I can’t sleep and go to my friends’ FB walls treasure-hunting for hope; for love that calls to all creation; for jewels of inspiration and wisdom that go beyond human rules and resonate with the rhythm beating in my own heart. And I bring back these gifts: A poem about father-love; A photo of a puppy nestled in her new human’s arms; A painting of a golden sunrise; Posts about epic bike rides and happy-together times; Pictures from mountain climbs; The blessing from a flute; Photos of home-grown fruits; and everywhere magic. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
It is time, my friends. It is time to blast the world with over-the-top joy. It is time to roll out our big cannons of jocularity and good will and rain humongo missiles of love and kindness upon the mental landscape. It is time to step up to the front and lock arms with one another and protect the battered, bullied and beleaguered with the unbreakable shield of Love and Truth. We are in control here. With Love leading the charge, we are not the beaten, but the unbeatable. May the bullies, bigots, and busybodies be transformed by your unbreakable courage. May the stodgy and stingy be transformed by your irrepressible good will to all.
The time for the kind-hearted has come! Amen. Karen
“Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power. It is a mockery of strength, which erelong betrays its weakness and falls, never to rise.” – Mary Baker Eddy
“At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good.” – Mary Baker Eddy
This is what happens when you give a little kid (me) a virtual pack of crayons. Rembrandt, I ain’t. But I needed something cheery on my wall, and I ain’t apologizing.
The promise will be fulfilled – joy, peace, love, hope – all of creation living in rainbow light. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
So let’s say we knew, for instance, that our world was heading towards its doom. Let’s say, for instance, that a superpower had invaded, unprovoked, a neighboring country and was pulling other nations into a world war. Let’s say that a tyrant had somehow managed to build a following and get himself into power in our own country, and, after losing a legitimate election, was doing everything he could – criminal, illegal, dishonest things – to get himself back into power. Let’s say that there were more guns than people in this country (120.5 for every100 people, let’s say) and that it didn’t look like our country’s leaders were going to try to get control of that any time soon. Let’s say that more than 311,000 students had experienced gun violence in schools since Columbine. Let’s say that plastics, fossil fuel consumption, overuse, misuse, and abuse was destroying our oceans, land and air. Let’s say that even the basic right to have control over our own bodies was being threatened. Let’s say there was talk of Civil War. Let’s say things looked like complete crap here.
What then? Would we give up? Would we just resign ourselves to our collective fate and spend our time here shivering in fear, waiting for death, holed up in our hidey holes? Or… would we use our time here to try to find solutions? Would we view every new day as another chance to love and be kind and to make a new friend and make something beautiful?
Mother-love and Mother-strength Mother-courage and Mother-joy Mother-laughter and Mother-songs and hugs have been with me all along -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Bow, WA: A no car day. Walked to the post office and saw tulips and blossoms and green growing things, and red-winged blackbirds flitting among tall stalks. Picked up my mail. Had a scone and mocha at the bakery across from the post office – sat at a little table and felt my body soaking up the friendly warmth from the sun. Finished my scone, hitched my backpack back over my shoulders and started the hike home. Birds singing and people waving and smiling as they drove past me. Collected some cans and plastic lying on the side of the road – thought that seemed like an appropriate thing to do on Earth Day. And then came home and pulled up weeds and spruced up my garden a little. Finished Season 2 of “Stranger Things.”
It has been a lovely day. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
“EARTH. A sphere; a type of eternity and immortality, which are likewise without beginning or end…To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense, it is a compound idea.” – Mary Baker Eddy
“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” – Isaiah 55: 12
Does it make sense to sacrifice the very things we’re battling to win? To give up our joy, and lose our love, would be to let hate and fear win in the end. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
The joy is always here, you know. War and famine, pestilence and pain, can’t stop joy from bubbling up, unrestrained.
Love is always with us, too – unhampered, irrepressible, strong – heedless of whether you’re the “wronged” or the “wrong.”
The thing about Love and joy is they don’t depend on circumstance, happenstance, or material substance. They are both cause and consequence. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 