I’ve been feeling a little off-kilter lately – maybe feeling the tension of the political season and the stress of the folks around me. I love autumn, but there are certain aspects of October in our country that can be… challenging for those of us who live here.
Anyway. I got a message from my friend, Emmy, daughter-in-law of the late great Pete Schoening, asking if I was available to meet at the Shambala Bakery in Mount Vernon, Washington, today – and I was! And we did! And it was so wonderful to chat with Emmy again – she’s one of those people I feel an instant kinship with – funny and kind and honest. We always laugh when we get together.
As we were eating our brunch, a customer in a baseball cap and a Grateful Dead shirt came through the door. There was something whacky with the door – we’d noticed this when we came in – and when the customer noticed it he started examining the hinges and the frame. Emmy and I realized he was going to try to fix it.
How cool is that?
Pretty soon the customer had borrowed tools from the server-cashier-cook, and retrieved some tools from his truck, and was working on the door.
I asked Justin, the customer-handyman, and Heidi, the server-cook, if I could take their picture, and they graciously agreed. Then Heidi went back to work, Emmy and I finished our brunch, and Justin finished fixing the door. I observed to Justin that he’d done a really nice thing there. He said that he couldn’t just let that door stay broken. He wanted to make it good for Shambala.
Laughing with Emmy, and watching the man in the Grateful Dead shirt fix the door, helped settle me this morning.
Request for those who join me for conversation on my political posts: Please refrain from name-calling, condescension, and personal attacks. The people you encounter in the comments are all my friends. I love it when my friends come on to my threads to bounce ideas off each other, debate, and learn from each other. I expect all my friends who join in the conversation to treat each other with kindness and respect.
I enjoy exchanging thoughts and beliefs with my friends. This is how I was raised, I guess. My mom was the youngest of ten very opinionated, very intelligent children with a wide range of beliefs: Methodists (the church they were raised in), atheists, Unitarian Universalists, Christian Scientists, Republicans and Democrats. And when we’d meet up for Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house in Portland, the dialogue was lively, stimulating and raucous. It was also full of laughter and humor, respect and love. People could disagree with each other without putting each other down – without calling each other “stupid” or “deplorable” or “deluded.” I learned so much from these gatherings! It was so fun!
For many years, my mom and dad belonged to different political parties. On election day, they’d cheerfully get in the car together to drive to the polling booth, knowing that they were cancelling out each other’s votes and laughing about that. They loved and respected each other, regardless. (Around 1981 – when all the air traffic controllers were fired by Reagan – my mom joined Dad in the Democratic party and became more vocal about politics than any of us.)
I have friends and family from a wide-range of religons and non-religons, beliefs, and political parties, and I love them all.
Honestly, I was feeling pretty down today – dismayed at the direction the world seems to be headed; and disappointed in myself, too – feeling like I could have been a better mother, wife, daughter, teacher, friend, in my life.
The thought came to me to get out of the house and find a quiet corner somewhere where I could do some self-reflection and have an internal conversation with the Cosmos.
When I started out I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up, exactly – but as I followed the nudgings of the Cosmos I found myself at Pacioni’s in Mount Vernon. I sat in a booth in the back and ordered a half a veggie panini, listened to the soft background music and the sounds of friends talking and laughing. Watched the rain drizzling outside the front window.
I realized I missed Mom. I thought about how I could always tell her what was in my heart – and she never judged me or my words. She always saw the best in me. I missed that.
When I was done with my panini and had paid, I tidied up my table, put on my coat, and started for the door.
And this is when I saw that two of my favorite people – a couple in my local community – had been sitting in there, eating their lunch, too! We all gave each other hugs and talked about children and granchildren and the state of the world, and how we maybe can’t change the big things in the world, but we can be kind to the people in our community, the people we come in contact with – and I told them they are two of the people that do this really well – and then they said *I* did this! They said I was the perfect example of this! They said they’d been talking to one of my former students a while ago and my name had come up in the conversation and my former student had said that EVERYone should have a Karen Terrell for a teacher.
I teared up. I stood there, in front of my friends, and I teared up. They had no idea the gift they’d just given me – it was the exactly right thing I needed to hear just then. To know that someone thought I’d made a difference – to know that someone thought I’d done something right in my life – this was huge for me.
