Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Life and Death

January 28, 2022

unwelcome truths

Protests are never enough
Banners prod but don’t produce solutions
Anger spills from hot microphones
Releasing age-old frustrations
Captured in picture-perfect news clips

What-next moments reveal unwelcome truths
Weary eyes beg for sleep
So little energy today
Dreams are easier to entertain
Than cruel realities on the ground

As a white woman, I often find myself at a loss. What to do? What not to do? Do ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ happen to be on any given day) really want my input or partnership? Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps I should take care of my own unexamined business as the white woman I am.

Right from the top, I’d say taking care of my own business isn’t just a ‘good’ thing to do. It’s a radically necessary part of becoming human regardless of my color, upbringing, beliefs, privileges, or trauma.

Nonetheless, the challenge brings up deeper issues of race, class, color, creed, privilege, political inclinations, and a lot more.

I can’t be everyone. I can only be myself. Which is a crazy thing to acknowledge, given my nearly life-long obsession with being the woman someone else thought I should be. Making you happy about me would somehow make me happy about myself. As though I’d finally ‘found’ myself.

However, I began finding myself only after I stopped trying to be the polite human female others thought I should be. Retirement and old age (78 and counting) have been tough taskmasters. My options for helping change the world are diminishing.

Given the options, I’ve chosen global climate change as a way of bringing together multiple issues. Or, to put it another way, without global climate change, other social and global issues won’t have a chance of being addressed. This includes Race, Gender, Refugees, War, Poverty, Crop Survival, Water Rights, Hoarding of Riches, Gun Violence, Voting Rights, Pandemics and more.

What does this mean for me? It means doing what I can to acknowledge the high price climate change has imposed on those with the least resources. More on that in another post. Right now it’s time to get this baby in the pipeline and eat lunch!

Cheers!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 January 2022
Photo found at nationalgeographic.com

4 Comments
January 22, 2022

One day at a time

This morning I opened my email to find Elizabeth Elliot’s quote above, sent by a friend of many years. It wasn’t all prettied up with a photo. It was, however, precisely on time.

For about a year now I’ve been living with part of my eye and mind on the present, and the rest, especially my emotions, on the future. Not a bright future, but dread of what my body was trying to tell me about my health.

Last summer my integrative doctor recognized my symptoms, and immediately referred me to a neurologist. I imagined getting an appointment quickly. That wasn’t the way it worked out, so I had a good month and a half to continue living in the future.

Fast forward to yesterday and the post about my health. No more than two hours after I hit ‘publish’ I got a call saying the upcoming appointment with my hematologist had to be changed. I was blown away. Waiting just one more week felt like the last straw.

I’ve been a ‘one day at a time’ woman since my 40s. Yet in the midst of difficult life-changing realities, I quickly capitulate to what might happen tomorrow or next month. I don’t blame myself for this. I do, however, realize yet again how difficult it is to live ‘one day at a time.’ Especially when there’s so much going on in our aging bodies and souls that needs attention.

The temperature last night was frigid. I slept fairly well, all things considered. Today the sun is out, and I’m looking forward to the rest of this day for which I am responsible. As Elizabeth Elliot puts it, “God still owns tomorrow.” It will come soon enough.

Thanks again for stopping by!
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 January 2022
Elizabeth Elliot quote found at quotefancy.com

4 Comments
January 21, 2022

Health and Well-Being Update | Peripheral Neuropathy+

The last several months felt like a never-ending hike in the dark. Not knowing. Waiting. Getting bits and pieces of information, but not the whole pie. Which would likely be liver and okra pie—my worst nightmare foods when I was a child!

  1. Seriously, I know more than I did a month ago. Yes, I have peripheral neuropathy. But where is it coming from?
  2. Thanks to the MRI in late December, I now know it’s coming from osteoarthritis in my lower spine.
  3. The pain in my feet can be eased by several simple and challenging exercises. As a religious person and because I’m able to do so, I’m religiously practicing the art of stretching and strengthening my lower back.
  4. The pain in my feet and legs is worse when weather fronts move in along with frigid wind, snow, sleet, and ice. Ironically, sudden changes in air pressure coincide with burning in my legs and feet. Especially at night.
  5. Walking is an excellent way to get circulation going in my lower legs and feet. I walk almost every day come rain or shine, thanks to an open first-floor plan, a radio, and my wi-fi headphones.
  6. Open-toe sandals are comforting to my feet, along with soft, warm knee-high diabetic socks. I am not diabetic.
  7. I have a serious problem with fatigue. Morning energy quickly dissolves into weariness.

