Daily Prompt | Telling the Truth

January 27, 2017

Dear God | Unfiltered

I wrote this last night, and am letting it go in this post as my next small step in this Trump presidency era. I’ve changed nothing, and have added one small explanatory note about one of the words I use. Even though you may not be a Christian or agree with me about our situation, please read it. It’s to God, and it’s also from my heart to your heart.

Dear God,
I don’t know where or how to start praying for our country or myself or my family and friends or our supposed leader. I feel at a loss.

I think most of all I want to affirm over and over that You are my Leader. My One and Only Leader who made each of us and this world that seems to be falling apart. You are my eyes, my ears, my mouth. I know this isn’t true of me now, but I want to see, listen and speak in ways that honor you as my Most High God. The only One to whom I owe total allegiance. I read that focusing on You is the best way to deal with what’s going on all around me right now. I’m not sure how that works, but I’d rather look to You than to anyone else right now.

I don’t feel abandoned. I do feel uneasy, uncertain, somewhat caught off guard—even though the warning signs were all there. Mr. Trump is not a trustworthy leader, yet I’m supposed to pray for him and for the good of our nation. Well, I’m not sure what that would look like, so I’m not sure how to pray in that way.

If I could say You’re on my side (and against others), that might feel a bit easier. But You’re for everyone, though not without discrimination* regarding our hearts. So tonight I just want to bring you my heart for safekeeping while I sleep. I pray that I’ll be honest and unblinking about reality, without becoming cynical or giving up. Or even making it all about how awful DT is.

DT does not define reality. You do. Your eyes see with utmost clarity all things. I can only count on that, though I wish I could experience it. So in this strange reality that doesn’t feel like reality at all, I pray that I’ll remain faithful to you and to my family and to the people you bring into my life. We’re all lost and weary and confused. Devious and proud. In many ways, DT is a larger than life version of each of us in these difficult and even shocking days.

What good can come of this? I don’t know. I’m putting it in front of You, though, because You see all and know all before it ever comes to pass.

Thy kingdom come—on earth as it is in heaven. Give me grace, strength and boldness to follow Your son Jesus who has gone before us to show us the way. Not the correct way, but the way to worship and honor You above all others. No matter what the cost.

I pray that You will clarify for me, or lead me to next steps I can take to be Your faithful beloved daughter child. A clear and listening witness to these troubled times.

I pray in Jesus’ name,
Amen

*Discrimination: recognition and understanding of differences – a good thing, in this context

*****

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 January 2017
Written in my journal before going to bed on Thursday, Jan. 27, 2017
My contribution to today’s WordPress Daily Prompt: Filter

21 Comments

January 25, 2017

When I was only 10

1953

When I was only 10
My world was just a little space
My news was measured
by events mundane
yet looming large
Upon the canvas of my life
Not yet in focus

First bra
First period
Third sister born
Dishes to wash
Clothes to iron
Floors to vacuum
Free of charge

The world crept in
A constant threat
Somewhat removed
Yet never dead
Beware lip paint!
Hide those boobs!
Watch out for men!
It never ends

At home as well as overseas
The world to come
arrived in headlines
One by one

Score one for Jonas Salk polio vaccine!
Score one for I like Ike and Mamie
and Queen Elizabeth II!
Score one for 200 North Korean POWs
freed from Koje Island!
Score none for stern McCarthyism
or truth or trust or justice
Goodbye Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Goodbye Stalin; Hello Khrushchev
Goodbye US monopoly
On the hydrogen bomb

But all is not yet lost!
Score one for urban flight
trickling first from NYC
Best booming business opportunity
They’ll all need houses,
cars, garages and don’t forget TVs!
Score one for schools and ad campaigns
For stars of stage and movie screens
Competing for our $Loyalty

You pay
We take
And you will see
how much more joyful
Life can be!

Trust me!
Would I lie?
We’re going to be great again!
No, make that the greatest!
All hail the mighty dollar!
All seen, alas, in retrospect….

13 Comments

January 23, 2017

Shrink not from pain

shrink not from pain
nor overlook it–
truth lies within

***

a proverb for today
generated in my mind
while on a therapy table
pondering realities
aligned for consideration
tutors for tomorrow

***

Today I temporarily ended 4 months of physical therapy for my broken jaw. I graduated – sort of! I’ll miss the moist heat wrap placed around my neck and jaw for 15 or 20 minutes right when I get there. Just picture me lying there on my back, pillows beneath my head and a wedge under my knees, totally relaxed. Heavenly!