And I realized that the mother-love I’d been missing was right there with me – being expressed to me by my beautiful friends.
The Cosmos led me exactly where I needed to be today.
“Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 393)
I finally gathered my courage and watched Leave the World Behind on Netflix. I’d been reluctant to watch this movie because I’ve been feeling fragile lately – bombarded on the internet and television with images of disease and death, destruction and war and inhumanity – and I didn’t feel like I was ready for any more emotional breakage right now. But as I’ve been processing the movie in the last couple days, I’ve felt myself gathering courage, building a sort of steely resolve. If the people with financial and political power want us to isolate ourselves from each other, want us to be fearful and distrustful of each other, want us to cower in paranoia so that they can control and manipulate us – then, hell no! I am not going to isolate myself, or be scared or cowering.
I am going to be part of the resistance movement.
Wikipedia says this about “resistance movements“: “Resistance movements can include any irregular armed force that rises up against an enforced or established authority, government, or administration. This frequently includes groups that consider themselves to be resisting tyranny or dictatorship.”
In the textbook for Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes (on p. 29): “Christians must take up arms against error at home and abroad.They must grapple with sin in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course.”
Note that Mrs. Eddy isn’t saying we should arm ourselves with assault weapons or bazookas. She’s talking about another kind of warfare all together. She writes in Science and Health (p. 225): “A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.”
I’m going to take up arms of love and joy and hope against the would-be tyranny of hate and fear and despair. I’m going to consciously reach out with joy and kindness and patience to my fellow earthlings. I’m not going to let the images of war and hate we’re constantly bombarded with on television and in social medial deter me from my mission of kindness. I’m not going to let the advertisements and commercials filled with images of disease keep me shackled in fear and isolated from others. “Hell no! We won’t go!” there. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
***
P.S. As I was pondering “resistance” the climactic scene from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle came into my thoughts. In this scene the protagonist, Meg, is resisting the hate and tyranny of IT. She’s been told she can fight IT with something she has that IT doesn’t have – and she’s trying to figure out what that is. IT is trying to get control of her thoughts, and she’s starting to lose the battle:
“…as she became lost in hatred she also began to be lost in IT…
“With the last vestige of consciousness she jerked her mind and body. Hate was nothing that IT didn’t have. IT knew all about hate…
“‘Mrs. Whatsit hates you,’ Charles Wallace said.
“And that was where IT made ITs fatal mistake, for as Meg said, automatically, ‘Mrs. Whatsit loves me; that’s what she told me, that she loves me,’ suddenly she knew.
“She knew!
“Love.
“That was what she had that IT did not have.
“She had Mrs. Whatsit’s love, and her father’s, and her mother’s, and the real Charles Wallace’s love, and the twins’, and Aunt Beast’s.
“And she had her love for them…”
“She could love Charles Wallace. Charles. Charles, I love you. My baby brother who always takes care of me. Come back to me, Charles Wallace, come away from IT, come back, come home. I love you, Charles. Oh, Charles Wallace, I love you. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was unaware of them…
“I love you. Charles Wallace, you are my darling and my dear and the light of my life and the treasure of my heart. I love you. I love you. I love you.
“Slowly his mouth closed. Slowly his eyes stopped their twirling. The tic in the forehead ceased its revolting twitch. Slowly he advanced toward her.
“‘I love you!’ she cried. “I love you, Charles! I love you!’ Then suddenly he was running, pelting, he was in her arms, he was shrieking with sobs. ‘Meg! Meg! Meg!’
“‘I love you, Charles!’ she cried again, her sobs almost as loud as his, her tears mingling with his. ‘I love you! I love you! I love you!’”
T’was the day after Christmas and all o’er the earth people were waking to find there still seemed a dearth of peace on our earth and to all good will – we wondered if the promises would ever be fulfilled.
And then a someone shouted, “Hey! I have a thought! Let’s celebrate Christmas every day – let’s celebrate a lot! Let’s keep kindness and sharing alive in our hearts – not just at Christmas, but in all the year’s parts!”
