Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Health and Wellbeing

August 14, 2021

Peace is a Gift

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Sometimes the most helpful thing I can do is listen to what I’ve already written. The last several weeks have been difficult. Not just for me, but for this tired old world that isn’t holding together very well. The poem below, first posted in August 2016, calls me back to what matters most for today and tomorrow, no matter what happens next.         

Nurture peace in your heart—
Welcome and savor it
Cultivate it
Water it
Let it rest
Give it space

Take its time for your time
Wrap it around your body yourself

Your shawl becomes you—
Blue as the heavens
Green as the garden
Brown as the good earth

Living, fragile
Strong, unpredictable
Invasive and healing
Tiny alpine flowers
Silken threads of peace
Woven into mortal beauty
Whispers of heaven

Peace is a gift waiting to be discovered. Not ‘out there,’ but in my heart. Sometimes I lock it away. Give it up for dead. Crowd it out because of fear, sorrow or disbelief. Throw up my hands and let it go as an unrealistic dream.

Other times I want someone to hand me peace on a platter. But peace won’t come from anyone else. It’s already in me, waiting to be re-discovered and cared for. Not once or twice, but as often as needed.

Some people talk about their prayer shawls. I want a ‘peace shawl.’ An outer reminder of an inner reality that’s mine when I’m willing to care for it. No matter what’s going on in my inner or outer world.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 August 2016, reposted 14 August 2021
Photo of Alpine Flowers found at WallpaperWeb.org

6 Comments
August 10, 2021

For Today and Tomorrow | Psalm 121

The last several weeks have been a roller coaster ride. Up one day, down the next. Hot/cold. Content/discontent. Causes known and unknown such as unresolved health issues, political moves of the unhelpful kind, war and destruction, plus the sinking feeling we’re stuck in old patterns that leave the future of this planet in the hands of the next generation.

This morning D and I went for a walk. The air was warm, humid, and heavy with the sound of cicadas. Just drawing a breath felt like the beginning of the end. As we were walking home, the words of Psalm 121 popped into my head. It’s one of several Psalms I memorized as a child. That would be in the King James Version, of course!

Here it is, slightly updated by me. The Psalm invites me to do something besides ruminating on how I feel or what I think about what’s happening in and all around me.

I lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help.
My help comes from You, the Holy One who made heaven and earth.
You will not suffer my foot to be moved; You keep me without drifting off to sleep.
Indeed, You who keep all creation shall neither slumber nor sleep.
You are my keeper; You are the shade upon my right hand.
The sun shall not smite me by day, nor the moon by night.
You will preserve me from all evil; You alone shall preserve my soul.
You will preserve my going out and my coming in from this time forth,
and even for evermore.

No promise of rose gardens, or an easy coast from this life to whatever comes next. Instead, I’m reminded that I owe my full allegiance to our Creator, and that whatever comes next, I won’t be abandoned.

Good words for a mixed-up world full of anxious people everywhere. Including me.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 August 2021
Photo of hills in Judea taken by David Shankbone; found at wikipedia.com

11 Comments
August 7, 2021

Facing an end-of-life avalanche

For friends and strangers
Or any human being
Facing an end-of-life avalanche –
One step at a time
Seems far too small and
Way too late

The uneven beauty of years
Rises from ashes to haunt
And perplex mind and soul
Searching for nothing more
Than rest from this accumulation
Of daily toil interrupted by
Reminders of the past
With its strange stew
Of brilliance and horror

Sorting through outdated files
I follow my cautious steps
Through mine fields and
Unexpected mountain tops
That fail to convey the full
Truth of any moment
Heavy with the perplexities
Of life and friendship as well as
Camouflaged frenemies
Waiting in the wings for
My demise or my glory

How mixed up we all are
On this planet of painful turmoil
And disappointments stirred
Into a pot of sometimes rancid
Stew or on that rare occasion
A table set with the finest
Wine known to human beings
Huddled in our offices hoping
For a visit from glory without
Death and without regret

For friends and strangers
Or any human being
Facing an end-of-life avalanche –
One step at a time
Seems far too small and
Way too late

A few weeks ago D and I began tackling the most difficult sorting-out project of our lives. It’s one thing to move into a house and get things in order.

