Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Gratitude

November 11, 2017

I was just a beginner…

I was just a beginner when it happened. In a supposedly safe place. I had a title and stature within an academic community.

From my childhood I’d experienced worse. Regularly. In ways that raised deep shame and self-blame in me. Bad girl.

But this was different. I was an adult. A colleague among adults who were followers of Jesus Christ.

It happened in a crowded hallway between classes. Without a whisper of warning. Just walking to my next class, in conversation with an adult man.

He wasn’t a stranger and he wasn’t my father. He professed to be a supporter of women’s full humanity, and our right to fair and equal access to theological education as students and as professors.

Perhaps he wasn’t thinking? I could give a thousand questions you might have asked me. None would have erased the sudden chill and shame of feeling an uninvited hand patting me on my butt.

I switched my briefcase to my right hand, moved over slightly and kept walking through the hallway as though nothing had happened. Indeed, it never happened again. I maintained my distance, without giving up my friendly demeanor.

My friend touched my body in a way I wouldn’t dream of touching his. It wasn’t a hand on my arm, but my butt. I believed that any attempt to draw attention to this would have made things worse. I felt trapped.

Don’t get me wrong. This is not my big #MeToo story. I’ve already told that in earlier posts—not just about the Shopkeeper, but about my father’s attempts to subdue me, and my first employer’s determination to humiliate me as a young woman just out of high school.

So why tell it? After all, it happened in the blink of an eye.

I’m telling it because we need to attend to the daily impertinences and seemingly small ways in which women, girls, boys and men who aren’t considered manly are reminded of their place and who has power over them.

I’m also telling it because there are millions of everyday people aching to let someone know what happened or is now happening to them. Are we able and willing to listen from our hearts? Without offering solutions or trying to re-write the stories we hear?

Sometimes silence and listening without judgment are the best gifts we give each other. In fact, to listen well is to follow well. The way I imagine Jesus Christ following us and being there when we’re ready for help.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…. (from Psalm 23)

I’m grateful for the women, men, young people and even children who have listened to my story, and shared with me their own experiences. In some ways, this is the table God has set before me in the presence of my enemies—who are more like I am than I could ever guess.

Praying you have a wonderful Sabbath rest.
Elouise ♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 November 2017
Photo found at theanvilnewsletter.blogspot.com
Daily Prompt:Neophyte

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November 8, 2017

shades of dusk

cleansing water sweeps
sands of time with burning gold
dust dropped from heaven

***

I was just looking through some photos, getting ready to shut down for the night, and this haiku happened. I love dusk, when everything holds its breath, and the sky comes close to earth with no sound but waves washing onto the beach. The photo reminds me of my childhood and teenage years in Savannah, Georgia, and the old wooden pier at the Tybee Island Beach–though this one is a bit more substantial.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 November 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com

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October 30, 2017

my small world

Living in a well-kept cave
Hunched over my desk
A mere speck of dust
On the head of a pin
I labor earnestly
To make all right within
And without my small world

Ducking my head
I make my way cautiously
Down narrow stairsteps
Into an underground cellar
Retrieving small bits and pieces
Of frozen life-support
Watching lest I bang my head
On a forgotten metal pipe
Or hefty wooden beam

Sitting at my kitchen table
Shades drawn to shut out the gloom
And chill of approaching winter
I drink to yet another day
Of life within this small abode
Lined with objects of a past
Now haunting my present as I
Dig deep searching for lost pieces
Of a life I once lived now frozen
Within ghostlike reminders

This poem captures a truth about my life. Is it overstated? I hope so. But then again….

Sometimes I use John Baillie’s Diary of Private Prayer for my morning and evening prayers. The language is a bit outdated for my ears, but this line grabbed my attention this morning, leading to the poem above.

Creator Spirit….Forbid that under the low roof of workshop or office of study I should ever forget Thy great overarching sky….

