Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Hope

February 8, 2020

The Creator dropped in today

The Creator dropped in today
Quietly and without warning
Stirring up the status quo
With gasp-worthy beauty
Seen only by those who wait
Patiently by the side of the pool

There’s more gasp-worthy beauty in this life than I’ll ever see. Not out there in some magical place, but right in front of my eyes.

After the political turmoil of the last several years, I’m ready for unexpected beauty. The gorgeous photo at the top lets me know my job is to sit patiently by the side of pool. Waiting and watching. Actively, not passively. Camera in hand or not, inner eyes wide open, determined to catch that moment of recognition before it’s gone.

Wishing you a gasp-worthy moment or two today and tomorrow!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 February 2020
Photo found at pixabay.com

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February 5, 2020

Human indignity for all?

Is this the best we can offer?

Indignity: treatment or circumstances that cause one to feel shame or to lose one’s dignity. Regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion or country of origin. Which, in my book, amounts to indignity for all of us.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream was simple: human dignity for all.

Or, as Dr. King put it when writing in 1963 about his own children:

…I dream that one day soon
they will no longer be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.

The quote comes from the opening pages of Dr. King’s book, Why We Can’t Wait.

Today, 57 years later, we’ve gone backwards. Especially, though not only for African Americans.

Yesterday D and I went to see Just Mercy, a recently released movie. It’s based on Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy: A story of Justice and Redemption. Stevenson, a Harvard-trained attorney and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, writes about one of his first cases as a young black attorney working in the South.

The movie depicts what happens to two black men placed on death row before receiving a fair trial, and what it takes to deal with the status quo. The judicial system’s message is clear: You won’t get out of here alive, no matter what evidence is produced in your trial or on appeal. But what happens in the end, and how?

February is Black History Month here in the USA. Just Mercy is being shown in several cinemas in the Philadelphia area. If you haven’t or can’t see the movie, check out a copy of the book. It’s at least as clear, heartbreaking and challenging as the movie.

This movie was my choice yesterday evening, rather than watching/listening to the President’s State of the Union address. It was a splendid choice.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 February 2020
Image from the movie found at rogerebert.com

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February 1, 2020

climate change and politics

Restless wind lashes out
Sucks moisture from air
Whips back and forth
Tossing its weight around
Lost in desperate attempts
To make things happen but
Will we survive to tell about it?

I drafted this poem under another title in early April, 2019. We’d just experienced fierce wind storms in the Northeast. I was sorely tempted to make a connection between the storm outside and the growing storm in the White House.

This morning we have yet another storm brewing in the Northeast, as we move closer to a presidential election in November. Perhaps this explains the sometimes contorted speech we’re hearing from Senators up for reelection.

The ongoing drama of our current President’s behavior is important.

At the same time, nothing is more important for our future than addressing climate change. Actually, I don’t care what you call it, just so you get the point. Planet earth is sick unto death. And we, the gardeners, don’t have any quick fixes.

There are reasons for upheavals and breakdowns in our ecosystems. However, it’s easy to get caught up in the drama of presidential politics and neglect what we can do right now to care for even a small patch of planet earth.

Money is important, but it won’t solve the problem. Nature doesn’t know about our bank accounts or our retirement funds or underground bunkers being built so we’ll ‘survive.’ Nor does Nature care whether we’re Democrats, Republicans, Independents or Nothing at All.

This is a disaster of our own making. Innocently enough, perhaps. Yet even so, isn’t it better to admit we were wrong, and demand that our towns, cities, states, and nation do the right thing? There’s more up for grabs in the coming election than who will be the next President.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 February 2019
Photo of Hurricane Irma passing through Naples, Florida, September 2017 (AP Photo/David Goldman); found at wunc.org

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January 23, 2020

yesterday’s fire

soaring gracefully
young slender aspens stand watch
around charred remains
anonymous yet precious
remnants of yesterday’s fire

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 January 2020
Image found at wallpaperweb.org
Cabin in a stand of Aspens, Gould, Colorado

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January 22, 2020

Habits of firstborns die hard

What is this burden
I can’t seem to lay down
Yet know I can’t carry
On these weary shoulders

Unknowns and what ifs
Flood my mind
Plus the nagging weight
Of being the eldest

A shadow cloud follows me
Day and night in one door
And out another
Searching for solace

And understanding
Not my thing you see
Especially now that
I’m older and should know

By heart how to carry
The weight of the world
Without a care or fleeting
Thought of rest or peace

Habits of firstborns die hard
Eternally peering back
Making sure we’re all here
Even when we are not

I don’t know if what I just wrote is true of all firstborns with siblings. I know it’s true of me.

