I am typing one-handed at the moment because I have a kitty purring under my chin. She is watching my fingers move on the keyboard. She seems fascinated with the workings of humans and their machinery. She is keeping me sane.
And now a prayer: Please, Love, give me courage. Fill my heart with kindness and hope. Help me nurture what is good in the world. Help me heal what is not.
Amen.
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?
“Simply count your enemy to be that which defiles, defaces, and dethrones the Christ-image that you should reflect. Whatever purifies, sanctifies, and consecrates human life, is not an enemy, however much we suffer in the process.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
For four days this week I was shuffling around like Tim Conway playing his “oldest man” character (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOwmSbD20aQ). My back was all askew and akilter, and I was listing severely to starboard. I was a hurting buckaroo.
My friends at work could see I was struggling, and one kind soul offered me an Ibuprofen – although she wasn’t sure if it was okay to offer this to me, seeing as how I’m a Christian Scientist and everything. (It was okay. 🙂 It showed she cared.)
I declined the drugs- not because “it’s against my religion” or because I have a martyr complex or anything – but because I know, from years of personal experience, that the simplest and most effective way for me to have healing is to figure out what I need to correct in my thoughts. For me, whenever I’m faced with some physical challenge there always seems to be something going on mentally – fear or anger or frustration or whatever – that needs to be cleaned out.
On the fourth night, as I prayed about my situation – opened my thought up to whatever Love might reveal to me – it came to me that I was feeling that I, and another person close to me, were under attack by a person who’d been a part of our lives since childhood. And, almost simultaneous to that revelation, this phrase came to me: “Those whom we would call our enemies are really our best friends.”
I remembered, then, reading something similar to that phrase in a chapter titled “Love Your Enemies” in Mary Baker Eddy’s book, Miscellaneous Writings. I turned on my Kindle, found the chapter, and began to read it. And ohmygosh. What a perfect chapter for my needs!
Check it out: “‘Love thine enemies’ is identical with ‘Thou hast no enemies.’ Wherein is this conclusion relative to those who have hated thee without a cause? Simply, in that those unfortunate individuals are virtually thy best friends. Primarily and ultimately, they are doing thee good far beyond the present sense which thou canst entertain of good…Whatever envy, hatred, revenge —the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind —whatever these try to do, shall ‘work together for good to them that love God.’…We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity occurs…Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads its virus and kills at last. If indulged, it masters us; brings suffering upon suffering to its possessor, through-out time and beyond the grave. If you have been badly wronged, forgive and forget: God will recompense this wrong…Never return evil for evil; and, above all, do not fancy that you have been wronged when you have not been.” – Mary Baker Eddy
When I finished reading that chapter, I felt a burden lift from me and I felt enveloped in light and joy, and filled with love. I knew I was healed. I realized that nothing and no one had the power to change who I am, make me angry or afraid, or take away my joy. I realized that no one is my “enemy.”
The next morning I woke up with my back straight and in no pain. Better even than the physical healing – I woke up filled with joy and love for mankind. I went through the day with a bounce in my step and a song in my heart. I greeted the students as they arrived at the school – “Hi! Good morning! Welcome!” and they smiled and gave me friendly “good mornings” in return. I did twirls and leaps down the hall for Pete, the maintenance man, to share my healing with him – and he laughed and congratulated me. My colleague, Edith, and I exchanged a morning hug. Elizabeth, and Linda, and I sang songs from Fiddler on the Roof during lunch, and teared up with sweet and poignant memories when we got to “Sunrise, Sunset.” Kay told me about her kitty, Violet, who turned out to be a Henry. Every single person I met seemed ready and eager to celebrate life with me – it was like everyone was just waiting for the opportunity to smile and laugh and enjoy each other.
For the first time, it became really clear to me that I have – we all have – the ability to create our own atmosphere for ourselves – sculpt our own environment – our own dwelling-place. As I approached the world with joy and love, the world responded in kind. It became very obvious to me yesterday that people are drawn to joy and love – and that the people who have the real power in this world – who are the real leaders – are those who are able to walk through life with love, and irrepressible, unstoppable joy.
I’m very grateful to be free of pain, of course. But I’m even more grateful for the insights and wisdom I gained from this whole experience.
photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell
Just had to share. 🙂
Healing feels like…
(photos and collage by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
My friend, Kat, a thought-provoking ex-Christian Scientist of intelligence and interesting insight, posted a comment on my last blog post that I thought was worth responding to in a whole ‘nother post. Here’s Kat’s comment:
“Why would a Christian Scientist choose Christian Science over medical treatment for her children?”