The proverb-like haiku at the top came to mind this morning while I was basking in the heat wrap. I was thinking about the past year. Especially my broken jaw experience and the pain of the presidential race and transition.

I shared the haiku with my gifted therapist. She was back from the Washington, DC Women’s March, so I got her first-hand impressions. Fabulous. I felt sad I wasn’t there, but delighted she walked 12 miles on Saturday and I did not!

Though pain isn’t the major theme of my life, it’s a minor theme. Not to be dismissed or ignored.

Truth and pain are strangely intermingled. I don’t want to miss the truth about myself and my situation that may be revealed in this presidential transition. There’s an opportunity here if I’m willing to listen to it, explore it, and learn to live into it instead of hoping this will all be a dream that ‘flies forgotten at the break of day.’

It’s easy for me to see how others need to change. I wonder how I need to change, given all that has come to stay.

12 Comments

January 20, 2017

Exposed

Several days ago, just for fun, I posted a small poem and a photo. I loved finding the photo prompt, making a connection right away, and then putting together a small poem about what I saw. I felt happy about it.

After I published it, I went visiting other bloggers to see what they were writing about. As it happened, several posts I read were top-notch. Way beyond my own small post that was ‘just for fun.’

Bummer! It didn’t take long. The more I read other posts, the smaller I felt. Inadequate and virtually voiceless. I even thought about taking my post down.

That evening I wrote about all this in my journal. Here’s the paragraph that best describes how I felt.

Right now I feel hot and bothered, a bit chagrined, small, less than an average writer, even embarrassed, as though I wasted my time with this piece of writing. Even though it gave me joy to do it! I think I’m weighing myself against other writers. They seem to have more finesse, deeper ideas, more winsome ways in their writings, more responses to what they post, better ideas and even more fun in life even if I don’t want to live their lives.

I wrote on, trying to sort this out. Near the end, I started coming to terms with myself. Here’s a key paragraph.

I want to let my heart speak to other hearts. Yet right now I seem to want my heart to make them happy—so they’ll come back for another happiness pill? I don’t know. We do seem to be a culture driven by expectations of happiness—meaning that somewhere out there today I’ll find something to make my day—something to make me happy—something to help me feel alive and worthwhile.

I don’t pretend to be an accurate observer of our current culture. What I say may be wrong of most people ‘out there.’ It was not, however, wrong about me on that particular day. I was driven by my need to feel happy. I was looking for “something to help me feel alive and worthwhile.” Not in someone else’s writing, but in my own. Which I did–for a very short time.

Why did my initial joy vanish so quickly? Perhaps I lost my confidence? I don’t think so….

I am, however, sure of this.

My experience after posting my poem exposed something in me that I don’t like. I say it often enough: Comparison is the source of all discontent. I say it because I don’t want it to be true of me. Sometimes it isn’t. But on that day, it described me with painful precision.

Thanks for listening!
Elouise ♥

15 Comments

January 18, 2017

Beautiful Leaders

I love beauty. I have a sense of proportionality and space. Depth and lighting. I also believe lives can be beautiful. Not perfect, but beautiful. With a sense of proportionality and space. Depth and lighting. Especially, but not only, over a longer time.

Today is Wednesday. It’s only two days before it happens–the event so many thought would never happen. Mr. Trump will take the oath of office and become President of the United States of America.

As noted in The Rift, we are not united. Not even against a common enemy, much less around a respected if not universally well-liked leader.

Part of me wants to scream. Another part wants to run and hide. Yet another wants to move to another country. And where would that be? I haven’t a clue. I just know this event in two days will be the beginning.

Of what? I haven’t a clue. Nor am I ready to say I’m giving Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt. I’ve already seen and heard a great deal over a lengthy, protracted, wearying presidential race. Or was it a slog?

Whatever it was, it gave me enough input to squelch any idea that two days from now we will somehow turn a page and start writing a brand new book.

Will it have proportionality? What kind? When I skim through the chapters will I find depth and beauty? Will there be a sense of proportional justice, opportunity and access for each and every one of us?

