“DOVE. A symbol of divine Science; purity and peace; hope and faith.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health
Wrestling with fears in a fierce battle of clutches and holds – all twisted up in knots, throwing Bible verses and Eddy quotes into the battle in a quick succession of stretches and locks tangled up my own ruminations – I stop mid-thought.
And I surrender. Give up. Let go.
It’s right and natural to be fear-free, I know. It shouldn’t feel like a battle to let fears go. Hanging on to the fears takes a lot of energy that I could better spend in happy reverie – filling my thoughts with Truth, Life, and Love – with the good things that come on the wings of a dove. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.” -Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 210
“Fear never stopped being or its action.” -Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee…” -Isaiah 41:10
In 2016 we moved Mom and Dad from the apartment in Tacoma to an assisted living place in the artsy little town of La Conner, about twenty minutes away from Scott and me. It had become clear that Mom was evolving into Dad’s caretaker – actually, maybe she had been his caretaker for years and we just hadn’t realized. We recognized that both Mom and Dad could use some support in this new, and last, adventure in their lives on this planet.
A couple weeks after Mom and Dad moved to La Conner, I had the great good privilege to return to the local Unitarian Universalist church as their guest speaker. Oh, but I love that little congregation!
My husband and I brought Mom and Dad with us this time – we wanted them to meet their new neighbors at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship – I knew they’d be made to feel welcome and at home. And sure enough! – as soon as we entered the doors to the hall we were met by friendly hand-shaking people and surrounded by cheery laughter and smiles. In fact, one of the members was the widow of one of Dad’s old mountaineering friends and they immediately got in conversation about old times and mutual friends.
This was no hushed, sanctimonious, dignified fellowship. There was no one standing at the doors trying to usher people to seats, or bid them be quiet. There was no one trying to maintain any kind of decorum. Everywhere was laughter and old friends greeting each other, and new friends meeting for the first time, and love expressed. Everywhere was joy.
Mom and Dad sat in the front row of the church with Scott and me. There was a big smile on Mom’s face as she looked around the hall. In the front of the auditorium there are three beautiful, quilted panels of tapestry, depicting a scene in the Cascade Mountains – and I could see Mom’s eyes resting on the mountain scene, and appreciating its beauty. “My memorial service could be here,” she said. I smiled and told her that wasn’t something we needed to think about for a long time.
Dad, meantime, was perusing the agenda for the service and saw my name in it. He pointed to my name and asked me why my name was there. “Because I am a big deal,” I told him, grinning. He grinned, too, and nodded his head in acceptance – like, of course I am a big deal.
About ten minutes after the service was supposed to begin, the celebrant finally saw an opportunity to close the doors to the room and chime the service into being. Songs were sung, announcements were made, there was the sharing of griefs and joys – and laughter throughout. Attending a Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship service is like being at a comedy club. I always feel at home there.
By the time it was my turn to speak, any nervousness I might have felt had disappeared in the laughter.
“The Healing Power of Love” was the subject of my talk. I talked a bit about my upbringing – raised by a non-religious father and a Christian Science mother – and how my parents had raised me to be a really happy skeptic: My dad taught me to question political and religious dogma; my mom taught me to question everything I saw, heard, and felt with the material senses. “My parents might not have shared the same religious beliefs, but they shared the same values,” I observed, “and they taught my brothers and me to keep an open mind, to not be hasty to judge others, to appreciate the beauty of nature, and to look for the good in people.” My UU friends nodded their heads at this – open mindedness and looking for the good in others is probably one of the cornerstones of the Unitarian Universalist church. Now and then I would bring my mom (who was sitting in the front row with my dad) into my talk – at those times I felt like George Burns feeding lines to Gracie Allen. Mom could have been a stand-up comedian.
I explained that I don’t speak for any other Christian Scientists when I speak about Christian Science – I’m only speaking for myself and my own experiences with this way of life.
I talked about how “God” is defined in the Christian Science church and gave the seven synonyms the discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, gives for God: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love. Lately I’ve been practicing substituting the word “Love” for “God” in my favorite Bible verses, and I shared some of those verses with the UU congregation: “Fear not, for Love is with thee… Be still, and know that God is Love… All things work together for good to those who love…” and here the congregation filled in the blank with me, “Love.”
I’ve come to a place in my life, I told the congregants, that if something doesn’t come from love or lead to love, I don’t want to waste my time with it. And they nodded their heads in agreement. I love these people.
