My life a ravel
of tightly bound strands
resists sorting
into heaps of trash
or reusable remnants
for a waif
left numb and cold
by winds of
unrighteous judgment
***
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 April 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Unravel
“We do our forgiving alone inside our hearts and minds; what happens to the people we forgive depends on them.”
“Forgiving happens in three stages: We rediscover the humanity of the person who wronged us, we surrender our right to get even, and we wish that person well.”
Lewis Smedes in The Art of Forgiving (Moorings 1996)
I’ve never found public or required displays of forgiveness helpful. I’m relieved that Lewis Smedes makes this a personal issue. Neither my father’s presence nor his acceptance of my forgiveness is necessary.
And so, given Smedes’ three stages above and the work I’ve already done, including naming what my father did and why it’s blameworthy, I’ve already forgiven my father.
From the cross, Jesus prayed “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
He didn’t forgive his tormentors directly. He left that up to God. Instead, I see throughout the gospel narratives that Jesus understands the humanity of every person with whom he deals.
I also notice Jesus’ refusal to try to get even with those who opposed him. He spoke hard truth, sometimes with anger. Yet he didn’t grasp at his right to get even. Not in life or in death.
Finally, Jesus wept and prayed over Jerusalem, despite what he suffered from the hands of those in power who thought they knew better. They beat him, mocked him, paraded him in public as an ‘example,’ and hung him up to die. Still, he wishes them well.
Though Jesus doesn’t forgive his tormentors directly, he prays for them from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This is the prayer I pray for my father.
I’m not responsible for offering him forgiveness. That’s God’s business. I am, however, responsible for the three steps at the top of this post if I mean business about forgiving him.
I’ve forgiven my Dad. Nonetheless, I can’t say this is a done deal. Forgiveness isn’t an event. It’s a process with a beginning and openness to whatever comes next. Childhood trauma has a way of bringing things to the surface when the learner is ready for more healing.
God forgives each of us daily. This is an act of stunning creation, not just for us individually, but for the families and communities in which we live. I want to be part of this ongoing spirit of forgiveness because I want to be part of God’s creative act, not part of the destructive problem.
And so I remain open to forgiving my Dad as often as needed.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 April 2017
Describing the unspeakable
Welcoming the unbearable
Embracing the unimaginable
These phrases came to mind this morning when I saw the Daily Prompt. They capture what recovery looks like for me, an adult survivor of childhood trauma within my family.
No erasing the past, no magic pills, no overnight miracles, no shortcuts and no looking back. Sometimes I think I’m finally ready to be born. Or maybe it happened somewhere back there on the road to recovery, and I’m now an adolescent?
Today I’m working on the last piece of my series on The Shape of Forgiveness. I can scarcely believe I’ve lived to see this day. Much less write about it.
This week I’ve recalled seemingly random circumstances in the last 30 years of my life. I’m stunned by the way pieces came together. People, programs, books, articles, blog posts, conversations, life circumstances and more. They reinforced each other and kept me, inch by inch, moving in a direction, one trembling step of faith at a time.
Am I there yet? It doesn’t matter. Though the process is demanding, the payoff makes it all worthwhile. I’d rather write and rewrite my Grown Up Girl Rules than keep Daddy’s Good Girl Rules any day.
I think about you out there, on the other side of whatever I’ve posted. You’ve been my public audience at each step. The twists and turns of life will continue, as will my healing. Today I celebrate where I am right now. And you, my dear readers.
Have a lovely Sabbath!
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 April 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Heal
scattered remnants
sculpted rocks of ages
soar above me
***
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 April 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, July 2013
Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Outlier
“Forgiving does not remove our scars any more than a funeral takes away all of our grief.”
“We cannot forgive a wrong unless we first blame the person who wronged us.”
Lewis Smedes, in The Art of Forgiving, Moorings 1996
Denial. I lived with it daily. Not simply denial about my father, but about precisely what he had done to me. In a dark room in my mind I still, in knee-jerk fashion, hadn’t given up bearing ‘my’ share of responsibility for the nature of our relationship.
