Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Category: Spiritual Formation

August 30, 2017

Besotted with Strangers?

Wandering from our roots
We forget the manner of our lives
Those who took us in
When we were strangers
To ourselves and others

We drown in a wilderness
Of our calculated making
Locking doors and barring windows
Buying and carrying weapons
Determined to remain standing

Waves of anger and cries for mercy
Go unheeded in this dry land
Now inundated with people
Desperate for affirmation
A threat to our ways of life

I wonder. Is it time to become besotted with Strangers?

Perhaps we could begin with the Strangers we’ve become to ourselves and others. We might even use Strangerhood as the defining description of our ‘neighborhoods’ including towns, governing bodies, reservations, prisons, churches, schools, businesses, families and cities.

A childhood Christmas carol came to mind this morning. It celebrates a dear little stranger born in a manger. The Christ child. Helpless, unknown, without rank or title, an at-risk baby, poor in wealth and status.

At every turn he welcomed and received strangers into his life. Including religious leaders who often sought to entrap him, officials and citizens who criminalized him, and his motley crew of fearful disciples who abandoned him at the end.

We aren’t the Christ child. We can, however, ask for grace and courage to reflect the truth of his life. Not for our own health and wealth, but because it offers a way to become neighbors to ourselves and others. Especially those we now see as strangers in ‘our’ land, or strangers to ‘our’ way of life or beliefs or political alignments.

Every human disaster is a reminder that we need each other. Especially those others who threaten or disrupt our tidy ways of seeing ourselves and them.

Your thoughts and comments are most welcome. Thanks for listening!
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 30 August 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Enamored

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August 26, 2017

Emily Dickinson meets Mary Oliver

Last year a friend gave me a volume of poems by Mary Oliver. It’s safe to say I’m as mesmerized by Mary’s poetry as I am by Emily’s. Both are keen observers of nature, both external nature and human nature.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

For the last few weeks I’ve been tantalized by a small poem of Emily’s. Cryptic as always, but not totally mysterious. Even so, I’ve wondered what to say about it. Then a few weeks ago I was reading Mary’s poems and was caught by a stanza in one of her longer poems.

First, Emily Dickinson’s poem:

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie –
True Poems flee –

c. 1879

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

Now the third stanza of Mary Oliver’s poem:

The deer came into the field.
I saw her peaceful face and heard the shuffle of her breath.
She was sweetened by merriment and not afraid,
but bold to say
whose field she was crossing: spoke the tap of her foot:
“It is God’s, and mine.”

But only that she was born into the poem that God made, and
called the world.

Mary Oliver, Thirst, stanza 3 from “More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord,” Beacon Press 2006

Mary’s words helped me think about Emily’s poem. So here’s what I’m suggesting as one way to interpret them together.

  • No mortal words of poetry will ever do justice to this world, God’s poem. Nor do we understand ourselves unless we give up all efforts to capture in our words the reality of what God created and invited us to inhabit as caretakers. We can look and point; we cannot replicate.
  • Furthermore, no poetic words of ours will ever improve upon God’s great poem. Still, as humans we’re at our best when we reflect in our lives the grandeur of  creation.
  • Surely the summer sky, the deer, and all parts of God’s creation are dignified not because of what each does, understands or even writes in flowing poetry. Rather, we owe our dignity to being part of “the poem that God made, and called the world.”

Have a wonderful Sabbath rest.
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 August 2017
Image found at smartpress.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Dignify

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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 24, 2017

A Gift from Maya Angelou

This morning I woke up with one of Maya Angelou’s poems on my mind. She wrote it for Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration in 1993. She could have written it for today. It’s nearly 6 minutes long, well worth every second. There’s a link below to a printed version of the entire poem.

Why this poem? Because of the last lines. They grabbed my gut when I first heard them. Her words took me back just two years earlier. We were deep into planned conversations at the seminary where I was then on the faculty. In addition to Rodney King being on our minds, we’d had our own share of distressing racially charged incidents. Feelings were running high.

We were placed into small groups and given a set of questions to guide conversation. We met several times in mixed groups, with student, staff and faculty involvement throughout.

I’ll never forget a black student’s comments to me. I’d asked for examples of times when black students felt ignored, unwelcome or uncomfortable. At that time the seminary had at least 35% black African-American students. His response stunned me.