Then I shared a healing I had experienced by drawing my thoughts close to Love: When I was in labor with my second son, I was told I would need to be given a cesarean – my son was in distress. As I was being wheeled down to the operating room, I asked my mom to call a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support. When I got to the OR they hooked me up to a machine to monitor the baby. I prayed – and in Christian Science prayer doesn’t mean to plead with some anthropomorphic god to come down from the clouds and help us – praying, for me, just means to draw my thoughts close to the presence and power of Love.
I could feel the love from the doctors and nurses – I knew they wanted to help my baby and me. I knew that everything was unfolding as it should – under the direction of Mind. I found a place of peace. And suddenly the medical staff was looking at the monitor, looking at me, looking back at the monitor – and then they were all yelling, “Push! Push!” and my baby was born the old-fashioned way. One of the nurses was crying – she said she’d never been able to witness a vaginal birth before, and it was so beautiful. When I asked the midwife what had happened to allow my baby to be born naturally, she said, “We don’t know.” And when I asked my mom what the practitioner had told her when she called her, Mom said the practitioner had said, “Life loves that baby!”
It tells you something about the UU congregants that I felt completely comfortable sharing that healing with them. I knew they would understand the feeling of love that lay behind it. (After the service one of the congregants whose father was in the hospital thanked me and told me how helpful my thoughts had been to her – that meant so much to me.)
Maybe the thing I enjoy most about the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is that they let me have fun with them. They know how to laugh. They are natural Humoristians.
And they know how to love.
It brought me such joy to have Mom and Dad with me at that service.
Quilt panels at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall
It just hit me. In the past when I wrote a “Madcap Christian Scientist” book, my mom was one of the first people I’d share it with. She was my biggest fan. And, just now, for a moment, I forgot she was gone, and I thought: I need to give Moz a copy of this. And then I remembered.
So I was driving through the countryside this morning and I had Allison Krauss playing on my CD player, and her version of “I Will” came on – I always find her banjo-happy version of that song so uplifting – and I was just filled with such joy. A couple of songs later, her song, “In the Palm of Your Hand,” started playing – and I found myself crying with the pure beauty of the words and music.
I’d been working through some fears – the fear of aging, chiefly, and all that comes with aging – the fear of losing our natural immunities and protection as we grow older, the fear of getting worn down and “vulnerable” to disease and whatnot. (This is something that we’ve all had pounded into us constantly since 2020.) And the thought came to me that more solar years don’t somehow put a greater distance between me and God, Love. More years aren’t like more bricks in a wall between me and Love. The further I move from my human birth doesn’t move me further away from Love. Love is right here, right now, wherever I am and however many solar years I’ve lived through – and my Father-Mother, Love, still sees me as Her precious child.
And then I started thinking about a trip I was taking out of state soon, and the thought came to me – “I better stay healthy, because I’m not sure health inurance works when a person is out of state.” And, immediately, that thought was countered with, “No worries. Crossing a state border isn’t going to separate me from God, Love.”
Allison Krauss’s music just seemed to confirm all of that for me this morning. I imagine God saying, “Who knows how long I’ve loved you? You know I love you still…”
I put a dime in the traffic meter and bought myself four minutes. And I thought what could I do with my four minutes? If I could pay a dime for four minutes in past time – what four minutes would I bring back for myself? Four minutes with Mom and Dad? Four minutes with the sons? Maybe everyone together around the Thanksgiving table for four minutes more?
I put a dime in the traffic meter and bought myself four minutes. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
This question was posed in a Facebook group: “What would you say are the main differences between Christian Science and other New Thought teachings?”
I love questions like this – questions that lead me to think in a deeper way about my way of life.
Here was my response: Okay. Hold on. First, I’ve got to find out what “New Thought” means. 🙂
The Encyclopedia of Chicago says: “New Thought, a mental healing cult closely related to Christian Science, first emerged in the 1870s. Its leaders promised that thought could shape reality, and that if one meditated upon a goal, that goal—be it health, spiritual enlightenment, or wealth—would be reached.” (http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/886.html)
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, does talk about the power of our thoughts on our experience (“Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupation of your thoughts…”) – but, I think – for me, anyway – the goal in Christian Science is a little different than the goal in “New Thought.”
Although Christian Science has sometimes been viewed as a “prosperity gospel” by people outside of it, that’s not what Christian Science is, for me. For me, Christian Science isn’t all about the “end product” – it’s not about if you meditate the right way you’ll get this this, or if you have enough faith you’ll get that – it’s more about how to live my life in every moment – not for what I’ll get at the end – but to recognize the reality of the universe and God – to recognize the good that is already here, everywhere, always – and to recognize my place in that. So it’s an active knowing and being and doing. It’s actively applying what I know and understand about Love and Truth (God) to bring me into my at-one-ment with Love and Truth.