Next week I’ll see my hematologist. Based on the outcome of bloodwork he ordered a month ago, he will tell me whether I’m a candidate for a health issue at least as difficult as peripheral neuropathy. D will be with me so that we hear this news together.

That’s my report for now. I’m taking this one day at a time: laughing or crying when I feel like it, lying down for short naps as needed, playing the piano, listening to music, watching the birds, and sticking to my super-healthy diet.

Praying this finds each of you in reasonably good health.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 Jan 2021
Photo found at pinterest.com

12 Comments
January 15, 2022

the mouth of a labyrinth | Simone Weil

Labyrinth mosaic, pintrestcom, bf2fc531911eaeff68e36f2a566bd032

Today a visitor read this post from June 2015. The quote below is from philosopher Simone Weil.  I reformatted her words for easier reading and used feminine pronouns. I think this could be about me. Right now. Maybe about you? My comments follow, lightly edited.

The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth.
The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps
is soon unable to find the opening.
Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark,
separated from her dear ones,
and from everything she loves and is accustomed to,
she walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything,
incapable even of discovering whether she is really going forward
or merely turning round on the same spot. 

But this affliction is as nothing
compared with the danger threatening her.
For if she does not lose courage,
if she goes on walking,
it is absolutely certain that
she will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth.
And there God is waiting to eat her.
Later she will go out again,
but she will be changed,
she will have become different,
after being eaten and digested by God.
Afterward she will stay near the entrance so that
she can gently push all those who come near into the opening.

 –Simone Weil, Waiting for God

*  *  *

During a visit to Longwood Gardens, we started down the formal flower walk. The colors were spectacular. However, the odor was so strong that one family member said it was giving him a headache.

The odor persisted along the flower walk. Was it from a strange flower? No. It came from mulch in the flower beds!

Somehow this reminded me of Simone Weil’s words.

The beauty of the world is the mouth of the labyrinth….
at the center of the labyrinth….
God is waiting to eat her.

The world’s beauty includes nature’s beauty, here described as the mouth of a labyrinth that draws me in, unaware of what lies ahead.  Once drawn in, I find myself following the labyrinth to its center, and experiencing at least the following dis-ease:

  • temporary separation from familiar life outside the labyrinth
  • ignorance about where I am and where I’m going
  • fear of going in circles that lead nowhere

The center of the labyrinth is even more disquieting, if not dangerous. The mouth of God waits at the center. It waits to eat me alive, along with any other unsuspecting traveler.

So God eats and digests me. Turns me into mulch or compost, full of life-generating potential. Like compost baking in the sun. A form of death. Everything broken down, turned into solid and liquid gold that feeds the next generation.

Though nature isn’t God, it reflects something about the way God works. It helps me understand why life sometimes feels like a journey to another planet. A messy, smelly, sometimes terrifying journey of dying in order to be reborn as something truly valuable. Something that doesn’t look at all like the image I hope to see in my mirror.

My spiritual formation isn’t about getting all cleaned up. Nor is it about being destroyed by God or anyone else. It’s about being changed, transformed. It won’t happen unless I’m willing to be risk getting lost—helpless and unable to get myself out of my situation, much less understand where I’m going and why.

The journey itself can be terrifying; so can God’s role. It seems alien to all I might expect God to be. Thankfully, I have a choice to enter the labyrinth or not.

Or do I? There’s Simone Weil, standing at the mouth of the labyrinth, gently pushing unsuspecting travelers into the open mouth. In which case, I will emerge transformed by God if I keep moving along, one disorienting turn after another.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 June 2015; reposted 15 January 2022
Mosaic Labyrinth Image from pintrest.com

4 Comments
January 6, 2022

Colors of dusk and the unknown

Colors of dusk
lull my weary heart to sleep

Day fades into night
as this weary world
churns abruptly
from one horrifying
mess to another

Twilight melts into darkness
punctuated by distant specks of
bright stars and planets
peering into the morass
of today’s fading planet earth
sinking and disappearing
beneath melting icebergs
firestorms and tornadoes
to say nothing of unnumbered
human beings struggling
to keep the little they have—
Or, on the other side of the tracks,
retain monstrous wealth the elite
believe they own and control

Fast fading colors
invite me to lay down
my body and rest
for just a little while
within the unknown

Here are a few questions I wonder about these days.