Now, however, we’re immersed in divesting ourselves of collections of various kinds. We’ve stored them away fairly neatly for nearly 40 years. Think of academic files, picture files, books, CDs, and items from parents and other family members no longer with us. What I don’t understand is why, though we’ve already given away thousands of books, it feels as though we haven’t even scratched the surface.

Then there are academic files going back to college, seminary, university, teaching and administration years. I’m getting better at letting things go. Still, I can’t help feeling sad, especially when I come across notes from friends with whom I once studied or worked.

Thanks for stopping by!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 August 2021
Image found at journeytowardsimple.com

4 Comments
August 5, 2021

Birdsong and Neighbors

Troubled in spirit
Torn between past joys
And today’s necessities
I set out on a walk
Alone and anxious
About many things

Unhinged and disconnected
From realities beyond my control
I wonder what will become
Of us in this world of sorrow
Quickly descending into
A mammoth muddle

The sound of my feet hitting
The pavement reminds me
To take one step at a time
Not tomorrow but today
While I’m alive and reasonably sane
Before this life comes to an end

I hear her voice before I see her
My neighbor a few doors down
Followed by a honk and a wave
From my next-door neighbor
Just getting home after night shift
At a city hospital filled with pain

The birds are singing out their
Morning chorus wake-up calls
From tops of trees and thick
Shrubs lining the road home
Past the church cemetery and
The weeping beech hanging low

How are you feeling today? I’m feeling swamped and somewhat trapped by files, piles, books, letters and cards I conveniently tucked away for later.

Problem #1: Later is Now.

Problem #2: Even though I’ve divested myself of more files and piles than I can remember, they now seem to have had babies while I wasn’t looking. I am not prepared for this.

Problem #3: How will I maintain my sanity and good nature in the middle of all this muddle?

No, I’m not in despair. I do, however, sometimes fancy an early morning walk, along with time to play the piano when my heart says “Play!” The alternative is not an option.

Praying for courage to do what I can each day, and let the rest go. Life is short.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 August 2021
Photo found at treehugger.com

2 Comments
August 3, 2021

I’ve told you so much already, revisited

This post from December 2017 popped up yesterday. It’s as true today as it was back then. Not just about me, but about citizens, immigrants and strangers of all ages who know what it’s like to be on the other end of abusive sexual behavior.

I’ve told you so much already
And still it isn’t enough
To assuage the pain
Or grieve the sister and brother-losses
Of this cruel world

When did it begin and where
Will it end?

We haven’t even begun
You and I
To face the depths and height and reach
Of just one sorrow multiplied
Into a thousand permutations
Now dismissed as though
None of it meant a thing

I don’t have to dig up
The bones
Or display the misshapen ligaments
Of my body-soul
They’re on display daily
Don’t you see them?

Or are you lost
In your denial-desire for just
One more touch
One more self-righteous smirk
One more body-soul
To humiliate and throw
On the trash heap
Of been there done that

I don’t even know where
To begin
Or where this will end
It doesn’t feel safe
Or bode well
Given the contours
Of confessional history
That by sleight of hand
Turn the aggrieved
Into the aggressor
Dangerous and deceptive
Not to be believed
Just in it for publicity
Or attention or some other
Self-serving dream

We know not what we do
Was never so true
As it is today and tomorrow

I’ve told you so much already
And still it isn’t enough…..

My dear Friends,
This is where I’ve been in the last weeks and months. Fiercely angry about the cost being exacted from victims of sexual violence. Especially those who dare name it and describe it as experienced by them, and as it has played out for them over the years.

We must invite–not simply ‘allow’–victims’ personal and collective grief, shame, horror and anger to be heard. And felt. As often as necessary, before it’s too late. Our personal and collective humanity is at stake.

As for me, it’s time to step up and speak out yet again. This time not on my behalf, but standing with sisters and brothers I don’t know, may never meet, may not like personally, but identify with to such a degree that remaining silent or ‘moving on’ is not an option.

What does this look like for my blogging? The poem above is one example, though I know I can’t survive living in this hellish place every day. So I’m thinking about the coming year, and how I might begin taking apart pieces I can manage. From time to time. Nothing scholarly or scientific. Just the ravings of an articulate, educated woman fed up with the self-serving nonsense spewed out by those who want this to go away so we can get back to business as usual.

