Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Life and Death

March 4, 2020

stripped bare

stripped bare
of unnecessary baggage,
boney fingers
and crooked limbs
exposed,
scarred and worn,
awkward grace awaits
rebirth

Dare I believe that death is like the reiteration of the four seasons? I don’t know the answer to my question. Nonetheless, I identify painfully with this photo and the words I’ve written above.

I often hear that life is a great adventure. It’s also a great misadventure of lows mixed in with highs. Things I would give anything to experience again, and things I’m glad to leave behind.

Today I’m grateful for photos. Simple photos that reach out with whispers of beauty, strength, and faith. Enough faith to keep standing through all kinds of weather. Believing and trusting. Doing only what the skeleton of a bush can do. Taking it one moment, one season, one joy and sorrow at a time.

When the time is right, the gardener will appear to usher in the next season.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 March 2020
Photo taken by DAFraser in March 2016 at Longwood Gardens

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March 2, 2020

Monday Beauty

A sweet blossom just for you! And for me, of course. The sun is shining, the temperature is rising. Spring is just around the corner. It isn’t Christmas anymore. Or is it?

This lone Christmas Cactus blossom, seriously out of date and right on time, began pushing out about two months ago. I can’t believe it made it! It’s sitting on our kitchen table, looking out at the back yard.

So I grabbed my iPad and gave it my best effort.

Praying your week is filled with small reminders that Christmas can surprise us any day of the week, in any season of the year.

Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 March 2020
Photo taken by ERFraser, 2 March 2020

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February 27, 2020

yesterday’s dreams

captured by yesterday’s dreams
reflected in melodious ripples of
water, trees and sky dancing
just beyond our reach
we peer beneath the surface
into shifting mirrors of time and space
overflowing with dreams and promises
each small gem waiting impatiently
to catch the sun and explode into life

I love the haunting feeling of the top photo, and the way it puts us in proper perspective. It’s April 2006. We’re at Longwood Gardens with our twin granddaughters, just below the eye of water (see below). Trees, water, grassy lawns and blossoming shrubs are welcoming the best part of Spring, accompanied by the sound of cascading water in the background.

Since 2006, our lives have taken paths we never anticipated, and sometimes didn’t want. Nonetheless, speaking for myself, it’s been a great adventure. The kind I hope and pray our granddaughters and grandson have as well.

Thanks for visiting today!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 February 2020
Photos taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens, April 2006 

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February 22, 2020

I believe in god | Dorothee Soelle

Here’s one of the most compelling personal credos (statements of belief) I’ve ever read. Soelle wrote it after World War II and during the Vietnamese War. Even if you’re not an outwardly religious person, I hope you’ll give it a read. It’s down to earth and challenging no matter what your beliefs might be.

Credo

I believe in god
who did not create an immutable world
a thing incapable of change
who does not govern according to eternal laws
that remain inviolate
or according to a natural order
of rich and poor
of the expert and the ignorant
of rulers and subjects
I believe in god
who willed conflict in life
and wanted us to change the status quo
through our work
through our politics

I believe in jesus christ
who was right when he
like each of us
just another individual who couldn’t beat city hall
worked to change the status quo
and was destroyed
looking at him I see
how our intelligence is crippled
our imagination stifled
our efforts wasted
because we do not live as he did
every day I am afraid
that he died in vain
because he is buried in our churches
because we have betrayed his revolution
in our obedience to authority
and our fear of it
I believe in jesus christ
who rises again and again in our lives
so that we will be free
from prejudice and arrogance
from fear and hate
and carry on his revolution
and make way for his kingdom

I believe in the spirit
that jesus brought into the world
in the brotherhood of all nations
I believe it is up to us
what our earth becomes
a vale of tears starvation and tyranny
or a city of god
I believe in a just peace
that can be achieved
in the possibility of a meaningful life
for all people
I believe this world of god’s
has a future
amen

Dorothee Soelle, Revolutionary Patience, pp 22-23, 3rd printing May 1984
English translation © 1977 by Orbis Books
Published by Orbis Books, Maryknoll, NY

Wishing each of you a thoughtful, challenging day.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 February 2020
Image found at cia.gov

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February 20, 2020

The distance between then and now

The distance between then and now
Boils down quickly to a handful of
Opportunities lost in translation

Heavy baggage dumped in swamps
Still unopened and never claimed

On-demand smiles of yesterday hidden
Beneath faces lined with sadness and grief

Moments of vulnerability unexplored
In favor of stiff upper lips and privacy

The openness of childhood and youth
Shut down in favor of family reputation

Yet miles of heart-stopping space open
Like the Grand Canyon between us and
old photos tugging at our lonely hearts

I feel sad and happy every time I look at this old photo. I’m sitting on the bench surrounded by my mother, her father, and her father’s mother. Four generations. The poem reflects how difficult I find it to become a human being. Especially when working on family-related issues.

Becoming human may be our greatest achievement. Not wealth or happiness or helping people all over the world, but the ability to become who we are from the inside out. Sort of like the velveteen rabbit, so that by the time we leave this world, we’ve become Real human beings.

Here’s to heaps of practice and a few great breakthroughs every now and then!

The photo at the top was taken by my father in 1944. We’re in California, visiting with my Grandpa Gury and my very proper Great Grandmother Gury (an immigrant from France). I’m sitting in the middle; my beautiful mother is on my right.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 February 2020
Photo taken by my father, JERenich in 1944, California

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February 17, 2020

February’s lightness of being

Looking for just the right words
To convey lightness of being
Descending through rainbows
To the ground of our heaviness
Bent beneath cares and sorrows
Though the sun shines brightly
This first and only Monday morning
Of week three and counting down

How do we live with sinking feelings
As friends and strangers known
To us if not by us wither and pass
Beyond veils of mist and ashes
Dying quickly as lines form
At the rear and out of control
If not out of mind and time
Waiting to hear the bell toll

This isn’t directly about the latest virus. It’s about how we get through one day at a time in a world that seems to be falling apart. Virus or no virus. I vote for rainbows and the Creator to whom they point. How about you?

