But here’s the good news –
We can still love.
We can still live with courage.
We can still be kind and honest.
We can still find beauty
and joy and hope even now.
Even now there’s good.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
Even Now There’s Good
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Tag Archives: hope
These Cosmic Connections
Something really amazing happened this morning. And just when I really needed it, too.
I think I need to back up for a moment to 2011. Eight years ago I was in a transition between one job and the next. It was a scary, exhilarating, audacious, crazy wonderful time for me – rich with possibilities. I was unfettered and open to whatever new opportunities came my way – ready to create a whole ‘nother career for myself. For the first time I went to a counselor – and she helped me discover for myself what it was I needed to do to bring sanity to my life – what I needed to discard, and what I needed to nurture. My financial advisor (of all people!) suggested I meet a local woman named Laura Lavigne – the originator of the Happiness Sprinkling Project – and Laura showed me how to make a vision board for myself. Creativity moved up to the front of my life – photography and writing and music. The insane stuff – nonsensical edicts (stuff like that scene from Office Space), schedules and bureaucracy, fear and anxiety – got tossed.
And, once I opened my thought to all the infinite possibilities, cool things started happening: I was offered a small salary to work as my church’s Reading Room librarian; I got a contract to proofread and write for an educational publishing company; I made note cards of my photos and started selling them at a little coffee shop; my book, Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist, was bringing in a small amount in royalties every month. I wasn’t making a LOT of income at first – it was more of a symbolic income, really – but it was enough to give me hope that there was something waiting for me beyond the career I’d left behind. And soon I was offered another job, teaching at an alternative high school, that brought my life purpose and great joy for the next seven years – until I retired last June.
Which brings us to today and the amazing thing that happened this morning.
I woke up at 5:30 this morning and went downstairs to feed the cats and check out the news online. The news was disheartening. Greed. Corruption. Dishonesty. Crises. And I felt myself getting discouraged and going to that dark place – asking myself what in the heck we’re doing here, and what’s the purpose of it all, and etc.
Still feeling discouraged, I went to my Facebook notifications and found there was a message waiting for me on my Author and Photographer page from a woman named Floriane. Floriane wrote: “Hi! Just wanted to reach out to you because I purchased a picture of yours in 2011 while stopping on a Greyhoud bus from Vancouver to Seattle. I love it to this day and wanted to say thank you.”
Whoah. I tried to figure out where Floriane might have found one of my photos to purchase, and asked her for more details. She sent me a picture of the photo she purchased and told me she remembered buying it at a coffee shop while she was traveling around on her own for two weeks – moving between Vancouver and Seattle and Portland – before starting an exchange program in Texas. She said the photo is now in Normandie and will soon be in Paris. Like. France. Yes. My little photo note card of Bellingham Bay will soon be in Paris, France.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, this was one of the cards I sold at the coffee shop during the months I was transitioning from one career to the next. I’d almost completely forgotten about those note cards and that little coffee shop. But look what that card did for me! It connected me to a woman who lives across the Atlantic, on another continent, 5,000 miles away! I never could have seen THAT one coming.
Cosmic.
What in the heck are we doing here? We’re sharing joy and beauty with each other, that’s what we’re doing. And what’s the purpose of it all? To connect and discover each other, and bring each other hope and love.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
4:00 to 4:30 on a Tuesday Morning
I wake at four in the morning
and tread downstairs to the living room
to see what the cats are up to, and to
maybe read or write a poem or talk
to Mom. I have a feeling of anticipation.
It feels like Christmas morning
is what I’m thinking and just then
I look out the front window and see
the neighbor has turned his Christmas
lights on and they’re shining on the snow
around his house – how beautiful!
There’s a lightening and lifting in the air.
The cats are playing – rolling around each
other in a ball of calico and black fur. Half-
feral cat jumps up on the couch to have his
his head scratched – and there’s magic
in his coming to me. He’s a wary one –
I’ve been given an honor.
It is 4:30 in the morning and I have ruffled
a cat’s fur and written a poem and hugged
Moz in my thoughts. And she has hugged
me back.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
There’s Good Going on Here
In spite of what you
seem to see there’s good going
on here, now, always.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle, – is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell
We Have to Keep Trying
We have to keep trying
keep loving, keep vying
with hate, bigotry, and greed
We need to be kind in word
and in deed
We have to keep singing,
keep dancing, keep bringing
our gifts to the world’s table
and give what we’re able
We have to keep hope alive,
and laughter and joy, dive
into Life’s celebration –
it belongs to all nations
We have to keep trying –
because what’s the alternative?