John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, p. 30 (Fireside, 1996 edition)

Thankfully the sun is out today, with fluffy clouds sprinkled here and there. I want to walk this day beneath and within the roof of our Creator’s glorious, overarching sky. Indoors or out, though I’m hoping for outdoors!

Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 30 October 2017
Photo found at carlwozniak.com
Daily Prompt: Fluff; Gratitude

3 Comments
October 27, 2017

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris

It’s the end of a busy week, and we’re hoping to visit Longwood Gardens tomorrow (yay!). One thing that helped me stay focused this week was Mary Oliver’s poem below. My comments follow.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press 2006

Mary Oliver invites me to attend to small things right before my eyes, often at my feet. Pay attention. So much attention that I can’t stop thinking about it/them.

One small thing caught my attention this past week. At first I didn’t see any connections. Or hear any voices speaking into my silence. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

‘It’ is a small, striped-tail chipmunk (ground squirrel) that regularly sits on a cement block wall just along the edge of our backyard driveway. He or she? I don’t know. I do know it’s often sitting or lying on that wall in just the same spot. And has been since the wall was completed several years ago.

Sometimes it runs down the wall and jumps into our pile of yard trimmings, looking for food. When the weather is chilly, it stretches out on top of its favorite cement block and soaks in the sun. Other times it sits there alert, watching for possible intruders.

I think it has a nest inside one of the cement blocks—on the unfinished back side of the wall. Sometimes when I walk by on the way to the garage it quickly races into one of the cement blocks.

Several kinds of hawks frequent our area. I’ve watched them swoop down into our back yard to surprise a large gray squirrel, a slow sparrow or a dove. I’ve also heard our small chipmunk squawking out the alarm, joined by other small backyard creatures. Sometimes the hawks have their way.

We live in unsettled times. It takes determination to focus on simple things that inhabit our lives. Especially when there are hawks out there with their beady eyes scanning the ground for juicy tidbits.

Mary Oliver’s poem invites me to pay attention to the chipmunk. To hear our Creator’s voice speaking through the simple things of life. Not giving up, but staying alert, living each day simply and fully. Which can be a way of saying thank you. Without fancy gestures or heavy words laden with heavy thoughts. This isn’t a contest.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 October 2017
Photo found at Pinterest

9 Comments
October 14, 2017

No, I will not give up!

The mood in our country is ever more divisive, thanks to the old divide and conquer strategy. It seems Mr. Trump is a mastermind at this. Not just at getting us to quarrel with each other, but at maintaining his position as the Man in Charge, trickling glory down or withholding it, at his time and in his way.

My readings in the Psalms this past week were encouraging, yet troubling. They were all about what happens to the wicked. In particular, those whose god has become great wealth, who take delight in the adulation of adoring publics, and who seem to believe God is made in their image and thus on their side.

Mr. Trump, already a follower and lover of great wealth, displays leadership traits that are confusing at best, willfully destructive at worst.

Most troubling is his habit of changing the subject strategically so that it’s not about him, but about someone else or somewhere else or the flag or patriotism or immigrants. It seems his happy moments are fleeting. Never enough to fill the deep hole in his heart.

I serve but one God. Is it possible to do this without confessing my personal failings? Of course not. Nonetheless, I don’t buy the argument that everyone has their weak spots or failings. As though we should give others a free pass, particularly our leaders.

Hebrew and Christian Scriptures have somber warnings to religious and political leaders about the way they govern. This includes strategies such as pitting the strong against the weak, rich against poor, social class against social class, women against men, immigrants against residents. The possibilities are endless.

The strategy of muddying and distorting reality keeps us riled up and at each other’s throats. So distracted that we cannot effectively call out leaders for failure to lead on behalf of everyone. We’re too busy jumping on the us-versus-them bandwagon.

I don’t know how to engage mammoth power. Or perhaps I don’t appreciate the power I do have. Which would be my one brief life, a pen and my prayers.

