Life and Death | Telling the Truth

November 13, 2018

Moldy, moldy, moldy | Dear Friends

Dear Friends,

My body is moldy, my house is moldy, my mind is moldy and I’m not giving up!

I now have data from the first of three mold tests, with two tests to go. One of the two makes me laugh out loud every time I think about it. It’s a hair test for ‘heavy’ metals.

If you see me from time to time, you know how short my very fine (not heavy) hair is. Especially in the back. I like it that way.

So now this lab wants a measured (by weight) amount of hair from 5 to 6 places on my head, preferably from the back of my head. Each ‘strand’ should be 1 inch long! They’ll be lucky if I can find that much from the top of my head.

The worst moment will be after the deed is done and nothing can be glued back onto my head! As my trusted partner of more than 53 years, D will have the honor of clipping those precious hairs from my head. I don’t want to end up looking like a molting sheep.

The third test has to wait until I have the proper computer screen. It seems my old faithful isn’t young enough to calibrate within the limits of the vision test.

Then there was a visit with my cardiologist yesterday. Always stressful, no matter what’s going on with my heart. Especially with the added reality of almost constant work on Alzheimer-related testing. Though I don’t have it, my genes mean the risk factor rises with every year of my life. Mold is a big Alzheimer’s issue, best dealt with early and often.

I’m sleeping well most nights. Last night was an exception. I was surprised how weepy I was early this morning. I lay there thinking about my life and how difficult yet astonishingly wonderful it has been. And how many gifted, dedicated people I’ve had the privilege of working with. And how much I don’t want to leave this life just yet.

Despite all the health stuff, I turned a big corner last week. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone about myself or my worth. I already knew that in my mind. Last week my heart finally began getting and loving the message. I’ve already passed on bits and pieces here and there. It’s done, even as I keep growing like a persistent bit of mold–the good kind, of course!

Today I’m taking it easy. Practicing justice and mercy on behalf of my weary body and soul. Eager to keep moving ahead, yet no faster than my feet will take me on this damp, rainy day. The photo at the top is there just because I like it.

Happy Tuesday, and thanks for stopping by.
Elouise♥

12 Comments

November 7, 2018

At loose ends with myself

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♥

10 Comments

October 29, 2018

Falling raindrops

Falling raindrops
Losses unnumbered
Tears of anguish
Sink beneath ground
Mourning our dead
Prone to collapse
If not eruption

It’s Monday morning, one week from midterm elections here in the USA. I belong to the President John F. Kennedy assassination generation. November 22, 1963, two days after my 20th birthday. A harsh introduction to political realities in these somewhat united states.

And now we’ve just experienced the latest in a string of brutal, overt attacks against people who are our neighbors, whether far or near. This time it was a Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ironically, the hometown of Mr. Rogers.

November 22, 1963 was my wake-up call. Not about religion, but about politics. My vote seemed tiny back then. Yet as a white woman living in a nation that routinely disenfranchises and disregards women of all colors in overt and covert ways, my vote counted then and it still counts.

Walking to my voting station counts. Encouraging others to vote counts. Helping others get to the polls counts. Showing hospitality to strangers counts, whether it’s voting day or not.

This doesn’t make up for lives taken by gunfire, abuse, neglect, unleashed hatred and outright murder. Still, their lives are with us when we choose to remember them. As I see it, I’m not just voting on my behalf; I’m voting on their behalf. From the beginning of this nation until now.

So here we are one week from midterm elections. What’s your plan?

2 Comments

October 26, 2018

elegant feathers

elegant feathers
grace wings beating in tandem
faces resolute
a matched pair of cranes flies south
through autumn’s glowing colors

Yesterday morning this gorgeous photo of migrating Sandhill Cranes came up on my screen saver. Though everything about it caught my eye, I couldn’t stop staring at the Cranes’ faces. Birds of the air on a mission. Lending their beauty for just a few short seconds to the background of the sun and autumn flaming out. Chased by shadows, resolutely flying south guided by an inner compass.

I think I’d like to be a Sandhill Crane when I fly away. Which brings to mind this old song.

Today I’m grateful to be alive, well and kicking now and then. I’m also grateful for the way people and events come together unexpectedly, moving me ahead whether I’m ready or not. Always at the right time.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 October 2018
Photo of Sandhill Cranes in flight, New Mexico; found at ayay.uk.co
Recording of I’ll Fly Away found on YouTube

9 Comments

October 23, 2018

After scanning today’s headlines —

A rude and rootless nation
Sits in the seat of scoffers
Indignant and outraged
Lock her up!
Lock him up!
Lock them up!
And throw away the key!

Chaff tossed on winds
Of overwrought words
Ruthless and homeless
We drift toward destruction
Lost in the wilderness
Of our own undoing

I’ve almost always read Psalm 1 with my life in mind. It’s a Psalm about choosing the way of wisdom, rather than the way of folly. I still think that’s a fair way of reading it.

Nonetheless, it’s also a Psalm directed to a nation of human beings with human leaders who make choices both wise and foolish. Not that everyone agrees to go one way or the other. There’s more than enough folly and wisdom to share on all sides.

It seems our nation is drifting down the path of folly. Often following in the footsteps of leaders who say and do foolish things. Or who respond to one kind of foolishness with another kind. Equally unrestrained and destructive.

