Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life
April 24, 2017

Monday Morning Zip

I love today’s Daily Prompt! Zip. One of the most elusive, malleable words in the English language.

My first thought: Infinite Zip — the name of Kim’s dearly beloved, departed dog. Also what I don’t have (infinite zip).

Other thoughts:

  • Since when did Zip-codes bring more zip into postal delivery?
  • Why don’t the promises of zip, vim and vigor ever work for me?
  • Who invented these teeny, tiny zippers that always stick on the way up or down?
  • I don’t have a clue what to write about zip.

So I went to my faithful Oxford English Dictionary under zip/nouns/colloquial and hit the jackpot!

  • 1875, Fogg in Arabastan xxi: “The blood-thirsty zip of mosquitoes by the million…”
  • 1907, N. Munro in Daft Days: “That’s how I feel…when I’ve got the zip of poetry in me.”
  • 1980: J. Krantz in Princess Daisy: “No launch, no commercials, no nothing. Zip! Finished! Over!”
  • 1940: In Punch 5 June: “Miss Fisher used to  wear some lovely plum-coloured trousers with a zip to match.”
  • 1977: C. McFadden in Serial (1978): “Spenser rummaged among the Ziploc bags in his briefcase….”
  • 1979: In This England Winter 19/3: “She folded her cap inside her apron and pushed both into her zip-topped bag.”

Wishing each of you a zippy day! Which about zips it up for now.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 April 2017
Ad campaign image found at https://postalmuseum.si.edu/zipcodecampaign/
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April 23, 2017

Sabbath for My Body


Dear Friends,

It’s been a while since I wrote about Sabbath Rest. I’m learning the hard way that this isn’t just one day a week. It all began a year ago, in April 2016, and now includes a new health challenge I found out about this month.

On April 6, 2016, I received my spectacular pacemaker, Lucy. She’s now one year old, and has demonstrably changed my life for the better. Lucy is my upbeat (!) silent, invisible champion. She’s on call 24/7, making sure my heart rate doesn’t wander below 60 beats a minute. No more fainting spells.

Then, on April 21, 2016, my first day out alone with Lucy, I tripped on uneven pavement and fractured my jaw. Full stop.

Things will never be the same in my mouth. Wired jaws, lessons in how to use my Vitamix, pain and agony, sheer exhaustion as night became day and day became night. No description can capture it. I thought it would never end.

It’s still difficult to form some words. Still, most of the pain is gone and I’ve regained significant lateral movement in my lower jaw, though my bite will never be the same.

My broken jaw pushed me over the cliff into adrenal fatigue. Thanks to my integrative doctor, I now have a regular pattern each day and night. That means I have energy most mornings, and am ready to sleep most nights. No more erratic nighttime insomnia, or falling asleep in the middle of eating during the day.

Regular rest stops are my new normal. This means putting my feet up, taking short naps, and meditating as needed during each day. I want to stay grounded in what really matters.

Then about 2 weeks ago my doctor confirmed a new challenge: Chronic Kidney Disease, Stage 3a of 5 stages. This came with little warning; my emotions have been all over the map. I’ve had several tests this past week to measure the extent of the damage.

Just for today I want you to know what’s happening. I’ve talked about end of life matters several times this year. The Shape of Forgiveness series was one such issue. So is this.

Are end of life issues my present calling in life? I don’t know. I do know that today, tomorrow and thereafter every part of me is invited into Sabbath Rest. Even though it may not always feel restful or inviting.

Praying you’ll find rest for yourselves each day of this coming week, beginning now. Blessings of inner peace in these troubled times.
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 April 2017
Photo found at kellyjohnsongracenotes.com

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April 21, 2017

Memories fade

Memories fade
stored in leaky shed
pierced with rusting spikes

***

How many have already died away,
leaving the most resilient and powerful behind?
Who am I without my memories?
And will my fading body be their demise as well?