I look back through old photos and see a sober, sometimes somber young woman with the face of a responsible first daughter. The lovely photo above, taken by my father in the 1950s is an exception to the rule. Nonetheless, being the responsible first daughter felt normal back then. Not quite, but almost my destiny.

My youngest sister is making slow, steady progress on her rehab issues. As for me, I’m getting plenty of practice being and feeling relatively helpless to be physically present with her. Which leaves open the possibility of learning, at this difficult time in her life, to be her creative cheerleader and long-distance friend. Right?

Thanks for your visit today, and Happy Wednesday to each of you!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 January 2020
Photo of Sister #1 and me taken by JERenich on Easter Sunday, mid 1950s, Savannah, Georgia

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January 14, 2020

Survivor guilt and the business at hand

Back row: Mother, Grandpa Gury (her father), Elouise, and Sister #2
Front row: Diane and Sister #4

As of today, three kinds of survivor guilt have invaded my life.

  1. The guilt of living longer than Diane, Sister #3. She died of ALS in 2006.
  2. The guilt of wishing my father had died before my mother. She died in 1999, 78 years old.
  3. The guilt of wishing my father had died instead of Sister #4’s husband. He died in 2008; my father died in 2010.

And then there are nagging realities from my past.

  1. In 1960, I got a job right out of high school. It paid more than my father was making at a weekday job. My mother told me not to talk about the size of my weekly paycheck. Then my father lost his weekday job and I felt awkward talking about what happened at work today.
  2. When I left home for college (1960, age 16), my younger sisters had to face the music at home without me. Sometimes that was for the better. But not always. They became more vulnerable to our father’s oversight and disciplinary methods. This weighed heavily on me, especially with regard to our youngest sister.
  3. My educational and workplace opportunities gave me an advantage when I was looking for a teaching position, right out of university.

I can’t change any of this. Yet each item above has surfaced more than once in light of my youngest sister’s current health crisis. It began on Christmas Eve.

So what’s going on? I know it’s important because I’ve become self-conscious about my current situation. Yes, I have health challenges. Sometimes I don’t manage them well. Still, they aren’t as difficult to navigate as challenges Diane or Sister #4 experienced.

Am I overthinking this? Part of me wants to believe I am, even though that would be nonsense.

Today I want to know how to be present and fully focused on the business on hand. Not on what might have been, or ten reasons I should have had something awful happen to me years ago. As though that might spare any of my sisters or my mother the horror of sudden interventions that leave all of us gasping for air.

Thanks again for listening. As of today, I’m happy to report that Sister #4 is in a rehab facility, beginning a long  journey.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 January 2020
Family Photo taken by JERenich in Savannah, 1959

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January 13, 2020

Tell me tell me | Emily Brontë

Here’s a Monday poem from our other Emily. My comments follow.

Tell me tell me

Tell me tell me smiling child
What the past is like to thee?
An Autumn evening soft and mild
With a wind that sighs mournfully

Tell me what is the present hour?
A green and flowery spray
Where a young bird sits gathering its power
To mount and fly away

And what is the future happy one?
A sea beneath a cloudless sun
A mighty glorious dazzling sea
Stretching into infinity

From selected poems of Emily Brontë, p. 28
Published in Everyman’s Library by Alfred A. Knopf, 1996
© 1996 by David Campbell Publishers Ltd., sixth printing

In this little poem, Emily Brontë asks and answers three questions, each from her childhood point of view. Emily was the 5th of 6 children. She was 3 years old when her mother died of cancer. I don’t know what age she had in mind when she wrote the poem.

The first stanza is about her past. I’m surprised she’s smiling. Yes, the answer points to a lovely ending to a beautiful Autumn day. At the same time, she hears the sound of mourning, already in the air. Winter is coming.

The second stanza is about the present (her childhood present). I’m not sure whether the ‘spray’ is water, or the combined effect of leaves and flowers shooting up from the ground. Perhaps she’s in a meadow or beside the sea (which appears in the final stanza). In either case, a young bird is getting ready to leave the nest and fly away. No hint of mourning in the air.

The third stanza is about the future. By now (in the poem), the child is happy. No hints of mourning, regrets, or the agonies of adult life. And yet this seems the most painful stanza of all despite its happy ending. Perhaps it’s a small window into the hoped-for trajectory of Emily Brontë’s life, and a cautionary note?

I identify with this childhood dream. Once I flew the nest, I believed all would be well. Even the ‘small’ bumps in the road would, in the end, seem like nothing. Little did I know….