This feels like less than two small loaves and a small fish. Barely enough for me; not nearly enough for those who gather each day wanting to hear truth and hope. Especially in times of political, social and geographic upheaval.

Being a faithful Christian citizen has rarely felt so heavy. The bottom line is simple: Whom do I serve? And am I ready to do this at any cost? My spirit is willing; my flesh is weak. Which is why I depend on others like you, regardless of your political or religious persuasion.

As a follower of Jesus, I’m in this for the long haul. Today I’m grateful for the company of others learning to live each day without giving up the fight for justice, or hope for today and tomorrow.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 October 2017
Image found at flicker.com/photos/nicola
Daily Prompt: Succumb

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October 2, 2017

A Poem and Reflection on Death

Death haunts the pages
Of our minds and hearts
A shadow reality bearing down
On irreplaceable relationships

Who am I without you?
Where am I to go without you?
How much agony can one soul bear?

Each beginning moves
Ineluctably toward its end
Knowing and not knowing
How the plot will play

Your death becomes my death
Bankrupt dreams and hopes
Why didn’t we see it coming?
As though we were omniscient

I’m left asking myself what must I/we do to be ‘ready’? The question is urgent, and yet…

It’s always too soon, until it’s too late.

Dr. Ira Byock, M.D., quotes this saying in his book The Four Things That Matter Most. The book isn’t just for people facing imminent death of a loved one. It’s for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

The four things are simple and life-changing. They won’t take away the pain of death. They will, however, help the people we leave behind deal with the reality of our absence.

Here they are, four things to say to those you love before it’s too late:

Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Thank you.
I love you.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Especially now, in light of multiple tragedies here and around the world. Death piled on death. Expected and unexpected. Close to home and in our news feeds daily.

Of course there are things that ‘need to be done’ to decrease the kinds of death we’ve witnessed already this year. Yet none of that will prepare me for my death or the deaths of those I love. That’s what’s on my heart this afternoon.

Blessings of peace,
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 October 2017

10 Comments
September 14, 2017

Thorny Matters and a Happy Update | Photos

Maybe I’m crazy to put these two things together, but they are what they are! In a nutshell, it’s all about Longwood Gardens and what’s happening these days.

Yes, we celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary at Longwood Gardens! See D’s gorgeous shot above? Evidence that thorny isn’t always ugly. Even though marriage is sometimes like picking a rose and getting the thorns.

Then there are those flowers you just have to wonder about. Why there? And what’s all that fluffy stuff? I don’t have a clue. Do you?

It feels like I’ve been thinking forever about putting some of my favorite blog posts into an ebook or something like that. Sometimes I feel like a snail that isn’t going anywhere. But here’s evidence that if I wait long enough, the beauty, form and shape might suddenly come clear–in a burst of sunlight in the late afternoon. Yes, it’s a Mexican Century Plant. Can you see the beautiful patterns on the back of the sword-leaves?

On another bright note, sometime over the last weekend, I passed two markers: 1000 posts and 1000 followers! I’ve decided that calls for at least two more walks in the meadow. One right here with you so I can show off more of D’s gorgeous photos from Monday’s visit, and another visit to Longwood before we lose this early fall weather. Here’s the only thorny thistle photo I could find from Monday’s meadow walk.

And here are a few last thorny/spiny beauties from inside the Conservatory.

With many thanks for your visits, likes and dislikes, comments, questions and generosity of time. I never guessed I’d love writing so much. Weird, because as an academic I’ve written all my life. But never like this–from my heart to your hearts, as truthfully as I’m able.

Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 September 2017
Photos taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens, 11 September 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Thorny

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September 4, 2017

fraught labor of love

fraught labor of love
priceless heart wrenching venture
no promise of gain
beyond a nest of birdlings
precious precarious joy

Last week was the first week of school around here. On Friday evening D and I were walking past the grade school near our house. Only one car remained in the faculty parking lot.