Yeah, that’s the elephant in the room CS is going to have to address head-on over and over and over again. Some CS have made REALLY BAD CHOICES and people have died.
Caroline Fraser’s book God’s Perfect Child talks about this at length. Another excellent example is Rita Swan’s son Matthew,https://thedublinreview.com/‘matthew-you-cannot-be-sick’/ (you may have heard of her, she founded C.H.I.L.D. http://childrenshealthcare.org)
I agree A better question might be: “What is it about Christian Science that appeals to you?” it no longer appeals to me, but for a while it did, and on some level, I still understand the appeal.
Hi, Kat –
The producer at NPR wanted a Christian Scientist on her show who could respond to Dr. Paul Offit’s assertion that religion is killing children – an assertion presented in his book, Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine. I was not the right fit to respond to that assertion – seeing as how I did take my sons to doctors now and then when they were youngsters.
But if I were interviewing Offit, there are a couple questions I’d like to ask him, if I had the chance: We know that preventable errors in medical care are the third-leading cause of death in this country (according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, among other sources) and have been for several years now. Knowing that about 400,000 people a year die from preventable medical errors (http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/deaths-by-medical-mistakes-hit-records ), I’d like to ask Dr. Offit –
I’ve lost friends who were under Christian Science treatment. I’ve also lost friends who died from the medical treatment they were under-going – not from the disease, but from the medical treatment itself. Neither type of death caused me less grief than the other. Humans die. I may even appear to die someday. (I know – it’s hard to believe, right? – but I think we need to consider the possibility that I may not ascend here.) And if I die while under Christian Science treatment, I really hope my loved ones don’t blame Christian Science for this. I hope they realize that Christian Science has helped make me the person they love – and that there was some part of me – maybe a part of me they love – that was drawn to this way of life.
Regarding Rita Swan: I’m not sure why Rita Swan made the choices she made when her baby became so ill. I’m not going to try to speak for someone else. But I imagine that if I’d been in her shoes I might have felt terrible guilt after my baby’s death and would have looked for someone else, or something else, to put the blame on for this tragedy – just to relieve the burden of self-condemnation a little. I wouldn’t judge anyone in Rita Swan’s position for taking the direction she took after Matthew’s death. I don’t blame her. But I’ve never been in the position she was in – as I wrote in my post, I took my sons to doctors now and then when I felt the need to do so. I’ve never felt any pressure from my church family to avoid medical treatment. And I’m pretty sure that if I ever did, it wouldn’t faze me at all. My responsibilities as a mother to keep my sons safe out-trumped any other considerations. (And sometimes that meant saying “no thank you” to drugs that doctors offered that had potentially adverse side effects and no guarantee of helping.)
Regarding Caroline Fraser: Years ago she wrote an article for Atlantic Monthly about Christian Science. Someone handed me the magazine, and I thought they were giving it to me because of the really well-written article on the environment that was in that issue. It wasn’t until a week later, when I was looking through the magazine again, that I saw Fraser’s article. What struck me about the article was the complete lack of objectivity, and the blatant bias. She wrote about Mary Baker Eddy with authority – as if she’d actually met the woman (which, of course, she had not – Eddy died long before either Fraser or I were born). Fraser acted as though she could get inside Eddy’s head and tell us all what was going on in there. I am always wary of people who set themselves up as experts on what’s going on inside someone else’s head – who presume to know what someone else is/was thinking, feeling, and believing – this is often a symptom of bigotry. Fraser’s article made me wary of Fraser.
There’s another book about Christian Science, though, written by Lucia Greenhouse, a woman who watched her Christian Science mother die of cancer – that I think is less sensationalistic than Fraser’s writings about Christian Science. One of my friends who was raised in Christian Science could relate to a lot of Greenhouse’s experiences with Christian Science in fathermothergod – and I think Greenhouse’s book was really helpful in validating my friend’s experience. I don’t discount Lucia Greenhouse’s experiences with Christian Science – I believe she’s telling the truth. But my experience being raised in Christian Science is very different from either my friend’s or Greenhouse’s. My brothers and I were brought to doctors, dentists, and optometrists – and this was no big deal. We also experienced some really beautiful healings in Christian Science. (Which you can read about in Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist – http://www.amazon.com/dp/1419612298/ref=rdr_ext_tmb .)