Hence this reading of Psalm 1 as a cautionary tale. If we aren’t part of the wise resistance, we’re in danger of finding ourselves headed downhill along the destructive path of fools. Also known as the wicked who are like chaff driven by the wind. Drifting toward our demise. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

2 Comments

September 25, 2018

life takes the long road

life takes the long road
through majestic terrain
gleaming and foreboding

daylight falls quickly
below horizons
of narrow vision
ablaze with dying day

This photo, taken in Scotland, is breathtaking. As breathtaking as a single life that burns out boldly before fading into darkness.

It reminds me that what’s happening in and behind the “news” is often not good news, and easily becomes a distraction from the larger picture. The long view doesn’t promise me an eternity. It does, however, invite me to keep my perspective clear.

One of my readers left a wonderful comment in response to yesterday’s post. In it she shared a comment from a friend of hers in India. Here it is–a way of putting things into proper perspective:

WORLD: How could you stay in the Church after all the scandal?
ME: You don’t leave Jesus because of Judas.

Here’s to a thoughtful Tuesday.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 September 2018
Photo found at pixabay.com

10 Comments

September 20, 2018

wild random beauty

wild random beauty
explodes through summer bounty
brilliant remnants flash
against tangled undergrowth
painting the old canvas red

That’s how I’m imagining my life today. A mess of tangled undergrowth, already beautiful in its own lively way, surprised from time to time by wild random beauty exploding from nowhere.

D took this photo at Chanticleer Gardens in late summer 2016. It invites me to consider my life today, and what might yet be waiting around the next corner. I feel like a child; I want to know how the story ends before it gets there. Not because of death, but because of all the good stuff that’s hiding, waiting along the way to surprise me with brilliant red.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 September 2018
Photo taken by DAFraser, Chanticleer Gardens, summer 2016

10 Comments

September 19, 2018

The purpose of my life today

Yesterday I visited a new blogging friend. He’d asked me to stop by and comment on his post. I don’t always get carried away when giving a comment. But this was different.

The post conveyed why it’s increasingly difficult to believe in deities. All religions take part in the madness of history, including present-day versions of old wars and massacres. Each in the name of its particular god, gods or God.

Here’s my response to the post, with minor changes and corrections, no additions. It helps me describe what it means today for me to live as a follower of Jesus who, after all, had no ‘Jesus’ to follow.

My journey has given me the gift of acknowledging a power greater than I, and I have chosen this way of living. I’ve also, thanks to my higher power and friends who supported me, discovered many new ways of naming and thinking about this being we call God. There are many gods and many Gods. I fear more from the human gods who, as I have done so often in my life, think they know what is best for me, for my country and for your country. I leave the other Gods to those who have studied them more than I.

Your post is very well written. I appreciate your openness to dialogue. Also, as you can see above, I like SS’s comment. There are many small, known and unknown women, men and children who make a difference in the name of God every day. I want to be part of their number. Not because I have to, but because I want to and choose to do that.

One day I will die. Sooner, not later. What’s the purpose of my life? It’s to die well. That doesn’t mean there’s a script. It just means that every day of my life I show in some concrete way that I know my days are numbered. I also have faith and hope that my higher power who shapes my life today (it’s not easy) will welcome me home. No matter what God looks like.

Being a ‘professional’ theologian of the Protestant Christian tradition, I’ve been humbled many times when reading about the atrocities of the Christian church (no matter which branch). I’ve also felt like vomiting when I’ve read some theologians’ writings about women and other ‘less human’ beings. There is, however, nothing so powerful as truth. So I attempt each day to live as fully and freely as possible in the light of the truth I’ve received. It saved my life, and I want to pass it on before I die.

Blessings to you and on your blogging life. If you allow it to do so, it will find and change you in ways you never thought possible.

Today is Yom Kippur, a Day of Atonement. The Jewish synagogue across the street is already filled with members. A good day for each of us to accept God’s forgiveness, and pass it along to ourselves and others as needed.

4 Comments

September 16, 2018

No other gods

Thou shalt have no other gods…

twilight of our small gods
descends over shallow water
teeming with refuse

ill-begotten secrets lurk
beneath ripples of shriveled minds
as once-buoyant hopes sink

ill-conceived saviors morph
into scapegoats scorned with contempt
mirrors of our self-loathing despair

Come unto me all who labor and are heavy-laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me;
For I am meek and lowly of heart
And you shall find rest for your souls.
Matthew 11:28-29

There’s nothing magical about it. No overnight resolutions of pain and anguish. Just a re-orientation to the one who leads and accompanies us to God, who already loves and grieves for each of us.

Thanks to my blogging friend Yassy, for a poem and comment yesterday that got my mind going on this post. Check out her lovely poem.

7 Comments

September 13, 2018

Unraveling

her life at loose ends
she scans the near horizon
searching for a thread
beyond sight and out of mind
stolen while she slept

While out walking this morning I saw my friend Rita and her lively little dog. I recalled the first time I ever had tea at Rita’s. She’d asked a childhood friend to join us. Both are in their 80s. They grew up together in Philadelphia and remained good friends over the years.

Within a few minutes I knew this bright, interesting woman had problems with short-term memory. Over and over I answered the same questions. She was fully aware of my presence, and genuinely interested in my responses–which she heard many times over.

Does she have Alzheimer’s Disease? I don’t know. I do know she’s now confined to her living quarters and has someone helping her out. I’ve also learned in the last month that another friend’s sister and mother died of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The poem could be about any of us, whether we carry Alzheimer genes or not. Nonetheless, I have to admit it’s on my mind more often than I’d like, and I scan every news article I see about the latest AD research.

Perhaps one day all these loose ends will be woven into the beautiful patchwork quilt of hope we’ve been looking for all these years.

6 Comments

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