For the last several weeks I’ve been preoccupied with my health. Especially with the results of several blood tests. I’ve been anxious and fearful about various diseases, dreading a kind of darkness that hovers just off-stage, Read the rest of this entry »
Renich Reunion 7/20/1958 – picture taken at Athletic Park, Newton, Kansas
All my cousins? Nope! There were 30 first cousins at this first-ever Renich family reunion in July 1958. If I’m counting right, we’re all there in the picture. That includes one babe in arms–back row, third from the left. Our newest edition was born only 12 days before the reunion. The grand total, Read the rest of this entry »
1949-51 Nash Ambassador – similar to ours
It’s nearly midnight in July 1958. I’m 14 1/2 years old. We’ve been on the road from Savannah, Georgia, driving to the first-ever family reunion on my father’s side. Read the rest of this entry »
Today has been almost as surrealistic as the dream I had just before I woke up this morning. I’m still unsettled, and have no great insight yet about it. I recorded the dream this morning. Looking back, it seems to mirror my wandering through this strange day of interruptions.
I’m wide awake lost in a maze of hallways
filled with small shops and out-of-sight Read the rest of this entry »
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 Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday we had lunch with new-found friends who attended the Bible College at about the same time we did—in the 1960s. It’s always delicious to find BCers who ‘get it.’ Folks who understand the somewhat wacky, in-house culture of that institution in particular. Read the rest of this entry »
Neighbor, Diane and Sister #4, Summer 1958
Many of you know that Diane, my Sister #3, lived with ALS for ten years before her death in 2006. I’ve already completed a series of Dear Diane letters as part of this blog. I did it because I was starving for sisterly conversation. The kind not allowed in our house with four daughters and no brothers.
I’ve missed that interaction with Diane, and have wondered how to fill the void. I believe her voice is important. She has a strong and somewhat different angle on Telling the Truth.
Near the end of her life, Diane gave me access to most of her writing. I haven’t begun to uncover all the gems—and may never be able to do that.
However, along with her writing, she gave me a set of cassette tapes. You know. The old-fashioned kind.
The tapes were recorded at her church every Sunday. On several Sundays, when the pastor was away, Diane was the minister for the day. That meant she welcomed people, gave the pastoral prayer, and, most fun for her, gave the children’s sermon. At her church they called it ‘Down Front Time.’
The church is large and well-attended. Their sanctuary has a semi-circular seating area. The large, curving platform holds the choir, organ and piano, and seating for ministers and the pastor, with plenty of room to spare. Steps curve from one end of the platform to the other.
When children are invited to Down Front Time, they come and sit with the pastor or minister on the platform steps. Whoever leads Down Front Time always has a bag. The children know there’s a mysterious object in the bag–the key to the topic for the day. There’s also a bit of friendly banter, sometimes for the benefit of adult children in the congregation.
I transcribed most of Diane’s Down Front Times a few years ago, but haven’t been sure how I might feature them. I’ve decided to make use of them via excerpts that get to the heart of each children’s sermon. Possibly one a week as I did with her Word for the Ones I Love.
Diane loved children and they loved her. Her quirky sense of humor and down-to-earth approach to life pulled them right in, along with all the adults listening in.
From this distance, what catches my attention most is that Diane is talking to herself, not just to the children. She’s doing her own spiritual formation work in front of them—with the simplest or strangest of objects. Yet the content isn’t simple or strange. It’s the content of life—all the things that matter most, reframed and restated for young children.
I want to be a young child listening to her along with you. So look for this soon. I’m already working on the first of her Down Front Times.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 July 2015
Photo credit: JERenich, Summer 1958, Savannah, GA
~~~Seven months pregnant, June 1968
I’m pregnant! Also self-conscious, excited, apprehensive, disbelieving, elated and more.
There’s no denying it: D and I have been ‘doing it’! Doing it?
I’ll never forget a conversation with my 18-year old daughter. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 