As I wrote in my last post, what draws me to Christian Science is the transformation in my nature that I feel when I experience healing – and I HAVE experienced healing in Christian Science. Christian Science healing doesn’t just make me better physically – but it brings me closer to Love – it lifts my thoughts, inspires me, gives me courage – fills me with joy and gratitude and good will to my fellow man and woman. These are not things I’ve experienced in medical science treatment.
And now I give you a picture from my morning bike ride – just because I wanna… 🙂
Samish River (photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell)
A staffer at NPR recently asked me if I’d be interested in doing a segment on Christian Science for NPR’s Interfaith Voices. It sounded like a great opportunity and I agreed to do a pre-interview. I had a nice chat with the senior producer of Interfaith Voices. I talked about what prayer means for me as a Christian Scientist (not pleading to some anthropomorphic god to fix everything for me – but drawing my thoughts close to Love), and she shared what she’d heard about research that shows human thoughts and feelings play a huge part in healing. But then she asked me, “Why would a Christian Scientist choose Christian Science over medical treatment for her children?” and I realized that that’s what the whole segment was going to be about – Christian Science versus medical science. I told her that I’d sometimes taken my sons to doctors when I felt the need, and that maybe I wasn’t the right fit for this show. She graciously agreed that I probably wasn’t the right person for this segment, and let me off the hook.
I was hugely relieved to be let off the hook, but I guess I was also a little disappointed about the focus of the proposed segment. I wish that one day someone would ask me to talk about Christian Science just for itself – not as something in opposition to something else – but as a way of looking at life and a way of living. Sometimes it seems that the only thing people THINK they know about Christian Scientists is that they’re the ones “who don’t go to doctors.” As I’ve mentioned, there have been times when I felt the need to take my sons to doctors when they were youngsters. I was not conflicted about this or anything. I wasn’t worried about being ex-communicated or losing my Christian Science friends or making God angry – I don’t believe in a wrathful, vengeful god – in Christian Science “God” is another name for Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love – and Love doesn’t get angry at parents for doing what they feel they need to do, humanly, to keep their children safe and healthy. An angry god is not the kind of god I could ever worship.
Getting back to the producer’s question, here are some reasons why I might choose Christian Science treatment over medical treatment for myself –
But I think asking Christian Scientists why they would choose Christian Science over medical treatment is the wrong question to ask, really. It’s akin to asking people who go to doctors why they don’t choose Christian Science instead. It’s setting up Christian Scientists to be in a defensive position. A better question might be: “What is it about Christian Science that appeals to you?”
And here is my answer for THAT one: Christian Scientists believe that Jesus’ mission here was to teach us how to love and how to heal. I like the idea of that – that I can use my understanding of God as Love to help heal the world. It’s a way of life that I have found practical and useful. I have been able to prove the teachings of Christian Science in my own life and have experienced some wonderful healing through my understanding of it. I am a Christian Scientist because it has enriched my life and helped make me a better person.
photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell
…although “nutshell” might be, like, a poor choice of words…:)
Shorthand message to myself –
In an email message I received this morning a friend of mine asked me a really good question. She wrote: “I’m preparing an address this winter and am asking long-time CSsts why they’ve remained so very long in Science? When the smoke of battle clears, why is CS still our passion? What is it that makes it matter so much?”
I probably need to start a response to her question by being honest: I haven’t always been the most disciplined practitioner of Christian Science. There have been long periods when I haven’t stepped inside a church building or read the weekly lesson-sermon, and there have been times when I’ve stepped back from the organized religion called “Christian Science” and wondered if I really wanted to be part of it. There was even a time when I wondered if God was leading me to atheism – which probably tells you something about the way my pointy little noggin works.
But “when the smoke of battle clears” – after a life-time of daily skirmishes with sickness, ego, lack, guilt, anger, hate, and fear – this Science still stands upright on the battlefield, unmarred and whole. I have seen that an understanding of Christian Science heals, and that it heals in a most effective and reliable way.
Christian Science is really, for me, a way of looking at the world – a way of living. It’s taught me that I don’t need to buy into any and every man-made theory about health, supply, and success. It’s helped me come to understand that my health and happiness, in fact, aren’t dependent on matter at all. Divine unchanging, never-ending, ever-present Love has been proven, through Christian Science, to be the only power and presence I need. When I’ve used my understanding of the Science of the Christ to let go of fear and anger, and align my thoughts to Love, I have experienced healings such as these in my life: an instantaneous healing of bronchitis; the disappearance of what my eye-doctor diagnosed as melanoma; a hugely-inflamed hand that deflated in two days – results that came back on the third day from a blood test led the doctor’s office to call me and recommend I see a rheumatologist – the nurse was surprised to learn that my hand was no longer inflamed and was completely fine; the natural birth of my son after I’d been brought down to the OR for a cesarean – one of the surgical nurses told me she’d never seen anything like that – she was crying because the experience was “so beautiful”; the healing of a dog who’d been shot through the head – two weeks later she was running and chasing balls; and finding meaningful and happy employment.