And we thought this was wise, and we thought this was good, so we celebrated kindness all over our earth’s ‘hood. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Today may you love the hell out of the world. May you open the floodgates of Love and let Love water the weary hearts athirst for kindness and caring. May you refuse to allow fear and hate to steal your hope and courage. May the bigots, bullies, and busybodies be transformed by your open hearts and good will to all. May the stodgy, stuffy, and stingy be transformed by your irrepressible joy. May you bring laughter to those in sorry need of a good laugh, and hope to those ascared of the future.
“The weapons of bigotry, ignorance, envy, fall before an honest heart.” – Mary Baker Eddy
I didn’t usually tell people right away – and certainly not the men I dated. I always thought it was better if they got to know me first as a human being. Sometimes it took months for me to tell my friends. Sometimes years. Sometimes the moment never came. I have friends who maybe STILL don’t know. After a number of early experiences, I’d come to the realization that some people would see me differently as soon as they found out. In the past I’d had all kinds of labels attached to me that weren’t really me – I’d been instantly lumped in with fundamentalists and creationists; with people who speak in tongues and handle snakes; with dominionists and faith healers and fire-and-brimstone folks. When one friend – who’d known me for years – finally found out, she’d asked me if I would just leave her bleeding and injured on a sidewalk if she was hit by a car. Which. What…?!
So I guess it says something about Scott that I told him on our first date. I no longer remember how the subject came up, but I found myself saying, “I’m a Christian Scientist.” I guess I half-expected an awkward pause after my reveal, but Scott quickly responded with, “Oh! That’s cool.” Then he glanced over at me, and asked, “What’s that?” 🙂
Turns out he’d never heard of Christian Science! And that was AWESOME – it meant I could explain what it was all about from my own perspective, without any preconceived ideas on his part. I can’t remember now exactly what I said – I probably talked about the Christian Science idea of God as the power and presence of Love; I probably talked about how I had experienced healings in my life by drawing my thoughts close to this power of Love. And as I talked he listened and nodded and accepted me. He shared some of his own thoughts about God – he’d been raised in the United Methodist tradition of New England and he, too, had been raised to believe in a loving God who cared for His children. He understood the beliefs I was describing, and accepted me as “me” right away.
Scott and I have never had a need to “convert” each other – to try to make each other hold the exact same religious beliefs. If asked, he’d probably still say he was a Methodist. If asked, I’d probably still say I was a Christian Scientist. But beyond religion, we share the same values – we both believe in the power of kindness. We both believe we should be generous to those in need; fair and honest in our dealings with others; and protective of our natural environment. We both believe we shouldn’t be quick to make judgments about others.
It’s been thirty-six years now since I had that first conversation with Scott. Through all that time he’s continued to be supportive of me and my practice of Christian Science. I am so grateful for him, and for people like him – people who approach others with open minds and hearts – ready to listen and share and learn from each other – people able to go past stereotypes and see the individuals behind the labels. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
I pass her first in the pet food aisle. Her expression is serious – like she is considering important things – and my expression is probably serious, too. Pet food is serious business. Next I pass her by the milk. I think we smile at each other that time. Then I come upon her in produce – and this time we full-on grin at each other.
I have to choose between two checkout lines and finally settled on lane #3 – behind a fellow boomer wearing a friendly smile and a baseball cap with the name of a golf course emblazoned on it. He grins and quips that any line behind him is going to end up being the slow one – and I assure him that if this line ends up being slow, it’s entirely me to blame. I am a slow-lane magnet. But, I tell him, I am retired, so I’m in no hurry. It’s all good.
Just as he gets to the front of the line, he turns to me and says – his face totally serious – “Oh! I forgot something in the farthest corner of the store! Is it okay if I go back and get it?”
I start laughing. I know what he’s up to. “Go for it!” I say. And he starts laughing, too, then. Then he says he has a good one-liner for me. He says, “What do a flat tire and a bad attitude have in common? They both have to be changed if you want to get anywhere.”
“That’s a good one!” I say.
The cashier rings him up and he turns to me and wishes me a good day before he leaves. He has already given me a good day.
After I pay for my groceries, I go to the in-store Starbucks to get myself a mocha. And, after paying for my mocha, when I turn around to go wait in the pick-up line, who should I see standing behind me but the woman I’ve been running into all over the store? We both start laughing like we’re old friends – and maybe we are by this point – and I say, “I’ve been following you all over this store!” And she nods her head, in happy acknowlegement.