I experienced it as unrelenting warfare. Yet if you’d asked me about this even three years ago, I would have protected my father by denying the truth. All it took was an add-on phrase or two like these:
All intended to soften the truth and point away from my father as the responsible adult party. If I didn’t, I feared no one would listen to me. I had to remind them that I know I’m not perfect, either.
One of the most difficult exercises of my adult life was to blame my father. Not generally, but specifically, and in writing. With clear reasons, and naming the reality for what it was. I worked on this during the summer of 2014, using Lewis Smedes’ book, The Art of Forgiving, as a guide to rethinking my relationship to Daddy (the term my father required us to use when addressing him).
According to Smedes, I couldn’t forgive unless I first blamed my father for what he had done–concretely, specifically, and with reasons that held water. I had never blamed him in that way. I’d spent all my life trying to share the blame. That had to go.
Forgiveness has a shape. It isn’t a feel-good exercise driven by required words or even attitudes of reconciliation. Nor is it intended to deflect my attention from the Big Stuff truth. What happened to me changed my life in negative ways that are not outweighed by any positives I might name as ‘balancing’ factors.
What, then, do I mean when I say, ‘I blame Daddy’? My denial was so deep that it took several weeks to clarify this. Here it is in short form. You can read more here and here.
I blame you, Daddy, for
Thanks for listening!
To be continued (one more post) . . . .
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 April 2017
Daily Prompt: Denial
“Forgiving is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the journey”
“We do not forgive because we are supposed to; we forgive when we are ready to be healed.”
Lewis Smedes, in The Art of Forgiving: When You Need to Forgive and Don’t Know How, published by Moorings, 1996
When I was a child, my father required me to beg forgiveness from him and from God. Most often after a beating, or as the so-called resolution of a sisterly argument about an alleged offence. This was often tricky, because I knew the facts as presented weren’t quite all the facts.
I’m grateful forgiveness isn’t a required event. Especially forgiveness of my father.
I didn’t know it then, but my process of forgiveness began the day I confronted my now-deceased parents about being shamed, humiliated and silenced. The process isn’t yet completed, but I’ve made unexpected, life-giving progress.
The meeting I set up with my parents took place the eve of my 50th birthday in 1993, more than 23 years ago. During the meeting I asked for my father’s apology, with no expectation that he would apologize. My husband, my sister Diane, my mother, and a trusted pastor witnessed the conversation between my father and me. It lasted for 1 ½ hours.
My father refused to apologize for anything. He wasn’t interested in revisiting what happened between the two of us or between him and my sisters. He’d already done all his business with God, privately. Nothing I said or did would change his mind.
I was on my own, without my father’s blessing. Disappointed but not surprised. Still determined to work on my healing.
We say punishment should fit the crime. Even so, I believe forgiveness must fit each situation, especially those with life-changing consequences. This isn’t about mistakes or forgetfulness. It’s about the Big Stuff we wish had never happened to us.
Forgiving my father has been a long, sometimes painful process. I’m not yet there. Still, looking back, I see several areas of progress. Sometimes with lightening-speed insight; most of the time with determination, grit and courage to take the next painful look at him and at myself.
Since that historic meeting in 1993, I’ve made progress in at least the following areas.
I was surprised at how much more comfortable I became around my father, even though his opinions about me never changed. I enjoyed being in interview mode, though I didn’t always like what I heard. I was also comfortable being in the compassion mode. Especially because he carried many griefs, sorrows and disappointments similar to mine.
Nonetheless, I knew this change for the better wasn’t yet forgiveness, much less reconciliation. It was more like a cessation of warfare and a sometimes uneasy truce. I still had work to do.
To be continued….
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 April 2017
We live on the verge
the daily edge
the cutting edge
the bleeding edge
between breakdown
and breakthrough
Born with limited opportunities
we leap
or stumble
or fly
or die of indecision
I opt to sail beyond the verge
against the odds
into uncharted territory
where no woman in her ‘right’ mind
has ever gone before
With gratitude to Star Trek
and all other mortal friends and strangers
who helped make this moment possible,
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 April 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com
Response to Daily Prompt: Cusp
scattered farmhouses
grace idyllic surroundings —
guard family secrets
***
I can’t see the secrets; they’re underground. Have you ever watched Midsomer Murders? Very instructive. When open spaces are being closely guarded against land developers, the reason sometimes has to do with buried family secrets. Usually in the form of skeletons.