And yet this poem isn’t morose. It invites me to remember and hold close my childhood dreams. Not all will come true. Yet there’s that “mighty glorious dazzling sea stretching into infinity.” Who knows what yet will be? In life or in death.

Cheers!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 January 2020
Photo found at wickipedia.org

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January 6, 2020

Monday morning questions

This past week I had a serendipitous moment while shopping for groceries. No kidding!

In the produce department a gentleman stopped me and asked if I was a past president of the seminary where I taught and was dean. I laughed and said no way! I’d been professor and dean, but never president. Nor did I ever aspire to that office.

He laughed with me, and said he’d heard me speak at the seminary. He even remembered what I talked about. I was astonished. He wasn’t one of our students. Today he’s a pastor in this area, and is African American.

In the early 1990s the seminary was challenged by the Rodney King event. Because I was being promoted with tenure, I’d been asked to give the opening academic year address. My title and  text were from Psalm 23, “In the Presence of My Enemies.”  What did we need to do to begin coming to terms with our overt, covert and unrecognized racism?

The bottom line was simple. According to Psalm 23, we’re invited to a table prepared by God. There’s only one hitch. This table is prepared “in the presence of my enemies.” Not God’s enemies, but mine–whether real or perceived. Furthermore, there’s no clear reason to think my real and perceived enemies aren’t included at this table.

So now that we’re sitting at this table prepared for us (the seminary), who’s going to speak first? Who’s willing to break the silence so we can begin getting to know and perhaps better understand and support each other?

This morning I’m thinking about what’s happening all over this world, especially right here in my small territory. I believe God has prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies–whether real or perceived.

So who’s willing to go first? Am I? How important is it to me? Otherwise, why am I taking up space at the table?

Events of today and last week make this a not so happy Monday. Yet the presence of our Creator in the territory means there’s more going on than meets the eye. Am I, are we, up to the challenge of daring to speak first? Not to talk about others, but to listen to each other and to ourselves. After all, it’s our Creator’s territory, not ‘mine’ or ‘yours.’

Happy Monday, despite the news and noise of the hour!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 January 2020
Image found at pinterest.com

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December 7, 2019

Our current discontent

This morning I woke up wondering how we’ll survive as a nation, no matter who wins the next presidential election. It’s Advent. However, my mind went back to Lent, and a March 2017 post about what I was giving up for Lent.

As I see it, our nation is being tested yet again. We’ve been tested many times. It seems that whatever happened or didn’t happen back then, despite our best intentions, contributes now to our growing state of dis-union.

So how will we survive not just the next election, but the year leading up to it? Political strategies and post-election plans are important. Still, they aren’t magic wands that can solve our national problems.

The most important things are what we carry in our hearts, and what we have chosen to give up.

So I’m drawn back to what I gave up for Lent. The challenge isn’t any easier now than it was then. I’m to give up desires that have haunted me all my life. Not because this will solve personal or national problems, but because this frees me to behave differently this time around. Even though I’m terrified about the consequences.

So here they are, in the form of a prayer litany. Still staring me in the face daily. How willing am I to bring these strange gifts and lay them down before a newborn baby? Not just once, but as many times as necessary.

I let go my desire for security and survival.
I let go my desire for esteem and affection.
I let go my desire for power and control.
I let go my desire to change the situation.

Quoted by Cynthia Bourgeault in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 147 (Cowley Publications 2004)

Do I like doing this? No. It does, however, make space for me to take risks. The kind that make my heart pound because I’m not in control of what happens next.

With hope, and thanks for listening,
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 December 2019
Sunrise at Acadia National Park, Maine, USA; found at pinterest.com

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December 3, 2019

Three-ring circus

The three-ring circus
Drones on without apology
Mesmerizing the faithful
And the not-so-faithful
With thrilling chilling
Unheard-of stunts
And dare-devil moves
Designed to grab attention
And votes of confidence

The world beyond
The Great White Tent
Descends into despair
Tripping over truth
And inconvenient facts
Of now and then
Looking the other way
Refusing to breathe deeply
Hoping for something better
Though it hasn’t been
In style for ages

Meanwhile
The Hope of All the Earth
Looks on wondering
For this I came, lived
And died?

We live in an age that loves to watch deceit and cunning. Not just in The Great White Tent, but in our neighborhoods, churches, schools and businesses. This seems to hold true whether we like or dislike deceit and cunning.

It takes inner strength to live in truth these days. Especially in relationships with people we see or meet every day. Nonetheless, even on our best days we aren’t The Hope of All the Earth. Instead, we’re a company of earthlings loved by The Hope of All the Earth. Right now.

Wishing each of you Advent blessings,
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 December 2019
Artwork by Linda Mears, found at pixels.com

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