Here’s to a Happy Monday, no matter the circumstances. Not because it’s cheery, but because this day belongs to Someone Greater than ourselves, who loves us and wants nothing more than our faithful presence. Especially when things seem to be falling apart.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 February 2020
Photo found at orcaissues.com

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February 13, 2020

At loose ends with myself

I posted this poem with brief comments a few days after mid-term elections in November 2018. Now there’s another election coming up in November, with large stakes for all of us. My biggest challenge today is to stay on target. Not just with my health and well-being, but the reality of our current state of our disunion. I want to ignore it, and cannot. My poem and earlier comments follow.

At loose ends with myself
Wandering up and down
The stairs of my distraction
Overturning this and that
Within my overactive mind
A clock ticks relentlessly
Counting down the corridors
Of tasks undone and words
Never recorded yet dissipating
Into a gray atmosphere silent
And secretive not yet menacing
Though the thought occurs
to me that I am being unraveled
strand by limp strand falling
to the floor of unknown reality

Unraveled. A word rich with possibilities. Terrifying and welcome all at the same time. Loss of control. Change of direction. Once-blind eyes coming out of misty half-truth and patched-together personas. Fragility unbound and hanging out there. Human. Vulnerable. Out of control in the best possible way.

All this and more went through my mind today. It isn’t just about getting older. It’s about getting real. Becoming a real rabbit, a real human being, a real baby. Not just a make-believe look-alike.

Here’s to more loose ends of the fruitful kind. Those that lead to something greater than you or I could ever become on our own.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 November 2018, reposted 12 February 2020
Image of unraveling butterfly found at movestrongkbs.com

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February 11, 2020

Outcomes predetermined

Outcomes predetermined –
No need for witnesses

News cameras keep rolling —
Capturing unwillingness
to accept self-evident truths

We have not administered
justice for all with an even hand

We have not allowed freedom for all
in this land of the free and home of the brave

We have not believed
Each person of any color or religion
is created equal and entitled
to full protection under the law

Nor have we been able to stem
today’s flood of party-line mantras
and childlike temper tantrums
from The White House

Welcome to Trump’s world and
the world in which brothers and sisters
now celebrating Black History Month
have lived all their lives

Thank you Mr. Trump
for this unexpected opportunity
to move beyond our current state
of habitual denial and fear

Now playing in your city or town
Every night of the week
No tickets needed

Several days ago I read a news report from CNN. It was about the farce of Trump’s impeachment trial. The message from black folks for white folks: “Welcome to our world.” Ironically, this is Black History Month. What will we make of it?

The meaning of justice has always been skewed against black people in this country. The movie Just Mercy shows how difficult it is in this so-called ‘enlightened age’ for black citizens to get justice. The so-called impeachment trial simply used the same tactics, this time to the advantage of a white male President.

  • a pre-ordained verdict
  • jury nullification (deliberate rejection of evidence or refusal to apply the law)
  • the judge as a prop, offering a pretense of impartiality
  • one of similar trials in which white men are favored

This is a rare opportunity for all of us. Especially, but not only white citizens. It’s still Black History Month. What better topic than the state of our union?

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 February 2020
Photo of Lynching Memorial found at heraldnet.com

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February 6, 2020

The Resistance

Bursting dams explode
Fueling unhinged tongues

Roiling water floods old landscapes
scarred beyond recognition

The end of this world collides
with the untimely birth
of a new world ruled by
winners of a rigged lottery

How shall we then live
with death-dealing word-bombs
hanging over our heads
seeking to silence the resistance?

I woke up this morning with yesterday’s impeachment vote on my mind.

I’ve known resistance all my life–as a girl child, and later as an adult woman. This includes fierce resistance inside me when my full humanity isn’t honored, and sometimes polite, unrelenting resistance brought to bear against me as an adult woman with a mind of her own.

I’m also one of the so-called fortunate whose skin is white, whose citizenship is not in question, who isn’t living on the streets due to gentrification….and I could go on, but won’t. You get the picture.

I was deeply moved by Senator Romney’s courageous statement and vote yesterday to impeach our President on one count. The morning news was full of POTUS comments and other tirades against Romney. The news was also full of support for Senator Romney. He isn’t a saint (which I find comforting). He simply and directly told the truth and cast his vote as he saw it, against every other member of his party.

Silence is deadly. So is speaking out, especially when it’s costly. As I see it, I have a choice. Shut up and sit down, or stand up and open my mouth. I choose the latter. How about you?

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

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February 3, 2020

In spite of everything

In spite of everything
The sun came up today
Brilliant rays pierce shadows
Illuminate dust and beauty
Alike without warning
Igniting fanciful thoughts
Banishing gloom and doom
Dancing on airs of expectation
And gratitude for what is
Imminently bloom-worthy

All things considered, today I’m choosing nature’s reality over other options screaming for attention.

Yesterday I had a wonderful, unexpected call from my youngest sister. It was the first time she’s called me since her health crisis on Christmas Eve. Hearing her voice was like discovering a determined crocus unexpectedly pushing up through cold winter earth. Clear, grounded and intent on living.

Happy Monday to each of you!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 February 2020
Photo of early spring flowers found at pixabay.com

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