A woman carrying a large bag and other take-home items left the building and walked toward the car. She looked a bit weary, though not unhappy. I greeted her and said something about hoping she enjoyed the long holiday weekend.

She smiled, laughed, and said something like this, “You know, I’ve got the best job in the world! It just takes a while to get ready for the next day.”

I couldn’t have related more, told her so, and turned to walk on with D.

On a whim, I turned and asked about her best job in the world. I’d assumed she was an administrator type. I was more than surprised when she replied, all smiles, “I teach kindergarten and I just love it!”

So why was she leaving so late? She’d just finished setting up her classroom for the next day of school!

I love children. And I loved teaching adults. I would not, however, be the best mama or papa bird to deal with an overcrowded nest of small, vulnerable, hungry, eager, noisy, precious birdlings.

So here’s to a Happy Labor Day! Especially for all educators who love caring for and about our children.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 September 2017
Photo found at animal.memozee.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompts: Priceless; Educate

7 Comments
August 22, 2017

A Special Day

~~~Mom hugging a happy tree in Hoyt Arboretum, Portland, Oregon 2012

Today is our son’s birthday. I won’t say which birthday, except that it’s one year from being one of those Very Big 0-Years!

The photo above is in honor of our son Scott. I owe much of my current adventuresome spirit to him. No, he isn’t a tree hugger, but he’s definitely an outdoorsy guy. Always on the lookout with his nature-loving, camera-toting family for new or rare birds, small and large animals, adventure and excitement, the thrill of the hunt and pushing the limits. Anywhere, anytime.

A good balance, I think, for his almost-but-not-quite nerdy love of computers and all things connected with computer languages, information technology, and whatever it takes to make huge data systems work for the good of humanity. Especially in the areas of medical data and devices.

I honor him for his lifelong pursuit of happiness, sanity and serenity. He’s gifted with a mind that works quickly, efficiently, and intently on problem-solving. A great gift. But the greater gift is his ability to get along with just about anyone he meets. Friend, stranger, it doesn’t matter. He’s a consummate people-person, a faithful mentor and a devoted if sometimes over-the-top Dad and husband.

Yesterday, as I was about to take off for my restless walk, he called. Just to ask how I was doing. Needless to say, a heart to heart conversation followed. Of all the things I might wish for in a son, his interest in me and in D and how each of us is doing means far more than his exciting adventures or accomplishments.

And lest I forget, he loves music. My kind as well as his kind. Which moves him immediately to the top of my Favorite Son List!

Here he is, about one week old, just waking up, yawning and getting ready to exercise his considerably strong lungs.

Happy birthday, Scott, from Mom! ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 August 2017
Photos taken by DAFraser, Fall 2012 and August 1968

27 Comments
August 9, 2017

Happy Happy Happy!

This afternoon I’m happy and relieved. D and I took off right after breakfast to drive to Longwood Gardens. The weather was picture perfect.

Why so happy? Because this was my first attempt at (slow!) hiking in the meadow since before I broke my jaw and lost all my energy. I was hesitant about doing it, but decided I’d never know until I tried. Here’s a lightning quick look.

Butterflies, bees and dragonflies were out in droves
on this side of the meadow.
We walked to the top, sat in the shade a bit,
then returned and exited via the forest path.


Next we walked over to the café for a little lunch. I had a mildly spicy vegetarian chili and a cup of fresh fruit. D settled for a turkey sandwich. Then we walked through part of the conservatory, did a short visit to the flower walk, and headed home.

Good health news: Yesterday I saw my Lucy (pacemaker) cardiologist and his wonderful assistant who makes sure Lucy is working properly. She’s doing an outstanding job, I’m happy to say!

I’m eager to try a few more external activities, in addition to daily walks here in our neighborhood. No big social events, just lovely strolls outside that let nature do its work renewing me for whatever comes next.

Cheers!
Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 August 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, 9 August 2017, Longwood Gardens Meadow
Response (sort of) to WordPress Daily Prompt: Spicy

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