*

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 April 2017
Photo taken in Charlotte, Texas; found at wickimedia.org
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Spike

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April 19, 2017

Just for You | Photos

Last Christmas I received an invaluable gift from a British friend/cat lover. The title? How it works: THE CAT. An enlightening guide written and illustrated by J. A. Hazeley and J. P. Morris, authors of Cooking Your Dog. This is, I’m told, one of a beloved series for Brits, A Ladybird Book for Grown-Ups.

The book is full of peculiar wisdom and wit. Just for today, I’m practicing this gem of advice, found on p. 40:

It is important to constantly take photographs of your cat [and post them online?] or people might not know that you have a cat.

Herewith, choice pieces of evidence that I have a cat!

In case you’ve never met, this is Smudge, aka Prince Oliver Smudge the Second. So named (by the entire family) because he had a sweet little charcoal smudge just between his ears when our granddaughters and their mother rescued him from certain starvation on a cold rainy day in a state park behind their house. But that’s another story.

Here we go….

Resting like a prince on handmade placemats
I purchased in Nairobi at a business that
teaches refugee African women how to set up and run
their own businesses

I call this one Someone to Watch Over Me.
Taken in my home office on my iPad mini.
The teddy bear was a gift from seminary students
after the death of a family member.
The patchwork cushion is a handmade birthday gift
from the wife of a beloved Peruvian colleague at the seminary.
The two small brown head pillows belonged to D’s
favorite aunt; retrieved from her apartment following her death.

Don’t waste your money on fancy toys!

A better box. Actually a box within a box–even better!
Taken by our daughter last June when she came to babysit Smudge and my broken jaw.

Our wannabe King of the Lions lounging with his docile subjects!
That’s the very warm and cozy radiator cover in the living room,
with evidence that I actually vacuum from time to time.
You do see the hose in the lower right-hand corner, don’t you?

DAF, Dec 2015
Just interrupted from a long winter snooze on an old towel.

Finally, my Tooth Fairy Foto of D and Smudge, taken last week.
I’d just brought D home after an oral surgeon extracted a cracked rear molar.
He hadn’t had much sleep during the weekend because of pain.
Smudge can’t resist a heated waterbed on a cold day–hence the towel.
I gave D the small pink Valentine’s Day bear years ago–to watch over him.
The roses above the bed were painted by a friend in the 1970s.

Chuckles and warm memories. A great way to begin this day. Thanks for visiting!

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 April 2017
Photos taken by DAF, Sherry, and me
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April 18, 2017

weathered fence

weathered fence and drifting clouds obscure lush landscape

***

my eyes strain to clarify
what stands before me
and what lies ahead

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 April 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Opaque

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April 17, 2017

Monday Morning Jolt

Fair warning, my friends. I’m writing this primarily for myself. I woke up this morning feeling gray, drippy and overcast. Just like the weather. Miserable.

Were there reasons? There always are, aren’t there? Still, if I don’t put one foot in front of the other, this day will take longer to traverse than it otherwise would.

On my way down to make my morning smoothie, I picked up a small book I read when I was in graduate school. Less than 100 pages. Written in honor of one of the most beloved preachers of the Nazi era, Christoph Blumhardt. Speaking on behalf of those begging for a cup of cold water, he wrote the following:

We must not be silent. The social struggle of millions in our time is not a coincidence….The ferment in the nations, the agitation of the poor, the crying out for the right to live—a crying, given into the mouths of even the most miserable of [us], which can no longer be silenced—these are signs of our Lord Jesus Christ…They do not know that it is Jesus who wants it.” (Action in Waiting, p. 8)

Yet Blumhardt didn’t pour his entire life’s energy into political life. He saw that neither political nor church movements for social justice could deliver a final solution to the world’s agony. Instead, we long for human fellowship that both waits for and experiences the fulfilment of that for which we are created. Not simply in our places of worship, but in everyday life.

Was Blumhardt a dreamer? I don’t think so. I believe he saw within the misery of his world the seeds of something greater. Yet not so overwhelming that we can ignore right now the work to which we’re called daily. Especially in the midst of political, national, social, religious and economic warfare in which some are winners at great cost to everyone else.

