A couple weeks ago, when I was hanging out with Canadians at Peace Arch Park with my TRUTH JUSTICE KINDNESS sign, I saw someone with a familiar face grinning at me from the middle lane, and waving at me exuberantly. “Is that Hector?” I asked myself. But, “Nah, that can’t be Hector – what would Hector be doing here?” Hector is a former student of mine. I knew he now worked and lived in Seattle. It seemed far-fetched that I would run into my old student at the border to Canada. But a little later I got a text message from him, telling me that it HAD been him! How cool is that?!
Hector had messaged me out of the blue back in 2024 and we’d met at the Burlington Whidbey’s for coffee to get caught up – it had been such a blast to see him again! We’d met at Whidbey’s again in the spring of 2025 – and, again, that time with my old student had brought me such joy. So when Hector messaged me a couple weeks ago, it seemed natural for us to meet, again, at Whidbey’s in Burlington. And today was the day!
It was so good to see Hector again! Hector is one of those people who sends out ripples of joy wherever he goes. When I was Hector’s high school teacher our conversations were centered around academics – math, science, language arts, social studies, art – as a contract teacher at the alternative high school, I’d had the opportunity to teach ALL those subjects to my students. But, other than in religious studies courses, I’d always been careful about talking about God-stuff with my students.
But now that Hector is no longer my student, it seems like ALL of our conversations are centered around God-stuff – on God’s love and direction in our lives. Hector had an experience a few years ago that was profound for him. He felt God’s love in a way he’d never known before, and it was transformative for him. When he talks about this experience, and his journey since then, his whole face lights up with the joy of it.
He talks about forgiveness – how he’s come to realize that once you forgive someone you can’t take it back – it’s not like a commercial transaction – you can’t take it back and get a refund on it. He talks about the grace of receiving gifts. Today Hector bought my coffee for me – and that was weird for me – I’m used to being the one to buy coffee for other people – but the gift of the coffee was presented with such joy, how could I not receive it with joy? Hector said that God’s like that, too – God gifts us gifts, whether we think we’re worthy or not – and how can we NOT accept those gifts? Talking to young Hector is like talking to a spiritual Master.
Hector inspires me.
Once again, the Cosmos sent me exactly what I needed today. The Cosmos sent me Hector.
My dear Humoristian hooligans – There is still joy in this world. There is still beauty. There is still love. Your mission today: Find it! Celebrate it! Share it! Karen
I set a mission for my fellow Humoristian hooligans to find joy, beauty, and love today, and then I went in search of these things myself. And I found them!
I roused myself from my comfy chair and went to the courthouse for the noon rally. I got there early and there was only one other person holding down the corner. He told me his name was Christian, this was the first time he’d been to a rally, and he’d walked all the way from the college to be there. He told me he was autistic. I told him I was proud of him for being there.
I’d come all decked out in my Seahawks paraphernalia today. This came in handy. At one point a man, stopped in front of me in his truck, gave my TRUTH JUSTICE KINDNESS sign a thumbs down. I grinned and revealed my Seahawks shirt and yelled, “Seahawks?” to him. He laughed and gave me a thumbs up . As he drove through the intersection we smiled and waved at each other. A man and woman gave me a thumbs up for my sign, and then when I showed them my Seahawks shirt they gave me a DOUBLE thumbs up. A sheriff’s deputy waved to me and gave me a thumbs up as he turned to go to the sheriff’s office.
The support and love the community showed to us today gave me hope for our world.
By the time I left, the corners were packed with people and signs. I told Christian to look at what he’d started. He smiled and said it was great to see so many people there.
On the way home I went though West Mount Vernon and then through Bay View and down the hill into the valley. And this is when I found the murmuration of snow geese. It was inspiring to watch these beautiful birds winging together in perfect harmony.
And now we’re driving home from the Illuminight celebration on the Mount Vernon revetment. The celebration was so fun! I bought an illuminary ball from Travis and Summer, the owners of Tr-Dee Arts; officers, there to keep everyone safe, allowed me to take their picture (I explained I’m a boomer and so it’s going to end up on Facebook, of course – oh, and I’m a Karen, too. They laughed at that.); I met Lyle, who’d made her very own illuminary with a simple paper bag; Tieron let me take a picture of him holding his instrument – he was going to be a part of one of the musical acts tonight; and the La Venture Middle School Marimba Band was fantastic! They played with such irrepressible joy! I had the cosmic good fortune to find myself standing next to Erik, the father of one of the marimba players, and I had tears in my eyes when I told him how much I’d needed that music tonight.