A truck tailgates me and passes me going more than 60 in a curvy, no-pass 40 mph zone that has small businesses and homes on either side. I get on the freeway and a car zips around me and then pulls in front of me in the slow lane, goes past the car in the fast lane and then cuts in front of the car – so close he almost hits the front fender and the driver of the other car has to tap the brakes.
And I decide to just give up. I decide to have a crappy day. The world, I decide, is full of thoughtless, impatient, selfish people, and I’m suddenly too weary and worn to fight it anymore.
I exit in Mount Vernon and park in front of the CS Reading Room. Go inside and buy some “Quarterlies” and then walk down to the Skagit Valley Food Co-op at the other end of downtown. As I approach the door, this man going into the co-op opens the door wide for me – a big smile on his face – and asks, “Going this way?” I smile back and thank him.
I go to the other end of the store and pluck out some ginger chews from the candy rack. Then I see the Mother Earth News on the magazine rack. I pull it out and turn to the back page – knowing I’ll find one of my photos there. And there it is! I have to share this tiny moment of glory with someone. The cashier in the lane in front of me isn’t working with any customers at the moment and so I say, “Look! Here’s my photo!” And she grins a big grin and says, “No way! You took this picture?!” And we chat for a bit about how to get your pictures in Mother Earth News and I encourage her to submit her photos.
I go to the front of the store to pay for my ginger chews and the woman in front of me says, “You go ahead of me – you’ve just got that one thing.” What a nice thing to do!
I walk down to the Ristretto coffee shop for a mocha. The barista is really cheery and friendly. She asks me my name. And I often use that as an opportunity to make some quip about my name, but this time my pause is genuine. I really do not want to admit my name is “Karen.” But I finally choke it out and both the baristas and the customer next to me smile these kind smiles at me and assure me that my name might be “Karen” – but I am not a “Karen.” I give the barista a 30% tip – she’ll probably never know what she’s given me this morning.
As I’m sipping my mocha and writing this post on my cellphone, a thirty-something man goes up to the counter and starts regaling the baristas with a story that has everyone laughing. I find myself being pulled into his joy. As he leaves with his coffee, he glances over at me and grins – including me in his circle, and I grin back.
I leave Mount Vernon and decide to go to La Conner to pay my broadband bill. On the way I stop at Christianson’s Nursery to, literally, smell the roses. A begonia plant with pink flowers calls to me from its place on a table and I pluck it up and head for the checkout. The checkout man is so fun – his hair keeps falling into his eyes and he keeps blowing it out of his face, and pushing it back with his hands. He laughs and says, “It has a mind of its own.” I tell him I can relate – my own hair is always going rogue on me.
Now I drive into La Conner to pay my Astound bill – I’m hoping that Jolyne will be there – I always enjoy connecting with her every month. She makes me smile.
After I pay my bill and have a nice chat with Jolyne, I head for the La Conner boardwalk for a walk. On my way I come upon a young family enjoying the day together – there’s a boy of about nine, astride the mechanical horse in front of the “curiosities” shop, a young girl, a father, and a mother with gorgeous gold extensions to her black hair, braided down her back. The family is beautiful. They stop at the ice cream shop where there’s a photo stand-in of ice cream cones – it looks like the father wants to take a picture of his family there. I ask him if he’d like me to take a photo of all of them at the stand-in – and he’s happy to let me do that. The family arranges itself around the stand-in and I snap a couple of quick photos and hand the phone back to the father to see if what I took will work. He smiles and says, “We never get photos of all of us together. This is great!”
I’m so happy I got to do that for them.
I continue on my walk – enjoying the reflections in the Swinomish Channel. I wave to the person sitting at the back of a motorboat going past., and get a wave in return. I end up at the Calico Cupboard bakery, of course. This was always my plan. As I’m waiting in line to buy an apple cinnamon roll, I hear a woman talking to the hostess about the friends she hasn’t seen in twenty years, and file that away in my “interesting people” file in my head.