Thank you for visiting, reading, and listening with all your heart.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 December 2017, reposted 3 August 2021
Image found at stock.adobe.com

2 Comments
August 2, 2021

A Moral Obligation | Chinua Achebe


When things fall apart it isn’t an accident. Especially when religion or so-called patriotism is involved.

I don’t find the long view very encouraging these days. The temptation to rewrite history has routinely injected politics into the picture, particularly as presented in or omitted from school textbooks. Usually this favors those in positions of political power over against those with the least power, beginning with Native American Indians.

This need to make things fall apart from time to time has not served the best interests of the powerless, no matter where they live in these so-called United States. Or in Africa, as Chinua Achebe relates in his masterpiece, Thing Fall Apart.

Here’s how Achebe describes the problem–a description in which I hear echoes of our own dysfunctional situation in the USA. Near the end of Things Fall Apart, a disputed piece of land has been given (by the white man’s court) to an African family that had given money to the white man’s messengers and interpreter. Okonkwo, Achebe’s main character throughout the book, responds with the following question and answer (p. 176, emphasis mine).

Does the white man understand our custom about land?

How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad, and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he was won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we are fallen apart.

As I see it, we must be crystal clear about those we elect to serve the common good, not their own good. The stakes are high not just for this generation, but for those yet to come. As Achebe puts it at the top, this is a moral obligation. And yes, it will cost dearly. Not so much in money, as in humility and determination against all odds.

Thanks for visiting and reading. These are troubling days filled with expected and unexpected challenges. Praying for clarity and for the ability to do what we can where we are, no matter which way the wind seems to be blowing.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 August 2021
Quotation at the top found at forreadingaddicts.co.uk

12 Comments
July 28, 2021

The Sixth Recognition of the Lord | Mary Oliver

Every summer the lilies rise
and open their white hands until they almost
cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
it doesn’t seem
festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come
into it often enough. Everywhere I go I am
treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
am given water. My eyes thirst and I am give
the white lilies on the black water. My heart
sings but the apparatus of singing doesn’t convey
half what it feels and means. In spring there’s hope,
in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its
leafy cave, but in summer there is
everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
the hospitality of the Lord and my
inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
through this water-lily world.

© 2006 by Mary Oliver
Published by Beacon Press in Thirst, p. 28

Dear Mary,

Your poem made me weep. I don’t know if you intended this, but your “Recognition of the Lord” is also a recognition of your “beautiful, temporary body.”

I long for a permanent body as beautiful as your water-lily world. Not the kind of beauty that gets attention, but the beauty that’s carried in our hearts and souls. No matter what’s happening to our aging bodies.

I never thought of myself as beautiful when I was growing up. Even now, the most I can usually admit is that I’m acceptable. My husband of many years has trouble convincing me that to him, I’m more than acceptable.

What challenges me when I think about the water lilies, roses, peonies, lilacs, and azaleas is that they never complain about the astonishing brevity of their beauty. Here today and gone tomorrow.

Do I want to be like they are? Sadly, no amount of makeup or other ways we try to fool nature will ever satisfy me. So this lovely Recognition of the Lord, the One who created us, is incredibly demanding. Yes, we have our time to flourish, and yes, we fade. Like flowers of the field and water lilies.

If this is meant to comfort me in my aging body, I still have work to do. Letting go isn’t my favorite pastime. Which, I’m guessing, wasn’t yours, either.

Thank you for prodding my heart and mind today, and sharing your lovely and beautiful voice with all of us.

Elouise

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 July 2021
Photo taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens, June 2019

4 Comments
July 27, 2021

Sunflowers and Cicadas

Lost in a crowd
Wondering who I am
today and what will
become of us

A sunflower dropped
into the earth by
accident or design
pays no attention

Cicadas raise their
shrill chorus and fall
back into waves of
welcome silence

Hot sunrays pierce
the haze of dawn
with a vigor I cannot
mimic or resurrect

Climbing a small hill
and moving from shade
to shade I wake up
to this burning day

What is progress? I hope I’m making some today. A recent appointment with my integrative doctor produced more follow-up than I like. It feels like being in half-here mode. Living between what I’ve been and whatever comes next. It’s pushing me back to hard questions about what I will and will not agree to at this time of my life. And, more important, what I want to do with my time right now.

