly, this passage jumped out at me: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1.) Whoah. A dozen years ago I escaped from a difficult situation and found myself in a wonderful new place. A dozen years ago I found my freedom. I don’t need to ever be “entangled again” with that “yoke of bondage” – not even through my memories. I’m free! Why would I want to go back – even in my memories – to a time when I wasn’t?
And this passage in the lesson this week made me think about how I see others – am I seeing EVERYone as the beautiful child of God? “…give up imperfect models and illlusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.” Can any of God’s children ever do harm to Her other children? No, of course not! I need to let go of any illusion I might have that any of God’s children can be less than the perfection of Love.
I realize that I need to forgive others their human-ness as they work their way through life, just as I hope others will forgive MY human-ness. NO one is where they were twelve years ago. We’ve all progressed and grown.
And NONE of us needs to be entangled again in old yokes of bondage.
Baker Lake Trail in the North Cascades. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
Christmas Eve, 1988. I was in a funk. I couldn’t see that I was making much progress in my life. My teaching career seemed to be frozen, and I was beginning to think my husband and I would never own our own home or have children. The world seemed a very bleak and unhappy place to me. No matter how many batches of fudge I whipped up or how many times I heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” I couldn’t seem to find the Christmas spirit.
I was washing the breakfast dishes, thinking my unhappy thoughts, when I heard gunshots coming from the pasture behind our house. I thought it was the neighbor boys shooting at the seagulls again and, all full of teacherly harrumph, decided to take it upon myself to go out and “have a word with them.”
But after I’d marched outside I realized that it wasn’t the neighbor boys at all. John, the dairy farmer who lived on the adjoining property, was walking away with a rifle, and an animal (a calf, I thought) was struggling to get up in the field behind our house. Every time it would push up on its legs it would immediately collapse back to the ground.
I wondered if maybe John had made a mistake and accidentally shot the animal, so I ran out to investigate and found that the animal was a dog. It had foam and blood around its muzzle. She was vulnerable and helpless – had just been shot, after all – but instead of lashing out at me or growling as I’d expect an injured animal to do, she was looking up at me with an expression of trust and seemed to be expecting me to take care of her.
“John!” I yelled, running after the farmer. He turned around, surprised to see me. “John, what happened?” I asked, pointing back towards the dog.
A look of remorse came into his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry you saw that, Karen. The dog is a stray and it’s been chasing my cows. I had to kill it.”
“But John, it’s not dead yet.”
John looked back at the dog and grimaced. “Oh man,” he said. “I’m really sorry. I’ll go finish the job. Put it out of its misery.”
By this time another dog had joined the dog that had been shot. It was running around its friend, barking encouragement, trying to get its buddy to rise up and escape. The sight of the one dog trying to help his comrade broke my heart. I made a quick decision. “Let me and my husband take care of it.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded and he agreed to let me do what I could for the animal.
Unbeknownst to me, as soon as I ran out of the house my husband, knowing that something was wrong, had gotten out his binoculars and was watching my progress in the field. He saw the look on my face as I ran back. By the time I reached our house he was ready to do whatever he needed to do to help me. I explained the situation to him, we put together a box full of towels, and he called the vet.
As we drove his truck around to where the dog lay in the field, I noticed that, while the dog’s canine companion had finally left the scene (never to be seen again), John had gone to the dog and was kneeling down next to her. He was petting her, using soothing words to comfort her, and the dog was looking up at John with that look of trust she’d given me. John helped my husband load her in the back of the truck and we began our drive to the vet’s.
I rode in the back of the truck with the dog as my husband drove, and sang hymns to her. As I sang words from one of my favorite hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal– “Everlasting arms of Love are beneathe, around, above” – the dog leaned against my shoulder and looked up at me with an expression of pure love in her blue eyes.
Once we reached the animal clinic, the veterinarian came out to take a look at her. After checking her over he told us that apparently a bullet had gone through her head, that he’d take care of her over the holiday weekend – keep her warm and hydrated – but that he wasn’t going to give her any medical treatment. I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think the dog was going to make it.
My husband and I went to my parents’ home for the Christmas weekend, both of us praying that the dog would still be alive when we returned. For me, praying for her really meant trying to see the dog as God sees her. I tried to realize the wholeness and completeness of her as an expression of God, an idea of God. I reasoned that all the dog could experience was the goodness of God – all she could feel is what Love feels, all she could know is what Truth knows, all she could be is the perfect reflection of God. I tried to recognize the reality of these things for me, too, and for all of God’s creation.
She made it through the weekend, but when we went to pick her up the vet told us that she wasn’t “out of the woods, yet.” He told us that if she couldn’t eat, drink, or walk on her own in the next few days, we’d need to bring her back and he’d need to put her to sleep.
We brought her home and put her in a big box in our living room, with a bowl of water and soft dog food by her side. I continued to pray. In the middle of the night I got up and went out to where she lay in her box. Impulsively, I bent down and scooped some water from the dish into her mouth. She swallowed it, and then leaned over and drank a little from the bowl. I was elated! Inspired by her reaction to the water, I bent over and grabbed a glob of dog food and threw a little onto her tongue. She smacked her mouth together, swallowed the food, and leaned over to eat a bit more. Now I was beyond elated! She’d accomplished two of the three requirements the vet had made for her!
