Symbols for the times –
BLM posters in windows
and fingers in the peace sign,
banners of rainbows
and cars in a COVID-testing line.
Sunflowers and masks,
and knitted pink hats,
Taking a knee,
and piles of requests
to save the bees,
Fans waving flags of yellow and blue.
A world in labor,
birthing a world that’s new.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.”
-Mary Baker Eddy (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 70)
Father-Mother God –
Thank you for expressing me in this time
and this place – right here, right now.
Thank you for the opportunity
to manifest Love, Truth, and Soul
in this niche in time and eternity.
It is a privilege to be here with Your other
children who are sharing the current hour
and space with me.
None of us would be here if we weren’t up
to the tasks in front of us –
if this wasn’t our own niche in time and eternity –
if we weren’t made for exactly this moment.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
“Beloved children, the world has need of you…”
-Mary Baker Eddy
I want to know if the mother in labor, killed
in the Ukraine, is holding her new baby close
wherever she is now,
and rejoicing in Life never-ending.
This is what I hope for her.
I want to know if the young Russian conscript –
who texted his mother just before he was killed
in a war he wasn’t expecting –
is hugged safe in the arms of Mother-Love.
This is what I hope for him.
I want to know if the man who started this war
will wake up someday on the other side of this life
and meet the mother and her baby and the conscript
face-to-face and see what he has done and feel
the pain of loss they felt in their last moments on earth,
and feel shame.
This is what I hope for him.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
A world in mourning.
Weeping in the dark of night.
Praying for the light.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
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
My mother-heart breaks today.
Stop!
Stop sending our world’s children
into wars they don’t want.
Their lives are worth more than that.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
Joan Baez singing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
“Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth… the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places…”
-Isaiah 43
“The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.”
-Mary Baker Eddy
“Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.”
-Mary Baker Eddy
a field of gold sunflowers
Ukraine’s national flower
tenacious, unbending,
showing the irrepressible power
of beauty and joy that grows
beyond boundaries
grows beyond war
the song of a nightingale
Ukraine’s national bird
uplifting, soaring, free-sailing
singing a song heard
beyond boundaries
over battles
above the clamor of war
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
A Ukrainian woman, a Russian tennis champion, a Russian hockey star, 13 Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island, and the president of Ukraine have emerged as heroes in the last week. We see all of them confronting the world’s schoolyard bully – sometimes with sorrow, sometimes with anger, and always with unwavering courage. I pray for them, for the people of Ukraine, and for the Russian soldiers, too, who don’t want to be there – who were told by their commanders that they were going on “training exercises,” never wanted to be part of an invasion, and now just want to go home.
“Bloodshed, war, and oppression belong to the darker ages, and shall be relegated to oblivion.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
“Love for mankind is the elevator of the human race; it demonstrates Truth and reflects divine Love…” –
Mary Baker Eddy
You are my precious child.
Feel yourself embodied in my body –
embodied in the body of Love.
I AM Love, all-power, all-presence, always with you.
I AM impenetrable Love,
all encompassing – the only presence or power or Mind.
You are never separated, isolated, or apart from Love.
There is no place you could go,
or be taken,
that is outside of Love.
You are never apart from Love.
You are never in danger because you are never outside
of what is Good. You are in an impervious armor of Love.
You are a part of the Life that fills all space and never ends.
You are the expression of never-ending Life itself.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell
We need world leaders who are grown-ups; who aren’t guided by ego; who actually care about their citizens and care about the lives of the people who serve their country; who care about our environment and want to do what they can to address climate change. We need world leaders who read and think and reason and try to solve problems, rather than create them.
We need something different than what we’ve currently got.
(Indian Memorial at Little Bighorn, Montana. Photo by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 