It happened overnight
Small bits of snowy white
Floating from heaven
Kissed this earth to sleep
Without wild winds
Or drifting piles
It spread its glowing comforter
Then tiptoed off to bed
***
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 Jan 2017
Image found at wallpapersafari.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Float
Crossings….
The word resonates with finality
Hints of danger and uncertainty
Sorrow and desperation
Weary clothes and
Hungry faces
One foot in front of the other
Backs burdened with life’s necessities
Bodies and bellies heavy
With tomorrow’s children
Silently pleading
They say our world is disappearing
Melting and boiling away before our eyes
Erupting into a chaotic crisis
Unknown in modern times
Are we ready for this crossing?
I can’t help wondering what lies ahead for this world and for us as citizens of this world. Our insular, isolated, boundaried ways of life don’t work well anymore, and our ways of governing seem to have reached their own point of no return.
Years ago I crossed a line of no return. I chose to be a follower of Jesus Christ. I don’t believe there’s a magic wand answer for any of this world’s upheavals. Yet I do believe we see a direction in the life, ministry and death of Jesus Christ. Not the superstar, but the human being sent to this earth to live and to die as one of us and as God’s beloved son.
Jesus made a crossing of no return when he came to live with and among us. He wasn’t president, emperor or chief. Nor was he a privileged member of the religious or political elite, or a child of God immune to human emotions and agony.
His life was short. Yet in his short life I find a direction that hasn’t changed even with our current global upheavals. Taking my cues from Jesus, I’m to love God, my neighbors and myself. Acknowledge my human limitations and need for others. Be ready to accept and offer hospitality from and to strangers. Bear the cost and share the compassion of being a follower of Jesus Christ.
Do I feel strong? Rarely. Do I feel ready? Rarely. Do I feel like giving up? Sometimes. Yet the steady, courageous, compassionate and steel-eyed clarity I see in narratives about Jesus’ life on this earth remains my True North. The one point on my compass that won’t change no matter what it takes to get from here to there.
What does this look like day by day? It’s all in my outlook. Each encounter might become an opportunity to ask for help or to offer help as I’m able and ready to identify myself as a follower of Jesus Christ. Most important, I’m not a savior. I’m another human being who won’t make it in this life on her own.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 January 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Crossing
shimmering hope sprung
eons ago lies dormant
frozen underfoot
trampled beneath scornful words
it wonders and waits
***
A little poem for you, my friends,
with prayers for a Meaningful New Year of growth,
unexpected beauty, strength of character,
and creative resourcefulness when things don’t go exactly as planned!
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 31 December 2016
Photo credit: DAFraser, July 2016
Kinderdijk, South Holland – wild flowers beside the river path
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Hopeful
I loathe this word I don’t want to say
Nothing about it attracts me
Or suggests anything to say about it
Much less use it in a sentence
My abhorrence lies in its power
To bring images to mind —
Images that compound this world’s evil
Leaving no peace for victims
Yet one image alone gives me hope
It’s stronger than these robbers —
The image of Jesus Christ
Whose birth we just recognized
I imagine JC—not the Superstar
And not Jesus meek and mild
Rather, JC storming the bastions of hell
Within and without
Cleaning out the stench of our stables
Knocking relentlessly on our doors
Anointing our scars and wounds
With oil of healing and compassion
JC turns pillaging on its head
Inside out and upside down
Not with the flick of a magic wand
But in his life of full allegiance
To the One who sent him to our aid —
Victims and perpetrators alike
How can we not welcome his appearance?
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 December 2016
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Pillage
~~~Eastern Hemlock and White Pine, Tiadaghton State Forest, Pennsylvania
No applause and no honors
Just the ignominious grinding
Of metal on wood
The thud of heavy bodies
Hitting the ground
Two old warriors
Honor intact
Upright as ever
Hospitable and welcoming
Home for the homeless
Food for the penniless
Grubs for the grubbers
Free and plentiful
Now deemed dangerous
Too unpredictable to ignore
Lest they do irreparable harm
Not of their own choice
This morning at 8am sharp the execution squad arrived. No ovations for them, be they ever so skillful. They came to take down two loyal friends who stood by me day and night for decades. Quietly and gracefully they shared their beauty, their shady branches and their contribution to the ecology of my life.
Their health, despite insect attacks, became their downfall. Too tall, too massive and too dangerous to stand between neighboring houses. And yet…home to squirrels, any number of small native and migrating birds combing their trunks for insects, and their branches for cone seeds. Eastern (Pennsylvania) Hemlocks.
I didn’t keep count of how often I woke up to a catbird, cardinal or wren perched on a limb just outside my bedroom window, singing a morning song. Or squirrels chasing each other up and down their trunks, chattering incessantly. Or the times I was up in the night during windstorms, watching their branches swaying to and fro, huge trunks tilting with the wind—dancing in it, unafraid.
I gave my towering friends a small ovation this morning—even though they were about to be taken down. I’m not a card-carrying tree hugger, but I have hugged trees in my lifetime. Large trees just like these. The kind that never get replaced in a lifetime.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 December 2016
Photo found at wickipedia.org
Response to WordPress Prompt: Ovation
gray overwhelms
dreary drab
shades of life
without color
body aches
tears pile up
unable to retreat
one more day
one more year
lost forever
bar clanks shut
on doors creaking
weighted down
heavy chapters
in a book
never written
***
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 December 2016
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Retreat
Rita!
Last June I was newly freed of jaw wires, scraping the bottom of my barrel called Energy, frantic to stop my weight loss.
I’m not normally a quick convert to programs described in NYTimes Bestseller Books. But this time I was out of solutions. So I cast myself upon simple yet stringent requirements for Turning My Life Around, as prescribed in one of those NYT BBs.
Every morning, without fail, follow this simple discipline. Read the rest of this entry »
Annie Wright Schools Kindergarten — Tacoma, Washington in the 1940s
It’s 1948. I’m in kindergarten in El Monte, California. I love kindergarten. I love my kindergarten teacher. I adore rest time!
The routine is always the same. Rain or shine. At the appointed time, each of us picks out a brightly painted plank of wood – blue, green, red or yellow.
I carry my red plank to the middle of the room, find a little space between classmates, put the plank on the hardwood floor, and lie down on my back, on my make-believe bed.
I also shut my mouth and close my eyes. Until it’s perfectly silent, my kindergarten teacher won’t begin the fun part. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 