Even so, he argued we’re not called simply to work for social justice. We’re called to delight in the beauty of each day:

The earth is so beautiful, the earth is so lovely and full of joy, every little midge rejoices, every tree rejoices; all things are arranged delightfully and beautifully by God so that we too can live and move among them in joy and graciousness…. (Action in Waiting, p. 25)

Finally, just as all nature is ordered toward its Creator, so too are we:

God has already put into us what God is and what God wanted to put into us so that we should become God’s image. (Action in Waiting, p. 27)

I’m not an outlier, and neither are you. We’re already in the vision held close in our Creator’s great heart. My work is to move in the right direction, do what I’m called to do, trust, fear not, and keep my eyes on the goal.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 April 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com, Golden Regulus
All quotes from Karl Barth, Action in Waiting, Plough Publishing House, 1969
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Jolt

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April 15, 2017

Easter Lilies and Justice | Dear Diane

Dear Friends,
This is one of my favorite posts about Diane, Sister #3. She died of ALS in February 2006 after living with it for more than 10 years. Diane was born on an Easter Sunday in April 1949. I hope you enjoy reading or rereading this Happy Easter post from me to you!
Elouise

Elouise's avatarTelling the Truth

Easter Lilies

Dear Diane,
Funny how things come together: Easter lilies, our first apartment, and Mr. Griswold.

Easter Sunday always reminds me of you.

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April 14, 2017

Living in a haze

Living in a haze
of trance-like ghosts
we move through life
reenacting scenes
from childhood
played by ear
with great skill
and small vision

I’ve been thinking about my father, and the strangle-hold of symbolic behaviors I adopted in order to survive with my will intact.

My father lived in a haze of his own trance-like ghosts and scripts. A small world in which he was determined to survive my grandfather’s brutality.

Almost invisible and automatic, his ghosts and scripts drove him to replay the roll he learned by heart as a child. He hoped to keep himself safe, and demonstrate his superiority without disrespecting his father.

When he was in his 80s, Dad shared with me a recurrent dream. It troubled him greatly. So much that he sometimes began crying as he talked about it. The dream returned from time to time right up to his death at age 96.

In the dream, he’s in a physical fight with his father. Fighting for his life. No one else is in the room. It seems they’re in a barn. Both my grandfather and my father were tall, strong men shaped by years of hard physical labor on family farms.

Eventually, Dad wrestles his father to the floor, wins the match, and wakes up, caught in a nightmare of guilt and self-judgment. He disrespected his father. A cardinal sin, according to Dad. According to him, just having the dream proved his guilt.

Taking the measure of my father’s struggle against his guilt and self-judgment, along with his early, harsh judgment of me, helps me understand him. It doesn’t take away any blame for what he did.

It does, however, invite me to pray to our Creator, “Forgive him, for he knew not what he did.” Dad lived in the haze of his own trance-like ghosts and scripts. Unable to see beyond his own survival.

This also invites me to face my trance-like ghosts. Scenes from childhood played by ear with great skill and small vision of myself and others.

It’s Good Friday. A good day for self-examination and forgiveness.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 April 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Measure

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April 13, 2017

Thank you, James DePreist

Here’s a small, somewhat irreverent Holy Week meditation I posted over two years ago. I wouldn’t change a word of it. It’s as demanding now as it was then to follow Jesus.

Elouise's avatarTelling the Truth

Thank you, James DePreist for this poem. Please forgive me if you’re offended by my take on it. It seems appropriate for Palm Sunday and Holy Week. You lived this poem in your life; I believe Jesus did, too.

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April 12, 2017

breathless

breathless
city of the dead
greets Eastern sun

*

It’s Holy Week
a period of self-reflection and waiting
not for death, but for life
rising out of improbable circumstances
from unexpected sources.
Small and large gifts of grace that never die,
all appearances to the contrary.

***

This haunting photo reminded me of Cairo’s City of the Dead. The warmth of the rising sun falls daily on its streets and small memorial houses to the dead, many without roofs. Open to the sky above. Breathless.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 April 2017
Photo from Pixabay.com

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