He said that when he passed me in the hallways I never looked him in the eye or greeted him. It didn’t matter where I was going or what I was doing. It didn’t matter that I’d never had him in a class. He felt unwelcome and unacknowledged as a human being.

He wasn’t angry. He felt offended, and put on guard. Not looking him in the eye, not even saying ‘Good Morning’ or ‘How’s it  going today?’ was, for him, a signal that he didn’t count in my world. Or worse, I thought he wasn’t worth getting to know.

Such a ‘simple’ thing. It was hard for me to hear, yet right on the money. I agreed to try this out for several days. Not just with him, but with other students as well.

The first few days were tough. I discovered I was especially reluctant to greet male students of any color. A sign of fear, especially around black men, and fear of sending mixed messages or worse. At the same time, it was a lesson I’ve never forgotten.

Here’s the very last stanza of Maya Angelou’s poem, “On the Pulse of Morning.” You can see why it caught my heart.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister’s eyes, into
Your brother’s face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 24 August 2017
Video of live reading found on YouTube

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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

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August 17, 2017

White Privilege Unfurled

On the day I was born, I received unearned privileges not available to everyone. Equally true, my life has been difficult because of unearned privileges available to men but not to me.

I was born White and Female. This complicates everything: gender and race; gender and politics; gender and academia; gender and the church; gender and role expectations; gender and power; gender and social events. Sometimes I’m welcomed with open arms even though I often experience something less than full welcome into the fold of privilege.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about white male privilege. I’ve spent considerably less time thinking about my white privilege. It’s easy to say I was born white, so it isn’t my fault. Which, of course, it is not.

Yet I know I’ve been the recipient of privileges friends and strangers of color do not receive. Many privileges are invisible to me. They’re the climate in which I live. I don’t need to think about them when I get up in the morning, or when I appear in a check-out line. More to the point, I count on them daily.

Today the USA is roiling, internally and externally, from a wound that has festered from the beginning. The assumption and reality of white privilege.

Here’s what I’m doing to clarify for myself what my white privilege looks like. Not yours. For me, this includes awareness of male privilege. Sometimes white male privilege only; sometimes all males.

For starters, I’ve located a website offering free material as well as formal leadership training (not free). I found two downloadable papers that will help me personally. Not simply with self-understanding, but with ideas about how I might change my daily habits as well as personal assumptions and goals.

Dr. Peggy McIntosh is the author of the papers and founder of The National SEED Project. In each paper she describes unpacking her own privilege. The papers include end notes in which she clarifies issues that arise when people begin to talk about privilege.

If you’re interested in knowing more, here are links to the website and two free downloadable papers.

Happy reading!
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 August 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Unfurl

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Video | August 16, 2017

Thank you, Louis Armstrong….

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong, for recording this amazing song, first released as a single 60 years ago today. Your smooth and grainy, gravelly voice is an inspiration. The seniors among us remember what it was like in the USA in 1967.

  • Viet Nam war drags on with no end in sight
  • About 2500 mothers of drafted soldiers storm the Pentagon, demand a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara
  • LBJ doubles down–determined not to ‘lose’ this war
  • Edward W. Brooke, Attorney General of Massachusetts, seated in the US Senate as the first elected Negro Senator in 85 years
  • Muhammed Ali refuses to be drafted into the Viet Nam war, is stripped of his world heavyweight boxing championship
  • Anti-war protests break out across the United States
  • Blood poured on draft records by a Roman Catholic priest and two companions
  • California Governor Ronald Reagan suggests that LBJ ‘leak’ the possibility of nuclear weapons being used
  • Stokely Carmichael calls for a black revolution in the US, using skills “they taught us” in Viet Nam
  • Thurgood Marshall confirmed by Senate as first black on the Supreme Court, opposed by one Republican–Strom Thurmond of South Carolina

I know you didn’t write this song yourself. Yet you chose to record it during a difficult time in our history. Perhaps because of the chaos, you wanted to shine a light on the simple gifts and beauty of this world, and on everyday life with our neighbors. I need this as much today as I did back then.

With admiration and gratitude,
Elouise ♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 16 August 2017
BBC video found on YouTube; pop ballad written by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss 
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Grainy

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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

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