Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life
October 11, 2017

tiny drops of dew

We exist only because
God believes in us
And risks everything on our account

And who are “we”?
We are not the United States of America.
We are not any country on the face of this earth.
This is not our earth; not even our good earth.
It too belongs to God who believes in us
Not as the exceptional stars of God’s show
But as the everyday gardeners whose sole duty
Is to plow the ground and harvest the fruit
Of God’s great Harvest most of which
We will never see in our lifetimes.

We are not the stars or the sun or even the moon.
We are reflections of God’s great glory shining
Beyond light into our darkness filling our cups
To overflowing with tiny drops of dew each morning
Enough for this day when given away before it
Evaporates and returns to God who sent it.

I exist only because
God believes in me
And risks everything on my account

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, August 2017
Daily Prompt: Exceptional

12 Comments
October 10, 2017

Taming my bad beast

Two beasts roam around in me. A good beast and a bad beast. They want to direct my life. Sort of like Aslan, and sort of like the White Queen in The Chronicles of Narnia.

So here’s the trap I face regularly–to do or not to do something, plus my deep wish to say yes, and be part of the show. Normal! Not sitting somewhere on the sidelines, feeling left out, unappreciated or unacknowledged.

Sometimes the good beast in me roars, ‘No, I will not go with you on that wild goose chase! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’ And though I often agree reluctantly, it’s most often the best thing for me not to do. Even though it’s costly.

The bad beast, unfortunately, knows how to look like a good beast, especially when it’s about whatever seems true, healthy, and of good report. It doesn’t always roar. It’s more likely to whisper in my ear reminding me that I can do just about anything if I put my mind to it.

And there’s the rub. It takes a lot more than my mind to do most things. Which gets me into self-defeating cycles of madness. Nothing you’d call 9-1-1 about. Unless I collapse on the race-track—not entirely impossible.

So, charging right ahead, about 6 or 8 weeks ago I noticed my Fitbit was urging me on to new heights of fitness. Nothing wrong with that, I thought, as I pondered my last year of slow-walk, slow-go, plenty of time outs for rest pace.

Fitbit is not a monster. Or a beast. It just knows how to get the attention of my beast—the one that wants to be right up there with everyone else. You know, that community of friends and sometimes family who are equally mad about Fitbit and determined to make their all goals each day and earn those lime-green flashy lights at the end of the day! Maybe even make it to the top of the Leader Board!

Heavy duty adrenalin rushes through my veins even as I write the words. Bad sign….

So I went for it. For nearly two months. At first it was wonderful. The weather cooperated. My body cooperated. I slept great and woke up without a whimper.

And then it wasn’t so wonderful. Little things began nagging at me. Feet hurting more than usual, aches here and there, falling asleep before I got to bed. Nothing huge, but a cloud of little gnats constantly getting in my way.

I was trying to walk a marathon and burn a gazillion calories each day, when all I needed to do was walk 2 miles a day or not, and burn just enough calories or not.

Yesterday I took an extra day of rest. Total delight and relief. I’m still wearing my Fitbit, but as a check—not as a dare-you-to-top-yesterday red flag waving in front of me all day.

Hoping your day is filled with serenity, sanity and gratitude for the one-of-a-kind person you are.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 October 2017
Image of The White Queen found at pinterest
Daily Prompt: Tame

8 Comments
October 9, 2017

Monday Sabbath

Subdued
I pull comfort clothes
Close around my chilled body

Raindrops
Fall steady on the roof
Wind gusts whip through trees

Outside
Tires beat damp paths
From somewhere to somewhere else

Inside
My heart beats tired
Ready for Monday Sabbath

Or
Was it yesterday
I don’t recall for sure

But
Just in case
I’m not taking any chances

Today
Is Sabbath Rest
My body already believes
And I follow
Now

Yes, friends, in need of another day of rest. The best kind ever—rainy, damp, cool and windy. It didn’t take much to convince me….back tomorrow.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 October 2017
Photo found at Pixabay
Daily Prompt: Believe

4 Comments
October 7, 2017

yesterday’s memories


bluer than blue
greener than green
yesterday’s memories
filter deep water
refocus depth of perception
brilliance and light
shadows and darkness
in this transient season
not of our making
or understanding

Photos of reflections on water often capture more depth of perspective and color, along with greater detail than we could see in the moment the camera clicked. And, strangely, there’s often truth and beauty in these photos that captures my heart even more than it did when the camera clicked.