Cinnamon roll successfully purchased, I head for the door and see the woman who was meeting her old friends, talking to another woman – who I assume is one of these friends. Of course, I’ve got to know more. “So you haven’t seen each other in twenty years?” I ask. And the women laugh and explain that they’d met in a Bible study years ago, and one of the women had moved to Arizona and the other woman had moved, too, and this is the first time they’d seen each other in two decades! One of them lives in the Bow area now – where I live! – and I find out that one of her old friends from high school lives just down the street from me!
Isn’t life great?
I pass a man sitting on a bench, and point to my cinnamon roll box. “I bet this thing weighs five pounds,” I say. And he laughs and says, “Yeah, they make ’em big there!”
I pass the apartments where my parents used to live, and wave to the balcony where Mom always waved to me. I smile at the memory.
And then I’m back in my car and headed home with my cinnamon roll.
I always hope I’ll be seated by great people on my airplane trips – and I was especially hoping for that on our 13-hour flight to Auckland – and I hit the jackpot with my seat mate! I sat next to a wonderful young man, originally from Punjab, India, but relocated for the last five years to Auckland for work. He helped show me how to play the Solitaire game on the screen in front of my seat; pushed some buttons to see how the “food and drink” tab worked and ended up with cookies and a mocha which he handed off to me; and he used the map on the screen to show me where he grew up in India, and where he lives now in Auckland. He had a great sense of humor and we spent a lot of time laughing together. He helped the flight go faster for me.
Yesterday we went to a Farmers Market near Sydney and – as always at Farmers Markets – we met dogs with wagging tails, and people with smiles on their faces, and the air was filled with laughter and joy and the smell of good things to eat. I bought cookies from two wonderful women at the Gumnut stand who chatted with us about our travels and gave us a little bag of free cookies as a welcome to Australia. We met Maisie, a sweet black Labrador who licked my hand and smiled a doggy smile up at me, and her human, Anna, and her mates – who all laughed with me when I introduced myself as “Karen” and said, “But what are you going to do?”
When we boarded the train after the Farmers Market – and I was looking at a map on the train’s wall and trying to figure out when our next stop was – a very cool chap named Andrew with long dyed hair, shades, and fingernails painted black, came up to the map and showed me where the route would take us. As it turns out, I couldn’t have come upon a better person to help me with this – he actually works for the trains as a guard and was on his way to work on one of the trains when he appeared. Andrew also works as a photographer for musical events – and he and my husband, Scott, got into conversation about lenses and cameras and their experiences as professional photographers.
When we got into Sydney we walked over to the Opera House (of course!) and met all kinds of wonderful people there, too. There were the people who moved over for me so I could take pictures of the seal sunbathing below us. The seal did not appear to be moving and I asked, “Is he alive? He looks so chill.” The people who’d moved over for me smiled and reassured me that the seal was alive and he was just doing what we all should be doing -enjoying the moment. A couple of young men from India asked me if I could take their picture – which I did – and then, later, they reciprocated by taking a picture of me with my family in front of the Opera House – and did an excellent job for me.
Next to the Opera House is a botanic garden. On the way to the garden we saw a bride and groom having their pre-wedding photos taken. On the way back from the garden we came upon the bride and groom again. They looked so radiant and joyful that I felt the urge to capture their joy and share it – so I asked them if I might take their picture. They were happy to smile for my camera. I told the bride that her bouquet was beautiful and she looked at her groom proudly and said that they had made the bouquet together.
After our explorations around the Opera House we went to Karen’s Diner for dinner. My daughter-in-law, Christina, had heard about Karen’s Diner from a friend and had learned that people named “Karen” could be given a free drink there. The theme at Karen’s Diner is that the food is great, and the service is deliberately rude – but rude in a funny way. I loved the whole experience – our servers were great! – and I got a free milk shake out of the deal.
On the train back from Sydney I sat next to a lively, fun family with three youngsters aged five, four, and two. The father was originally from Jamaica, and the mother had lived back and forth between Italy and Australia during her growing-up years – between them they were citizens of three countries! The littlest girl played peek-a-boo with me, and soon Christina and my son, Andrew, who are due to become parents any minute, were chatting with the parents about the joys and challenges of child-rearing. There was a lot of laughter in that conversation.
I am loving Australia and the people who live here.
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 