I’m not naïve. I don’t look for perfection. I do, however, look for patterns of attitude, behavior, speech and yes, facial expressions. Also for concrete signs of empathy joined with rigorous attempts to name and address major rifts that run through our nation and our global community.

In short, I look for Beauty. The kind that’s found in leaders who know how to be human, humane, thoughtful, unthreatened by facts or other opinions, clear, honest, perspicacious and humble. The kind who don’t like to take the spotlight because they’re busy turning the spotlight on all the people who helped them succeed.

I don’t put my trust in Mr. Trump. Nor do I hope for Someone Out There who will appear suddenly and save us all from our worst fears.

I do, however, hope and pray daily for each of us. I pray that we will become Beautiful Leaders within our own small circles of family, friends and coworkers. Furthermore, I’m challenging myself and you to step up and show up no matter what happens next. As the beautiful person you are in God’s eyes.

4 Comments

January 17, 2017

Winter Palace

ice-formations-wisconsin-dells-wi

Huddled ranks
Soar toward heaven
Stand guard
in ice-plumed headdress
before spiked doorway
Distant turrets beckon
Enter
if you dare

***

My first thought when I saw this photo was Narnia, under the spell of the Wicked Witch — who, of course, was eager to entice at least one vulnerable earth boy to her icy palace, deep within her icy world. Have you read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis? If not, get hooked and read the entire series. At least twice! Enter, if you dare….

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 January 2017
Photo of ice formations taken by walcek on 16 Jan 2017
in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, USA
Photo found on the Weather Underground App

Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Invitation

6 Comments

January 14, 2017

Breath of God Unseen

wind-sculpted-drifts-martin-nd-13-jan-2017

Breath of God
Unseen
Artist of my heart
And life
Breathe on me

The wind is cold
Unyielding
To my vain cries
For mercy
Breathe on me

Evening shadows
Lengthen
In fading light
Brilliant
and foreboding

Deep blue sky
Darkens
Trees bend and sway
Breath of God
Breathe on me

It’s late afternoon. This morning I woke to this photo on my weather page. I thought immediately about my life and the way God’s Spirit has blown through and around it, unseen and unbidden.

Looking back, I’d say the outcomes today are beyond my wildest dreams. Not that I’m perfect or successful or even ‘special.’ Rather, this is about contentment.

I’m at peace with myself, though not always with situations in which I find myself. Or even with my behavior. Nonetheless, things have changed in my spirit over the last several years.

Today I have compassion for myself as a child, as a young teenager, as a wife, mother and grandmother, and as a retired professional. I rarely struggle with feeling like a fraud, or with harsh self-talk that belittles me or accuses me of being The Problem with Everything.

I’m not saying I’m perfect. I’m saying I’m at rest with who I am and who I am not. Especially from the inside out. The part that really matters.

I like what I see when I think of myself as a huge pile of snow, sculpted by God’s Spirit through winds of change. I know, things aren’t exactly spectacular in the world right now. It’s just that today I’m at peace with myself.

Thanks for reading! I pray you’ll have a peace-filled Sabbath rest.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 January 2017
Photo taken by Brian Bender at Martin, North Dakota, USA, 13 Jan 2017
Found at Weather Underground App

Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Unseen

26 Comments

January 12, 2017

My someday list

My someday list
Of dreams come true
Spreads heavy with its weight
Of years across my life
So many yet so few

What now I wonder wistfully,
Is this what yet remains —
The scattered remnants here and there
Of life and love and mountains scaled
Now fading from my view?

Someday is now my yesterday
Of dreams no longer bright –
The muddled brilliant afterglow
Of memories tucked away in scraps
Sweet pangs of love and life and death

8 Comments

January 10, 2017

The Rift

It isn’t new. It’s older than our nation. It dogs us like the monster it is. Yet we say we don’t see it, or things have gotten better, or it’s the way things were meant to be.

The rift is bolder and more brazen today than at any time in my lifetime. It runs like a fault line beneath everything we say, do, feel and think about in our relationships with each other.

It isn’t the only fault line. And, as I said at the top, it isn’t new. It’s simply in our faces—even though many seem not to see it.