In the end, Truth lives beyond our individual perceptions. All the more reason for humility, openness, and listening ears. For me, this means at least a twofold commitment to spiritual elasticity that

  • doesn’t give away or abandon Truth,
  • and fully understands and even loves that it cannot see or own all Truth.

It isn’t all up to me. My part is to follow Truth and report what I’m seeing. Not what you’re seeing.

The Truth I follow is a person, Jesus Christ, who leads by way of life wisdom, not folly. The path is difficult. Never crystal clear, not engraved in stone, always dangerous and always evolving. I pray for spiritual elasticity to yield and stretch faithfully, in keeping with Jesus’ life, death and deceptively brief ministry on this earth.

A few thoughts for this weekend and Sabbath rest, given the world in which I find myself today. Not bereft of beauty, comfort and hope, and equally no longer the world I thought I knew. Now, more than ever, I need and am grateful for companions on this journey.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, May 2017 at Longwood Gardens
Daily Prompt: Elastic

9 Comments
October 6, 2017

the wind of the Spirit

The wind blows where it wishes
and you hear the sound of it,
but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;
so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3:8 (New American Standard Bible)

I want to receive and be part of the wind blown by God’s Spirit. Margie, my friend who died recently, was part of that wind. Quietly and without fanfare, she lived a frugal, disciplined life dedicated to one thing only. Helping others become the persons they were created to be. Not by working magic on them, or offering wise advice and counsel. It was much simpler and far more difficult than that.

Margie’s life was about praying. Finding out where the hurts in this world are landing, and praying for persons in pain or trying to find their way home. Praying not just once but daily, using notebooks to record her life of prayer. Following up and asking how things are going. And sometimes asking for prayer for herself.

I still say prayer changes me. I say that because often it’s the only evidence I have that anything is happening. The rest is up to the Spirit of God our Creator who has a Great Heart with unlimited space to enfold all of us together.

I’ve been restless lately about the meaning of my life now that I’m retired. This morning I’m thinking that maybe this season of life is about letting the wind of God blow through and on me, one day at a time. Beautifully and gracefully on some days; brutally bitter and cold on others. The way it did for Margie.

Though I’m not Margie, I want my writing to be a form of prayer for us–all of us. That we’ll be open to change that softens and toughens at the same time. Allowing the Spirit of our Creator to do through each of us what we cannot do on our own. I know it’s possible, because I’ve seen it already in many of you and in myself, as I did in Margie.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 October 2017
Photo found at Pixabay.com
Daily Prompt: Genius

6 Comments
October 5, 2017

out of synch

Today I’m feeling out of synch. This morning I was out the door early for a haircut appointment, followed by a little grocery shopping. Then lunch at home, and now it’s almost mid-afternoon. This evening I’m planning to attend a service for my friend Margie who died last month.

Tired. That’s how I feel today. Weary. Also uncertain about how I fit into this world just now. Not simply because of recent tragedies and turns of political events, but because of something in me that hasn’t yet found a home.

Most of my life is back there somewhere. Some of it lost forever. Other parts tantalize me. I’d like to go back and reclaim some of them. Others I’m happy to leave in the dust.

A couple of nights ago I wrote these lines in my journal, addressing them to myself and our Creator:

I miss the feedback and rapport of the classroom and working on projects with colleagues. It feels as though I’m in a different universe. Cut off from people and events I used to enjoy. It’s difficult to know whether I’m on track or lost.

I want to feel and know I’m needed, that I’m more than yesterday’s action. I matter, even though I can’t show up the way I used to, or be as spontaneous about activities or plans. It seems everything I do must first be filtered through a host of limitations – a checklist of criteria that gets longer with each new twist or turn in the road.

I want to be needed, not just welcome to participate. Who or what needs me? I don’t know, beyond the obvious family and friends.

Please, help me either resolve this or live with it.

Retirement is wonderful. I love almost everything about it. Yet it has, in many ways, left me with a new kind of loneliness I hadn’t anticipated. The kind that won’t be resolved via extroverted social media platforms, fashionable outfits to enhance my good qualities, or painfully awkward attempts to be someone I am not.

The one solace I have is that loneliness is common. Especially in our over-bearing, over-achieving, over-fretting society. So, in a sense, I suppose I’m right in step when it comes to fashion.

Is loneliness the fashion and grim reality of this age? I’m not certain; yet I fear it’s the truth, from the highest levels of power to the lowest.

Thanks for reading.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 October 2017
Photo found at independent.co.uk
Daily Prompt: Fashionable

18 Comments
October 4, 2017

A Bird came down the walk —

Here’s another childlike poem from Emily Dickinson that’s filled with adult insight. My comments follow.