In the meantime, I’m mesmerized by our impromptu sunflower family springing from the earth beneath last winter’s large bird feeder. You’d think I’d never seen a sunflower. Nevertheless, it’s magical to find unplanned beauty right in our back yard.

Hoping you’ll find beauty in small things today.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 July 2021
Backyard photo taken by DAFraser, 25 July 2021

7 Comments
July 24, 2021

Photo Therapy for My Heart

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I first published this on 3 February 2016, a few weeks after Mr. Trump became President. The post features several photos I find calm and reassuring no matter what’s happening around or in me. Today Mr. Biden is our President, and there is still much to lament, and not much certainty about our tomorrows. I hope you enjoy the photos and find some peace slipping into your heart.

That’s a mature Dawn Redwood at the top. We’re in Longwood Gardens in their large-tree arboretum. It’s a scorching hot day. The tree’s inviting limbs offer rest in the shade. No entrance fee. No time limit. And no requirements except that I step into the shade. Into the relaxing and reassuring freedom of our Creator’s care for me, no matter my age or my health.

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Here’s a tiny flower of the field in the Longwood Meadow Garden. Fragile, delicate, one-of-a-kind, like a snowflake. Here today, gone tomorrow. Yet known to God who delights in the beauty of this world. I can’t help thinking about human life, and the One who creates and fully understands our fragile mortal beauty.

As a parent has compassion for his or her children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear God.
For God knows how we were made,
and remembers that we are dust.
As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of God
is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear God….

Psalm 103:13-17a

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Here I’m  standing in a square pavilion that circles this magnificent eye of water. We’re in the oriental area of the Arboretum at Longwood Gardens. The sound is stunning. A steady flow of water wells up in the ‘pupil’ of the eye and gently cascades down into the pool.

The small dots around the edge are pennies–wishes tossed in by visitors. For me, this is one of the most calming sites in the gardens. Usually there aren’t many visitors here. The benches around the border invite meditation and relaxation, accompanied by the steady sound of water falling. That’s my back to the camera. I’m looking out at the stream that flows downhill from the eye of water before the water is recycled back to the top to overflow yet again.

Finally, one of my favorites. It isn’t spectacularly beautiful like many other Longwood Gardens photos. This is right next to a path, not hidden away in the woods. We’re near the meadow and the water ponds. This mama is doing what our Creator wants to do for each of us. She’s taking her chicks under wings. Keeping them safe, warm, dry and calm. Just where my heart wants to be right now!

Nesting at Longwood

Thanks for coming along!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 February 2016, lightly edited and reposted 24 July 2021
Photo credit: DAFraser, Longwood Gardens

8 Comments
July 21, 2021

Summer 2021 Update for My Friends

Dear Friends,

I’m taking several days off from regular posting. Weariness has caught up with me, and I’m grateful to be seeing my integrative doctor tomorrow. Nothing horrible, though the nagging reality of diminishing energy is no fun. Especially in this Summer’s heat.

Yesterday D and I spent time visiting with a neighbor and one of his friends. We sat outside on the patio next to his lovely garden and had a lively conversation. It made me realize once again how fragile life is, and how much each connection and communication matters.

As for the work I need to do, it’s almost all in my office, crying out for attention. I’ve already gone through quite a bit, sometimes tearing up as I read old notes from family members, students, colleagues and friends. A few days ago I uncovered yet another neatly organized box of letters and photos. I’m astonished at how much I’ve kept and almost forgotten.

So now it’s down to what I’ll keep, what I’ll get rid of, and what our children and grandchildren might want to see or have.

From another perspective, it’s down to how many times I’m going to pause to rejoice, lament, or read. Though I don’t tend to cling to the past, it seems I’ve let it cling to me. Perhaps because I knew I wouldn’t adequately appreciate it until now.

On a lighter note, we’re watching a brave patch of sunflowers growing in our back yard. Remnants left behind from the large bird feeder we put out this past winter. Yesterday I saw the first bits of yellow petals beginning to unfold. It looks like we might have 7 flowers in all, thanks to the kindness of winter birds dropping sunflower seeds (among other things) in the snow! According to the chart above and their current height, I think they’re Giant Singles (about 5 feet high).

Cheers and prayers for all of us as we make our way through this rapidly changing world.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 July 2021
Photo found at thegardeningcook.com
Chart found at pinterest.com

4 Comments