I don’t know if any secrets lie beneath the hills in this gorgeous Virginia valley. Yet the photo struck me as evocative. What happened in the past, matters. Even though we may take the secrets to our graves. Or create lovely graves for ugly secrets.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 April 2017
Photo by marciadc70, found at Weather Underground Photos
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Prudent
My deceased father, an ordained clergyman, has been on my mind for the last several weeks. Especially the way his behavior toward me still affects my life.
I began blogging over three years ago because I was ready to break my silence. I wanted to tell the truth. Not just the truth about what happened to and within me back then, but the way it shaped the woman I’ve become.
If you haven’t read my earliest posts, I invite you read these, published over three years ago: Dear Dad and Rituals of Submission: Part 1 and Part 2.
Forgiveness has also been on my mind in the last few weeks. The topic almost always comes up when I describe my life as a child and young teenager.
My friends are concerned for me. It’s important, even necessary that I forgive my father. The sooner the better.
I appreciate each outlook. Yet I still get hooked by self-destructive attitudes and behaviors that arise daily.
Finally, I often wonder whether I can or need to forgive myself. If so, what would that look like?
As I see it, forgiveness isn’t a spiritual, intellectual, or strategic decision made once for all. It’s about my whole being and will take a lifetime. I face multiple opportunities each day to let go of my sometimes frantic desire for security and survival, affection and esteem, power and control, and my desire to change a situation.
A broken clay pot can’t be made whole by gluing it back together. No amount of glue will make it new. It’s still a damaged, cracked clay pot. The only way to repair the damage is to return the pot to the furnace, melt it down, and tenderly begin reshaping it. Not as an act of terror—though the process is terrifying—but as an act of love, acceptance and healing.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds. What might healing look like, and what kind of forgiveness would it take?
Thanks for reading, listening with your hearts, and commenting if you’d like.
To be continued….
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 April 2017
Image with quote found at wordsofbalance.com
Last night I was restless, unable to fall asleep for too many hours. So I got up for the 5th time that night, went into my office, opened my journal and wrote whatever came into my head. No, I won’t bore you with all of it. The excerpts below capture what was going on in my head and heart.
First time in months that I’ve had this much trouble going to sleep. . . .Not sure what to think or feel.
~~I let go my desire for security and survival.
~~I let go my desire for esteem and affection.
~~I let go my desire for power and control.
~~I let go my desire to change the situation.I welcome this wakefulness; I consent to it; I’m listening to it.
It’s a reminder of how unpredictable and uncontrollable my life is. A reminder that even with all my good efforts, things don’t always go smoothly. A reminder of what it feels like to have too much cortisol going through my body at this time of night. . . .
My day didn’t have much rest. Lots of time spent on writing, food preparation, shopping for food, an outdoor walk, supper and a movie we watched early in the evening….
No lying down for a little nap, and no time out until late for reading or practicing centering prayer. I think my body and soul feel neglected – perhaps tired of being put on hold in favor of the next blog post, news item or internet search….
I want to learn to pour compassion, not contempt, on all my pride – as a writer, as a professional, as a together lady – a self-contained choir of one….My world seems very small, even though my external connections are many.
I want to be in the choir. Not to be famous, but to enjoy the ride! To feed my soul, my heart, my ears! There’s so much beauty in Your world. I want to be there in it, whatever form it takes….
I know You love me and are surrounding me even in my discomfort and restlessness. …
Be in my sleep and in my wakefulness –
Surround me with Your presence and peace.
Now and forevermore –
Amen
I’m happy to say I fell asleep right away.
The line about pouring compassion, not contempt, on all my pride ran through my mind all day. God doesn’t pour contempt on me or my pride. So why would I pour contempt on my pride, much less anyone else’s pride?
I don’t know how other people came to be as they are. More important, I like myself better when I practice compassionate self-care. Without being too proud to ask for help, of course. ♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 31 March 2017
Telling the Truth 