A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought –
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam –
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

c. 1862

Emily Dickinson Poems, Edited by Brenda Hillman
Shambhala Pocket Classics, Shambhala 1995

Here’s how I see this poem today—informed by my own observations, and the article I mentioned earlier about possible trauma in Emily’s life. The author saw multiple signs of this, especially in poems written around 1862 and beyond. Emily was about 32 years old when she wrote this poem.

  • Despite the childlike language and scenario, Emily’s poem conveys a sense of mystery. The Bird hopping down the walk is being watched and doesn’t know it. Might it have done something else if it had known someone was looking?
  • Though the Bird does something natural, the unnoticed onlooker doesn’t simply say the Bird ate a worm. Each action gets a full line in this short poem, perhaps to emphasize the suddenness and horror of the unsuspecting Angleworm’s demise. Is it important to identify the Angleworm? Or are they just a dime a dozen or more. Dispensable.
  • Stanza 2 seems to say life goes on as normal for the Bird. Still, it isn’t clear why this Bird hopped aside to let a Beetle pass, since birds regularly eat beetles.
  • Beginning with Stanza 3, Emily seems to know this Bird. She sees a vigilant, even frightened Bird whose eyes and head can’t rest. Constantly scanning for what?
  • The opening line of Stanza 4 is ambiguous. Who is in constant danger, Cautious? Perhaps both the Bird and Emily. Emily cautiously offers the Bird a crumb. Is this all she has to offer? In other poems she describes herself as starved. Yet we already know this Bird isn’t starving. Instead of taking the crumb from her hand, it spreads its wings like oars and heads for home.
  • Stanza 5 almost painfully highlights the ease and beauty with which the Bird and Butterflies, row softly and soar brightly above this ocean world in which vigilance is a constant companion.

I think Emily wishes she were a Bird or a Butterfly—beautiful in flight as she soars silently, through and above this ocean-like world of danger. Somewhere above the Banks along the seashore, making her way to a place called home.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 October 2017
Photo found at favim.com

5 Comments
October 3, 2017

The cost of endurance

The cost of endurance drags heavy
on my feet increasingly unwilling
to put one step before another at this
snail’s pace – a lifetime sentence of
fallout from disasters beyond control
out of synch with my world-weary soul

Outside the front door sirens scream
their way toward yet another disaster
while beyond my kitchen windows
trees beneath blue skies and home to
songbirds entice me into yet another
day – interest enough for this old soul

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, Longwood Gardens, June 2017
Daily Prompt: Interest

12 Comments
October 2, 2017

A Poem and Reflection on Death

Death haunts the pages
Of our minds and hearts
A shadow reality bearing down
On irreplaceable relationships

Who am I without you?
Where am I to go without you?
How much agony can one soul bear?

Each beginning moves
Ineluctably toward its end
Knowing and not knowing
How the plot will play

Your death becomes my death
Bankrupt dreams and hopes
Why didn’t we see it coming?
As though we were omniscient

I’m left asking myself what must I/we do to be ‘ready’? The question is urgent, and yet…

It’s always too soon, until it’s too late.

Dr. Ira Byock, M.D., quotes this saying in his book The Four Things That Matter Most. The book isn’t just for people facing imminent death of a loved one. It’s for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

The four things are simple and life-changing. They won’t take away the pain of death. They will, however, help the people we leave behind deal with the reality of our absence.

Here they are, four things to say to those you love before it’s too late:

Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Especially now, in light of multiple tragedies here and around the world. Death piled on death. Expected and unexpected. Close to home and in our news feeds daily.

Of course there are things that ‘need to be done’ to decrease the kinds of death we’ve witnessed already this year. Yet none of that will prepare me for my death or the deaths of those I love. That’s what’s on my heart this afternoon.

Blessings of peace,
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 October 2017

10 Comments
Video | October 2, 2017

A Bird came down the Walk —

I just found this nimble, lively, graceful, agile and elegantly athletic interpretation of Emily’s well-known poem. Emily wrote the poem in about 1862. The young woman who produced the video prepared it for one of her school classes. Don’t miss her creative credits at the end, or her short interpretive written summary.

The video is short–less than 2 minutes. I’ll have my say about the poem later this week. Here’s the written version, in case it’s difficult to catch all the words in the video:

A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw —
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass —
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass —

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around —
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought —
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home —

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam —
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

Emily Dickinson, written c. 1862

Happy Monday!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 October 2017
Video found on YouTube
Daily Prompt: Athletic

2 Comments