Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Haiku/Poetry

August 28, 2017

Who am I today

Who am I today
she wondered just yesterday.
Small losses pile up
Autumn leaves drift through the air
A clock ticks in the background

It’s that time of year. I can’t avoid it. It reminds me life is short, and that from the day I was born I began to die.

Sad? Yes, especially now that I’ve lost family and friends I’ve loved, and often wish I’d known better.

Will I see them again? My faith tells me there’s more to life than this. Still, I won’t see or touch them again in this life.

The end sometimes feels inexorable. I can’t stop the clock from ticking, or predict when my time will run out.

I can, however, enjoy each moment of today. Beginning with a late afternoon walk before the sun goes down.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 August 2017
Photo found at elrobotpescador.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Magnetic

10 Comments
August 25, 2017

An aching void

An aching void
stretches the length of a canyon
through my heart

What would it mean
to inhabit this land
waiting breathless
to learn its fate?

Bones of natives
and explorers
lie dormant
beneath
dead dreams
and living nightmares

Who are the settlers of today –
willing to inhabit the aching truth
of our collective past?

Truth about this country lies in yesterday’s buried news–told and untold. As a nation, we didn’t get here because of an ‘accident’ of history. We got here on the backs, shoulders, hopes, dreams, half-truths, lies and ignored truths of generations before us.

I’m grateful for the true settlers of today–courageous children, women and men unwilling to settle for half-truths, lies or apathy.

I’m also grateful for the weekend. Not as a diversion, but as an opportunity to focus on Sabbath rest. I don’t inhabit this land. I inhabit a tiny corner  of this world God created for sheer love of beauty. This Sabbath I want to rest in some of God’s beauty and truth.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 August 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Inhabit

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August 23, 2017

a pretty sure life

The rights and responsibilities
Of a pretty sure life
Hang weightless around her neck

She glides fairly easily
From one scene into the next
Wearing privilege on her skin

Without effort she blends in
Sometimes anxious but rarely for her life
Mature, sweet and polite she passes easily

A charming married woman with children
She meets the gold standard
Against which womanhood is weighed

No need to check her credentials
Her language or demeanor
No need to run a background check

She’s one of us
Sometimes unruly and annoying
Yet harmless
Because her heart beats white

I’ve been the beneficiary of many opportunities. Not strictly because of who I am, but because I’m a white woman. And because I’m not a rabble-rouser or revolutionary. I’m just a steady, dependable, meticulous, relationally gifted white woman who gets along with just about everyone. What more is there?

I don’t regret the opportunity to be part of an academic faculty and administration. I do, however, regret how oblivious I was to my white privilege even though I was part of an unusually diverse community of students, staff and faculty. Only with the Rodney King event and its aftermath at our seminary did I begin to scratch the surface of my white privilege.

I’m reminded daily of how easily our country ignores, suppresses and tries to bury our history. Mr. Trump has made visible what’s been there all along. No secrets here. Just inconvenient truth, and an opportunity to seize the moment.

My heart beats white. I’m still unpacking what this means for me.

Thanks for listening!
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 August 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Visceral

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August 21, 2017

restless energy

restless energy churns
from here to nowhere
searching for answers
without clear questions

Loneliness has been a companion ever since I was a child. Most days it doesn’t come sneaking out of nowhere to grab me. Today was an exception.

Memories from my past haunted me, especially memories about my spiritual formation. Not because of what I did or didn’t do, but because of things done to me, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I felt old, lonely and unprepared for what might be coming in the future. And whether D would be there for me.

We’ve just returned from afternoon tea and conversation with our next-door neighbors. So right now I’ve put aside my memories and my restless search for clarity and reassurance. Instead, I’m going for a walk outside. In the company of trees, grass, birdsong, cicadas, dog-walking neighbors, and the setting sun.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 August 2017
Photo found on Pixabay.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Lurch

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August 19, 2017

beggars all

St. John's Abbey Church Interior

feet shuffle
down multiple aisles
approach the altar
sacraments of life
and death remembered

the sound of shoes
resonates against concrete
moves us to receive
hope for life and death
a crumb and a drop
spiritual food for body and soul

It’s 1980-something. I’m sitting in a long pew just beneath the balcony in St. John’s Abbey Church. The sanctuary is full of visitors, members, and local residents of Collegeville, Minnesota. We’ve begun moving forward to multiple stations where we’ll receive the sacraments. This is an ecumenical Eucharist; all are welcome.

It isn’t far to the stations set up near the center of the sanctuary. Architect Marcel Breuer collaborated with Benedictine monks to design this space. They ensured no one would be more than 85 feet from the altar. They also excluded columns, drapes and sound baffles.

No ecumenical Eucharist has moved me to tears as this did. It was the sound. It wasn’t the readings or the homily, or even the hymns. It was the inescapable sound of feet shuffling along the concrete. Beggars all, slowly making our way forward and then back to our seats. Like the thief on the cross. The one who didn’t stay sitting in his seat, but got up and led the first procession to the cross on which Jesus lived and died for us.

***
I first posted this on 30 September 2015. Yesterday I noticed someone had read it. So I checked it out.

I couldn’t help making a connection with recent events here in the USA. No one event captures everything. Instead we’re faced daily with more evidence that things fall apart, and that nothing we do can put them back together.

Yet we have every reason to hope. Not because we’re people of good will, love everyone, exercise deeds of kindness and mercy, or anything else we might find praiseworthy. Rather, it’s because of what God offers us through Jesus Christ.

All we need to do is get up out of our seats and get in line behind the thief on the cross. Offering ourselves just as we are, and counting only on God’s great mercy.