Not seeing it is part of the problem. Sometimes people say to me, ‘Oh—I don’t see gender any more. I just see people!’ How odd.

But this rift isn’t about gender. It’s about something that affects each of us in this country. It doesn’t matter which gender we’re born into, or whether we seek to change our gender or not.

I hear it often these days: ‘Oh—I don’t see color anymore. I’m color-blind!’ As though being blind were the solution. Or even making black or brown one ‘color’ among all the rest.

In this country we have an ill-kept secret. We are racist to the core. I am racist to the core. This is true even though we have varying degrees of consciousness and commitment to rectifying injustices perpetrated on our black neighbors and fellow-citizens.

It didn’t happen yesterday. It happened the moment we began building our nation on the backs of slave labor. Yes, we’ve used white slave labor also, and are still addicted to that. Witness our below-living standard wages in many states and businesses.

But the case of imported slave labor has its own history—which is foundational to our nation’s history. It includes what’s happening today in our school systems, prisons, courts and neighborhoods.

It’s no longer enough to say ‘I’m against racism.’ Or ‘this company, university, state, nation or political party is against racism in all its forms.’

The question is more basic than that: Are we committed in our homes and in our places of business to dismantling racism? Are we engaging our brothers and sisters in conversation, letting them lead us to take strategic action together to replace policies and procedures that enable racism?

This is personal and institutional work. Not an overnight fix, or an easy answer to a survey question. It asks us to stand up and be counted on the side of dismantling racism—not just saying we’re ‘antiracist.’

Eloquent statements or sermons, and ever-so-large protests aren’t working. We seem to be at a stalemate.

In fact, we seem to be going backwards. We’ve developed and largely accepted a devious approach to being color-blind. We lock people up in prisons, restrict them to certain parts of our cities, towns, businesses and school systems, and lower the impact of their votes in state and national elections.

Out of sight, out of mind? An increasingly uneven playing field? This isn’t a proud legacy. It’s a judgment and a strategy against all of us.

8 Comments

January 9, 2017

Shine on!

this-little-light-of-mine-2

Do you remember this old song? It went on forever.

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine! ….
Shine all over the neighborhood; I’m gonna let it shine! ….
Shine all over the whole wide world; I’m gonna let it shine! ….
Don’t let Satan blow it out; I’m gonna let it shine! ….
Let it shine ‘til Jesus comes; I’m gonna let it shine! ….

Here, brother
Here, sister
Here’s a little light
Just for you
From me

Who are you?
What do you want?
Did I ask for your help?
Why should I trust you?
Why are you doing this?

Why indeed.

Our little childhood song made it all sound easy. Just shine your little light, Elouise! Small deeds of kindness and compassion. That’s all it takes. Just get out there with your little light and Shine On. Make a difference!

I laugh now—though it isn’t funny at all. In seminary we regularly reminded each other that we weren’t put on this earth as little messiahs. As though we’re sent to make all things new or solve every problem and climb every mountain.

No, we’re mere human beings. Quite wonderful, actually. Just like everyone else. Needy, limited, proud, hungry, beautiful, happy, angry, outraged, duped, out of touch and in denial. Plus a whole lot more.

I’m not against shining our little lights. In fact, I believe it’s the only way we can together make a difference. But there’s the rub.

What does ‘together’ mean? My little childhood song was heavy on each of us doing his or her thing. This usually meant obeying our parents, being nice to people who didn’t treat us nicely, and being sure to tell people about Jesus.

The song also seemed to suggest I should already know what to do when, and would be able to carry it out. Well…not only do I not know what’s best for other people, I often freeze in my boots when it comes to actually doing something.

Hence the need for togetherness. The kind many have experienced in successful 12-step programs. This means meeting regularly with like-minded people, radical surrender to a higher power, and unblinking willingness to face our shortcomings and failures and try again.

No miracles guaranteed. But I’m a witness to the power this way of life has to bring people together. Especially those of us who’ve tried to go it alone and failed, or who live in fear that we’ll be exposed for the failures we believe we are.

Why shine on? Because it lets someone know that you’re there for them, if only for a moment. It also acknowledges your need for others in your life. Not as decorations, but as welcome travel companions—if only for a moment.

That’s what today’s word brought to my mind. That, and the ways you shine in my life.

11 Comments

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