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
What a Miracle to Be
What a miracle to wake and discover the planet’s still here
we’re still alive
and there’s still opportunity to do some good in the world
to make a difference
to change course
to sing
to write
to create
to be kind
to find beauty
to laugh
to learn
to love
to be.
To reflect the beauty of Love…
Karen Molenaar Terrell
Flipped tulip reflection. Skagit County, Washington. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
“…Love is reflected in love.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
I Have to Believe
I have to believe we really can get better, day by day.
I have to believe that we aren’t fated to accumulate
baggage and burdens, fear and loss, problems and weight,
ailments and affliction until the day we die.
I have to believe that each challenge that presents
itself to us can be an opportunity to learn a lesson
about the power and eternal ever-presence of Love.
I have to believe there’s no problem that can’t be healed,
no limitation, and no dismal destiny that can’t be unsealed
and overcome. I have to believe there’s a divine
reason and a purpose for everyone – him, her, and you.
And me. If I can believe I can make it true
for myself. And for my world.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. Except for the error of measuring and limiting all that is good and beautiful, man would enjoy more than threescore years and ten and still maintain his vigor, freshness, and promise. Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand. Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness…Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight. ”
– Mary Baker Eddy
An alpine butterfly flits among the flowers on Table Mountain. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
Hope
“…the exercise of the sentiments – hope, faith, love – is the prayer of the righteous.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
But What’s the Alternative?
(Originally published in July, 2013.)
“The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
– Dr. Kent M. Keith
http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/
“Consciousness of right-doing brings its own reward; but not amid the smoke of battle is merit seen and appreciated by lookers-on… If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race. When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
***
It sure appears sometimes that injustice, bigotry, hatred, and inequality are winning the battle, doesn’t it? We crave justice. We yearn for equity and fair play. But we don’t always seem to find those things in the here and now. We might be tempted to feel discouraged and frustrated about the state of our world. We might be tempted to lose hope. We might even be tempted to just give up. But… well, if we just give up – what’s the alternative? To STOP trying to do good? To choose to be unkind? To choose to be dishonest? To deliberately and consciously choose to feel no joy? Those do not feel like healthy options to me.
The other day I decided to conduct a little experiment: I decided to make a bad day for myself. I had no idea how to go about this, really. I figured that making a bad day for myself would probably start with a bad attitude, though, right? About half an hour into my experiment I made the mistake of calling my mom. Within a minute she had me cracking up. So. Yeah. So much for my little experiment. After my inauspicious beginning, it didn’t get much worse, either. My experiment was a spectacular failure. I learned something from it, though. I learned that I’d have to work really hard to make a bad day for myself. And I faced the fact that I’m simply too lazy to have much success with that kind of thing.
Call me a naïve idealist, but I believe that good overcomes evil. I believe Love overcomes hate. I believe that wisdom overcomes ignorance. I believe Truth overcomes dishonesty. Always. I believe what Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error.”
I believe that we SHALL overcome someday.
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome,
We shall overcome, someday.
Oh, deep in my heart,
I do believe.
we shall overcome, someday
We’ll walk hand in hand
We’ll walk hand in hand
We’ll walk hand-in-hand, someday.
– Zilphia Hart, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yId_ABmtw-w
Ode to Boxing Day
Ode to Boxing Day
It’s a humble holiday, tucked in between
Christmas and New Year’s, but it’s really keen.
Things look a little bedraggled, it’s true
The tree’s a little droopy and no longer new
The movies and music of the Christmas season
Are getting on our nerves now, and we’re seeing no reason
To eat even one more sugary oversweet sweet
It’s time for broccoli and carrots (maybe hold on the beets)
The pressure for perfection comes off on this day,
the toys have been opened, and it’s come time to play.
And if before we were wearing faux holiday cheer
to blend in with the others and not Scroogey appear
It’s time now to be genuine, and honest and real.
The food banks are empty, people still need a warm meal.
The homeless and hungry and jobless and alone
still need love and care, still need a home.
So maybe we can celebrate the day after Christmas
by keeping the spirit of hope alive,
we might make that our business.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell, from A Poem Lives on My Windowsill
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 