With thanks to Emily
by Elouise
Something about aging. I don’t know what it is. I only know what it feels like. A journey into mists, slow and sometimes laborious. Wondering where all that energy went. And how I ever accumulated so many bits and pieces from my past.
Today it’s about clearing the bits and pieces out. Getting to something else, beyond the false fog of my fortressed life.
For decades, I relied on bits and pieces. Every carefully sorted, filed and piled item was a bit of insurance. Proof of my value, resources to be used next term, a hedge against false charges, reminders of why I was here and what I had agreed to do. Plus gems stashed away for later perusal.
Then, in April 2016, I fell and broke my jaw. Life changed. Immediately.
Out of that anguish, I wrote a post that has become one of the top ten posts visited on this site, with 589 views as of today. It’s my commentary on Emily Dickinson’s lovely poem, Faith — is the pierless bridge.
I read it several times in the last few weeks of chaos and confusion about many things.
There’s fog and then there’s smog. Fog is good. Smog is rotten–the stuff that hung in the air in the late 1940s when I lived in the Los Angeles area. I don’t mind a bit of fog, though it sometimes puts me on edge. I think of all the accumulated clutter of my life as smog. Things and attitudes about ‘things’ that throw me off balance. That keep me from living and dying to each day.
So here’s the last paragraph of my comments about Emily’s poem, reformatted a bit to catch the heart of the matter for me then, now, and tomorrow. The question is how do I get from here to there? And whose faith really matters?
Before my faith and before my birth
there was something else
The Source of my life greets me
from within the Veil
to which Faith leads
Here waits the One who birthed me
Who boldly and courageously watches for me
from the other side of my human life
spinning out a fragile steel-buttressed thread of Faith—
my Creator’s Faith in me
Faith that leads me home
just as I am and yet will be
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 October 2019
Image found at pinterest.com
Just love the last piece about Him waiting for me. Thank you.
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Thanks, Penny! You’re so welcome. 🙏🏻
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I welcome seeing my bits and pieces as God’s efforts to strengthen my thread. As I view them now, I can see where they are to be placed on that thread, some building, some encouraging, some blocking my path away from the thread. We serve an awesome God!
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Hi, Marilyn. You’re so right about your bits and pieces! My biggest challenge right now is the stuff that’s blocking my path. I’m not a hoarder. I do, however, have an academic’s need to hang on to stuff from the past that now weighs me down. Literally. Thanks for you encouraging comment.
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A beautiful, heart-felt post that brought me joy and comfort today. Thank you, Elouise!
In the fog, smoke, mist, and darkness that comes to us in life, it is so wonderful to know Someone IS looking out for us, watching over us, waiting for us. 🙂
I’ve always loved reading Emily’s poems! 🙂
How awful to have a broken jaw. 😦 I hope everything healed well.
(((HUGS)))
PS…I have “followed” your WP blogsite. I hope you don’t mind. I want to read more. I think you could teach me a LOT.
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Oh my! I’m honored and grateful, Carolyn. Emily has helped me find words and images that unlocked my life and my voice. Thanks for your kind comment. I think we forget that our Creator has faith in us! Otherwise, why turn us loose?! 😊
As for the broken jaw, it has almost totally changed my life. It wasn’t fun and it isn’t always easy, but the changes I had to make in my daily routines turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. Think lots of Vitamix super healthy smoothies, near vegan diet, and my heart and kidneys chugging along pretty well for a 75 year old retired academic. 💜💕
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So true! 🙂
I imagine it did and has. I’m so glad you are doing well! 🙂
(((HUGS))) 🙂
PS…What did you teach? I taught Kindergarten for many years…also, taught adults in the area of parenting and relationships…and then changed to a different “field”. For a few years now I’ve been helping with a family business. I miss teaching and I miss the students.
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What fun! (Kindergarten — my Mom also taught kindergarten. They loved her!) I’ve only taught adults–lots of second career students. They were seminarians; most of them planned to be pastors or leaders in churches or church-related organizations. I taught theology, and also served as dean in my last 7 years. I retired in 2011, and volunteered for about three years at Dawn’s Place, a home here in the Philadelphia area that offers a therapeutic program for women who’ve been used for commercial sex. Then I started blogging…..and find it a great way to find my own voice, now that I’m not under the scrutiny of supervisors, students, visitors, etc.! 🙂 I love being at the seminary; I also love being right here! 🙂 I miss my colleagues and the students. Horribly, sometimes. But then I have this community sitting here with so much to offer, especially at this time of my life. Thanks for asking!
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What a wonderful career and how many people you taught and helped! I love that a teacher’s influence goes beyond the students sitting in the classroom, to everyone those students encounter and help in their own lives! 🙂
Yes, I love to blog!
My blogs are usually fun or funny (I love to make people laugh and smile!) or I share my poems or short stories that I write. Etc. 🙂
You’re welcome! 🙂
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I like your distinction of fog v smog and its relation to our inner selves.
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Thanks, John. Your comment brought to mind that in addition to our inner selves, we here in the USA have a lot of smog hanging over our fair country just now.
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Hey, I heard from LordBeariOfBow’s daughter, Sarah, today and she said, “If you could thank everyone (on WordPress) for me that would be fantastic. Dad would have loved to read the tributes and messages.”
So I wanted to pass on her thank-you!
(((HUGS))) 🙂
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