Every new friendship, every happy new adventure, and every new opportunity to experience and share good in my life is proof, for me, of the power and presence of Love – of what I’ve learned to call “God” in Christian Science.
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work determines health.”. I have proven this statement to be true in my own life.
(Originally published on December 19th, 2011)
I’ve told you about the Christmas Dog. Today I have a Christmas CAT story to share… 🙂
A few days ago my son came home from his walk with Sam the Dog, to tell me that they’d found a bloodied little calico cat on the side of the road. She seemed to be injured, wasn’t moving much, had just enough energy to hiss at the dog, but not much energy beyond that. I grabbed a towel (the yellow Pittsburgh Steelers towel my dear in-laws from Pennsylvania sent us several years ago when the Seahaws and the Steelers were duking it out in some bowl game – I figured if any of my towels was going to end up bloody, it might as well be that one) and followed the son to the kitty.
She was curled up on the side of the road, not moving much – except for one twitchy ear. She hissed defensively when I reached down to hold her, but I wrapped her up in the towel so she couldn’t scratch and held her close to me. I told the son to get my car keys and purse and meet me at the car, and I slowly carried the kitty back to our house.
Once I was holding her, she stopped hissing and fidgeting, and when I sat down in the car with her, she relaxed against me, laid her head on my arm and began to purr as I petted her head and ears. As the son drove us to the vet’s I sang the song I’d once sung, years ago, to the Christmas Dog. “Everlasting arms of Love, are beneath, around, above…” (words by John R. MacDuff) and the kitty looked up at me with the same look of trust and love that the Christmas Dog had once shown me.
I’ll be honest, the picture was not pretty. She looked to have been hit in the head by a car. Her jaw was out of alignment, and her eyes were filling up with blood. In my thoughts, I tried to establish who this little kitty was, as an expression of God – tried to establish her in my thoughts as God’s perfect idea, held whole, complete, and untouched by accident, in the consciousness of Love. What gave me some courage and confidence about the whole situation was the kitty herself – she seemed totally calm, totally unaware that she looked a mess, and completely content just resting on my lap, wrapped up in the towel. She was…well…she was very matter of fact about it all, to tell you the truth.
When we got to the vet’s I carried her inside (she was still purring), and the dear receptionist and assistant there immediately, but gently, removed the cat from my arms and whisked her away to a backroom. Before I left her there, they told me that a microchip had been found on her and that they’d try to contact the owners. I told them that if they couldn’t find the owners, I’d be willing to take responsibility for the kitty. (In the short drive to the vet’s she’d already managed to capture my heart.)
The next morning I called the vet’s to get an update, and was relieved to learn that the kitty was still alive, was actually doing “pretty good,” and was still purring. The owner had come in and decisions were being made as to how to proceed regarding the kitty’s jaw, which had been shattered.
This morning, on our way to church, we noticed our next-door neighbors had a sign in their front yard that read “Slow down” and we wondered if there might be some connection between that sign and the kitty-cat we’d found near their house two days ago. Tonight I knocked on their door and found that they were, indeed, the owners of that sweet kitty. They brought me in to look at her. She was snugly ensconced in a kitty carrier, half-dozing, and looking much better than she did when I first met her. The neighbors were happy to learn that I’d been the person the doctor had referred to as “The Good Samaritan” – “Mystery solved!” said Robert with a grin – and I was happy to learn that my neighbors were the owners of that dear kitty – I know she’s in a good home if she’s living with them.
And here’s the really cool thing: Because the little calico cat lives right next door to me, I’ll get to see her all the time!
Post Script: A year has passed since I originally published this post. The calico cat still lives next door to us and she is one of the sweetest, friendliest little cats I have ever known – she comes over and visits with us a couple times a week, lets herself be picked up and petted, and has even wandered into our home once or twice. And she’s still purring… 🙂
Joy! Peace! Good will to all (and I’m not just talking those with two legs)!
(excerpt from The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book)
Excerpted from Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist and The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book and originally published on this blog in December, 2011:
“This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind, nor life result in death.”
– from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
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.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 