I’m not using my mortal mind to change my situation – I’m endeavoring to draw close to the one Mind – to the thoughts of Mind Itself. Mary Baker Eddy defines “angels” as “God’s thoughts passing to man…” and I believe that’s where the healing, transforming power comes from – it comes from the thoughts of God, not from the thoughts of mortal minds. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
There are all these TV shows where there are detectives and body guards and lawyers who are constantly on the alert for suspicious activity – I enjoy these shows. Sometimes I try to imagine myself as an observant detective, myself. So, at the supermarket this morning, I decided to observe – only I decided to look for evidence of good things.
As I stood at the end of a long line at the cash register I had a lot of time to observe. I saw cashiers who were friendly and efficient. I saw people smiling at each other, and making room for other customers to go around them. And in front of me in line I saw a little boy sitting in the shopping cart, reaching up to hug his mom. Oh, it was so sweet and beautiful – that little hug. I felt my heart melting at the sweetness of it. I leaned in and told the young mother that I was a mother of sons, too, and that I remember those precious moments when my sons were little.
Then the little boy got out of the cart and turned to me. He had important things to say to me. He pointed to the Oreo cookies in the shopping cart and told me these were his favorite type of cookies. I told him they were mine, too! So we talked for a bit about the wonder of Oreo cookies and the proper way to eat them. Then the little boy pointed to the primroses in my cart and told me that they were pretty. I asked him which one of the primroses was his favorite, and he said he liked the pink one best. He told me his name was “Benjamin” and said something I didn’t quite catch about “Georgia.”
By this time, his mom’s groceries were all packed up and they were ready to go. I thanked Benjamin for chatting with me, and he said, “Good bye!” and waved at me.
I was so tickled by this happy exchange with young Benjamin.
My highly-honed detective skills helped me find just what I needed this morning.
Trust. Feel the arms of Love enfolding us all in one universal cosmic hug. Feel the pull, the tug towards Truth, Life, Soul, Love gathering us together, breaking the fetters, cutting the tethers that keep us bound in hate and fear. We’re free in Love right now, right here. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
On this day six years ago – and it was a Monday then, too – my mom was brought by ambulance to our home to begin hospice. We weren’t sure how much time we had left with Mom. I wasn’t sure how we were going to make this work – Scott and I were still working full-time then and we planned on taking turns caring for Mom, but we hadn’t, exactly, figured out when we were going to sleep. We just threw ourselves into this and trusted that it would all work out. We didn’t want Mom to be brought from the hospital to an institution where she’d be surrounded by strangers. We wanted her here with us. It felt right.
Mom and I spent the day telling each other how much we loved each other. At one point she became very tired – too tired to talk – but I was greedy and asked her, once again, if she loved me. Her eyes fastened on me and the look she gave me was pure love- I still see that look in her eyes at times when I need to remember her love.
I went to bed at 9:00 to sleep for a few hours while Scott took the first shift. I’d just fallen asleep when Scott came up to the bedroom to tell me that Mom wanted to talk to me.
I came downstairs and saw Mom sitting up from the hospital bed with a grin on her face. She looked all excited, like she was going to a party or something. I explained to her that I was going to sleep for a little bit, but that I’d come down to be with her at midnight. I told her she wasn’t going to be alone. One of us was going to be with her all the time. She grinned and said, “Okay!”
When I came down at midnight, Moz was sleeping. I gave her some medication when I first came down and some more an hour and half later. I stretched out on the couch next to Mom’s hospital bed to rest a little. About 3:00 in the morning I had this beautiful dream of green fields and rolling hills and butterflies – my dream was full of joy. And I felt something brush by me – touch me – and I felt love and peace as this presence brushed by me.
I woke up then. Mom wasn’t struggling to breathe and I thought, “Oh, I don’t need to give her any medication.” I started to go back to sleep and then… I realized. I got up and felt her and she was starting to feel cool. I went upstairs and got Scott and told him I thought Moz had passed. But I wasn’t sure. There’s such a thin veil between this life and whatever comes after. Scott came down and felt her pulse and told me, “Moz is gone, Sweetie.”
We called hospice, and a nurse came out and talked us through what happened next. I’ll be forever grateful to Hospice of the Northwest for their help through this process.
Moz’s passing was one of the most holy and beautiful things I’ve ever experienced. I’m so grateful that we brought her into our home that last day. -Karen Molenaar Terrell
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 