Yesterday, as I was standing on the corner in front of the courthouse with my TRUTH JUSTICE KINDNESS sign, a man who was stopped in his car at the stoplight, honked and gave me a “thumbs down.” I pointed to each word on my sign, smiling and with my eyebrows raised in question. Truth? Thumbs down. Justice? Thumbs down. Kindness? Thumbs down. And now I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. What the heck?! Seriously?! What the heck?! The man holding a sign next to me started laughing, too. It was just too classic, you know? And we stood there, together, laughing at the sad ridiculousness of it all. I haven’t had such a good laugh in days. “Bless his heart,” I said, and we laughed some more.
But the thing is, I really meant that: Bless his heart. I found I wanted nothing but good for the thumbs-down-man. Bless his heart. Help him find himself as God’s innocent, loving child again – the child, expression, manifestation, idea, image and likeness of his Creator – Love and Truth – never separated for a moment from all that’s good.
Bless us ALL. Each and every beautiful one of us. Heal our hardened hearts. Help us to know ourselves as the precious children of our Father-Mother God – as the reflections of Love.
My thanks to employee Robby at Fred Meyer’s who stopped what he was doing to come help me get the item I wanted from the toppiest shelf. Robby was very cool.
I took a moment to tell a father with an unhappy child in his cart what a good job he was doing – I saw his patience and calm as he talked his son through a difficult moment. He grinned and thanked me for noticing.
As I was going through the checkout I chatted and connected with my cashier, Patty, who is a former neighbor of mine. Then I turned to the woman sitting in a wheelchair behind me in line, and said, “Hello!” I think I took her by surprise because she got a big grin on her face before giving me a hello back. The man who was with her – her son maybe? – smiled at me, too. The woman said to Patty (referring to me), “She’s chatty.” And Patty laughed and explained that we used to be old neighbors. “We go waaay back,” I said, laughing.
I got to the door to exit, and there was another woman there, preparing to head out into the parking lot. It was dumping rain out there, and the woman and I looked at the rain and then at each other and started spontaneously laughing. “Hoods up!” I said, bringing my hood over my head. She pointed out that she didn’t have a hood. I gave her a quick nod, like we were comrades going into battle, and wished her good luck. She smiled and returned my good wishes.
His words angered the bigots, the bullies, the hateful, and greedy. When he forced them to look at themselves and see their own flaws, he triggered their hate. When he told them to love their neighbors, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and heal the sick, they accused him of all the evil they saw in themselves. He agitated their egos, stirred the stagnant waters, brought cleansing sunlight to the mold of their thoughts. And their little egos were not happy about this. “What have we to do with thee? Leave us alone!” they cried. But he loved them too much to be silent and let them be.
His unyielding love for all God’s children exposed their own hate and incensed them. He was spat on, struck, ridiculed, and crucified for his love.
But he rose on the third day and made breakfast for those who loved him.
Because Love always wins. – Karen Molenaar Terrell
“If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters? What is there to strip off error’s disguise?
“If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it you win and wear the crown.” – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 254
“The “still, small voice” of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound. The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, “as when a lion roareth.” It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear. It arouses the “seven thunders” of evil, and stirs their latent forces to utter the full diapason of secret tones. Then is the power of Truth demonstrated, – made manifest in the destruction of error.” Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 559
While we wait for the world to improve, we might as well hope. While we wait for wars to end, we might as well love. While we wait to die, we might as well live. – Karen Molenaar Terrell
Photo of the Indian Memorial at Little Bighorn by Karen Molenaar Terrell.
Quiet and still, before the family is up, I turn the lights on the Christmas tree and sit in its cheery glow. I wrap myself all up in the soft blanket of Love and feel Her enveloping the world in peace and hope.
I sip my lemon ginger tea with honey, and contemplate Christmases past when the sons were youngsters, and my parents were still with us. Yesterday I was feeling sad about the absence of parents and friends who’ve gone on – but in this moment I feel them still with me and I hug them all in my thoughts and smile at their still-nearness.
Love is never lost. All the good of then is still with me here. Karen Molenaar Terrell
So I plucked up a copy of my Christmas book (literally called The Madcap Christian Scientists’s Christmas Book) sitting by my laptop so’s I could look for things to share. And the book flipped to this page and I realized this was the copy I’d given to Moz and Dad when I’d first published it – when they’d passed it had come back to me. And there was a note from Mom! It was like she was right here, speaking to me. I’d really been missing her lately, so to find this message from her felt cosmic to me. I don’t think I’d ever seen this note before – it was like finding a new treasure.
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.
Here’s a link to the sermon I gave at the Skagit Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (SUUF) last Sunday, if you’re interested in listening to it. Topic: Choosing Love. https://suuf.podbean.com/e/choosing-love/
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 