The next day I took her out for a walk. She’d take a few steps and then lean against me. Then she’d take a few more steps and lean. But she was walking! We would not be taking her back to the veterinarian.
In the next two weeks her progress was amazing. By the end of that period she was not only walking, but running and jumping and chasing balls. Her appetite was healthy. She was having no problems drinking or eating.
But one of the most amazing parts of this whole Christmas blessing was the relationship that developed between this dog and the man who had shot her. They became good friends. The dog, in fact, became the neighborhood mascot. (And she never again chased anyone’s cows.)
What the dog brought to me, who had, if you recall, been in a deep funk when she entered our lives, was a sense of the true spirit of Christmas – the Christly spirit of forgiveness, hope, faith, love. She brought me the recognition that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to God.
We named our new dog Christmas because that is what she brought us that year.
Within a few years all those things that I had wondered if I would ever have as part of my life came to me – a teaching job, children, and a home of our own. It is my belief that our Christmas Dog prepared my heart to be ready for all of those things to enter my life.
How freeing it is to be able to see my own pettiness, insecurities, vanity – helping me forgive others their egos in uncovering my own, helping me let go of the burden of trying to look perfect. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
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
Why would I choose bitterness and deny myself the peace of forgiveness? Why would I choose anger and deny myself the joy of kindness? Why would I choose hate and deny myself the healing presence of Love? -Karen Molenaar Terrell
May the peace, joy, and presence of Love fill your hearts and home this Christmas!
Forgiveness. Forgiveness is something I’ve given a lot of thought to over the years. At different times different thoughts about forgiveness have been helpful to me. When I realized that I should actually THANK people for gifting me with the challenges that helped me grow – that was a huge step forward. When I realized that to NOT forgive was hurting me more than anyone else – that was another step. And this week I had another epiphany about forgiveness – and, for me, this one was HUGE.
There were a couple books I read recently that helped lead me to my most recent revelation:
I’ve been reading Baroness Orczy’s “Scarlet Pimpernel” books (The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my all-time favorite books – I re-read it a few weeks ago and then started reading some of the other books in the series). In one of the books – I Will Repay – one of the characters says: “To understand is to forgive.” Whoahhhh. That got my thoughts going all kinds of interesting places. If we can understand other people – feel empathy for them – we can forgive them because we recognize in them our OWN human-ness, right?
After I’d read a couple of the baroness’s books, I felt the need for a change in genre – I needed to exchange the blood and muck of the French Revolution for something a little lighter. Something with some humor. So I brought Christina Lauren’s latest romance, In a Holidaze, to my Kindle. It was the perfect book for me right now! Funny and light and with a happy ending – just the escape I needed at the end of 2020. And it was in this book that I came upon another quote that I found helpful in my pursuit of forgiveness: “All this time I’ve been upset with him for simply being exactly the person I always knew he was.” Sheesh. It makes no sense to be angry at someone just because he/she/they is a human being – with the same human flaws and foibles we ALL share. I mean – none of us is perfect. There isn’t a single person on this planet who hasn’t done something stupid/thoughtless/unkind at some point. Let’s forgive others their faults, and let’s forgive ourselves, too, while we’re at it.
“How embarrassing to be human.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“To punish ourselves for others’ faults, is superlative folly. The mental arrow shot from another’s bow is practically harmless, unless our own thought barbs it. It is our pride that makes another’s criticism rankle, our self-will that makes another’s deed offensive, our egotism that feels hurt by another’s self-assertion. Well may we feel wounded by our own faults; but we can hardly afford to be miserable for the faults of others.” – Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings
“…old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Corinthians 5: 17
We forgive because
we no longer need the pain.
We forgive because
good is all that we gained.
We forgive because
love is all that remains.
Struggling to forgive old sleights and slingshotting
words sent to us, and sent by us, too, guilt
and hurt having a heyday in our hearts.
But how do we let go of the memories of mean
-ness and the bullying of those years when
we were the targets, the receivers (or givers?)
of hate? How do we let go, move on, forgive?
“…if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…”
Can we really start new? How…?
Accepting all the good that comes from being
the target of envy, bigotry, hate – the strength
and confidence and empathy that comes
from surviving the bitter times – accepting
the healing, means an acknowledgement
that the rest is done and over. It served its
purpose. Judas to Jesus: It brought our
ascension. Led us to better times. Hate’s job
is done now – a cheap plastic toy from our
childhood – we put it down and move on –
no longer interested.
“…old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new.”
We forgive because
we no longer need the pain.
We forgive because
good is all that we gained.
We forgive because
love is all that remains.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Sunset over flooded fields in Skagit County, Washington State. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
Revelation! I’m not angry, I don’t hate you – all that happened then – the unfairness of it, the injustice – was a part of the healing. It was all good – all of it – the people, the place, the circumstances – and it led to the healing – it brought me to the place prepared for me – a place of purpose and joy. And I see you now – and my feelings are benign towards you. I wish you nothing but good. How could anger and hate ever abide where there is healing?
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 