Praying you find rest for whatever is wearying you this Sabbath.
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 August 2017
Photo found at thecatholicspirit.com

11 Comments
August 18, 2017

sequestered spaces

We retreat into sequestered spaces
somewhere on the boundary
of lived reality and death

Inexpressible loneliness
greets and enfolds us in grief
pierced raw by sorrows

Death of a child, a spouse, a friend, a stranger
Declining trust and good will
Specter of lost leaders and followers

Inexpressible anguish
stalks this land of promised opportunity
with freedom and justice for all

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 Aug 2017
Image found at chicagotonight.wttw.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Solitary

6 Comments
August 15, 2017

Late summer walk

Walking this morning before clouds burst
shoes squish on wet pavement
The voice of a young child
protests briefly behind me
My breath flows
even and relaxed
Vacant parking spaces
wait by neighbor’s houses

The school yard is silent
covered with soft green grass
Along its perimeter
mushrooms rise from wet soil
Large glistening white platters
appeared overnight
Burnt orange cups with rusty upturned sides
hold remnants of last night’s rain
Tiny flat-tops of brilliant red-orange
decorate the ground next to
lime-green mossy tree roots

Crickets and cicadas fill the air
with nonstop late summer music
Small acorns plop to the asphalt drive
forerunners of thousands yet to come

Beside the cemetery linden trees
heavy with yellowed pods
release small round seeds
hanging from thin stems
Here and there weathered headstones
display small American flags
Remnants of wars past
and the birth of yet more sorrow

The sweet song of a Carolina wren
floats through the air
A train whistle echoes in the distance
Blue jays protest
Robins sing
Catbirds defend territory
Squirrels chatter

The end of summer approaches
Am I ready?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 15 August 2017
Image found at davesgarden.com
Response to WordPress Prompt: Willy-nilly

7 Comments
August 11, 2017

The patient

The patient lies dying
Body wasting
Skin pale and taut
lethargic eyes stare
from hollowed out sockets
Faded remnants of life born in hope
disappear in deep shadows

A priest garbed in vestments
stands before a makeshift altar
Demeanor and voice concentrated
on the proper order of things
His hands grasp the sacrament of life
hanging heavy in this cramped space

A young altar boy looks on
Head and eyes slightly averted
Hands clasped close to his chest
Sad eyes try not to stare

Filtered through a small window
dying light descends into the room
touching the patient’s Madonna-like robe
with a gleaming halo of grace
This is somebody’s beloved child
Fragile and sick unto death
Beyond hope of survival
Now the center of attention
Seated in a chair of royal honor

Tender looks and hand of a caregiver
Rest lightly on the young child
A man sits in shadows
Body bent in despair
Head slumping on his hand
A small dog sits on his lap
Looking on with downcast eyes
The priest’s voice continues

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 August 2017
Painting found at Wickipedia
1888 Painting by Venezuelan artist, Cristóbal Rojas (1857-1890)
Rojas died of tuberculosis about 5 weeks before his 33rd birthday. 

7 Comments
August 8, 2017

finding my way home

Through hazy unknowns
life tumbles, turns
I wake far from home
not knowing how or who
I’m to be

I search for long-gone milestones
landmarks north stars
The sky an empty void
of echoing questions
no answers
no explanations
no solace

I wander between knowing what I
think I know and fearing this
could be true
Truth so fragile
so easily pierced by life’s urgent
need for me to be
someone I am not

Life itself a great puzzlement of
interlocking pieces
leading somewhere
or nowhere
I’m never quite sure
A little light
a little meaning
a little distance
from the void of not knowing

Will this come round right?
Every book every scrap of history
every letter every pain
every sorrow every shame
every secret
wells up in me
competing for attention
Pick me!
I hold the key to golden answers
Can you help me find my way home?

I first published this poem on 30 July 2015. Today, two years later, it still rings true. Perhaps more so, given the last USA presidential election and all that happened before and since then.

I could smile and say God will work it all out, but that feels like abdication. A denial of my shared responsibility as a human being and as a citizen.

All promises to the contrary, my world was never safe or secure. Today I know that what passed back then for ‘safe and secure’ was, in fact, a mirage. Sometimes deliberate; sometimes the product of years of denial. Or false hope that saying something often enough would make it real.

Fake news is fake news. Fake history is fake history. Fake solutions are tomorrow’s problems passed on to the next generation.

Today we’re reaping a whirlwind that’s been in the making for centuries. No magic key will solve all our dilemmas. Still, I’m going to keep picking at the lock—one person at a time, one conversation at a time, one day at a time.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 August 2017
Image found at gizmag.com

5 Comments
August 5, 2017

Thirst

Thirst
consumes me
parches my soul
throttles energy
makes me wary
cautious
lest I lose
one precious drop

Hoarding
sets in like drought
grows and multiplies
invades every
vein in my body
sucks me dry
prepares me
for death

Gasping
I refuse
to relinquish
what is mine
by right and law
wrung from
this earth by
my own hands

Heedless
I rush headlong
into a desert
of my making

No one
looks my way
or offers
one precious drop

***

Here’s another option from the prophet Isaiah:

Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me,
and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1-2 (New International Version)

I’ve been thinking about the way we seem to be turning inward. Supposedly protecting ourselves and our own, lest something terrible happens and we’re left high, dry and more vulnerable than ever. But I wonder.

Ironically, the best way to ensure disaster may well be to shut down our hearts and hang onto our assets, however meager they may be.

This isn’t about political parties, racial identity or religious beliefs. It’s about our common humanity. The capacity in each of us that’s capable of welcoming and providing hospitality to strangers. And the capacity to receive this from others.

It isn’t easy. We’re never promised success, safety or survival for ourselves or others. We are, however, promised the satisfaction of receiving and passing on small bits of grace and gratitude. Some of those tiny drought-proof seeds that grow only when they’re given away.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 August 2017
Image found at feelgrafix.com

5 Comments