  • Are we prepared to be a nation driven by greed, anger, lies and innuendos? Or, are we ready to take a stand?
  • Ready to call out lies and innuendoes that pretend to be truth? Ready to live with the consequences?
  • Or, might we try getting interested in what other people think and why?

I would love to see us take a stand, though not just any stand. Am I ready for this? I don’t know. Partly because I’m not sure which is more distressing: the status of our nation and perhaps every other nation in this world, or the status of my health. None of it looks great these days. I keep wondering what to say about all this.

I can’t ignore our nation, and I can’t ignore my health. The AlAnon/AA saying, ‘one day at a time’ works well IF I’m willing to focus on one day or one minute at a time. My mind and my feelings fight against me, as though things will be better (tomorrow!) if I do more research on my health issues. Or read more news articles.

Yet the truth is simple. I’d rather write a poem, play or listen to beautiful music, watch the birds outside our kitchen window, or watch the evening sky flaming out in glory.

Thanks for being part of my sanity plan for old age! I’m still trying to figure it out–one day at a time.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 January 2022
Photo found at unsplash.com

16 Comments
January 3, 2022

My prayer for the New Year

Finding my place
In this pandemic madness
Proves elusive

Perhaps my eyes have
Learned not to see clearly
What others predict

Or I’m just weary
With hanging out and waiting
For the same old news

Don’t get me wrong. I admire every news commentator and guest who speaks from diligent research and personal experience. Especially about the current pandemic.

At the end of the day, however, we haven’t a clue what will happen next here in the USA. Not just regarding Covid and its growing family of unpredictable offspring, but also about our growing habit of living in alternate realities.

Right versus Wrong, Left versus Right, Independent, Nothing at All. Identities proudly held and widely approved as political signatures. They announce one’s loyalty or disloyalty not to a country or to the world, but to unproven and often unprovable opinions about many things.

In fact, most of us have been swimming and/or drowning in alternate realities since the day we were born. When I look back at my childhood, I’m horrified. Just within my own family the push was already on. The goal was crystal clear: obey your parents (especially your father) or pay the price. This goal permeated and shaped every area of my life.

Early experiences of ‘my father’s way or the highway’ didn’t help me become a thoughtful citizen, a trustworthy neighbor, or a careful listener to strangers. I know, anything can happen. I might get into big trouble. However, that’s not news. News would be my growing ability to welcome even more ‘strangers’ into my life.

My prayer for the New Year is that I’ll find simple ways to reconnect with and welcome friends and strangers, especially those who don’t see the world as I see it.

Thanks for stopping by today.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 January 2022
Image found at brandsandplaces.com

6 Comments
December 26, 2021

Desmond Tutu, Mary and the oppressed

Pin on madonna

Mary’s song came to mind this morning when I read about Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s life and death. Not the version we hear in church during the Christmas season, but Rev. Zephania Kameeta’s version below.

Mary is often depicted in sumptuous gowns. Yes, we honor her faithfulness to her son, right up to his unjust death. At the same time, I can’t forget her social status. She wasn’t born into a privileged life, and her neighbors may have raised an eyebrow or two when she became pregnant.

The sting in Mary’s song is large, especially when we remember her status in society. From my perspective, Rev. Kameeta captures the sting and the reality of Mary’s song and Jesus’ birth. Not in general terms, but as it relates to his own rejected brothers and sisters in Namibia.

Zephania Kameeta sings the song of Mary – Luke 1:46-55

Today I look into my own heart and all around me,
and I sing the song of Mary.

My life praises the Lord my God
who is setting me free.
He has remembered me, in my humiliation and distress!
From now on those who rejected and ignored me
will see me and call me happy,
because of the great things he is doing
in my humble life.

His name is completely different from the other names in this world;
from one generation to another,
he was on the side of the oppressed

As on the day of the Exodus, he is stretching out
his might arm to scatter the oppressors
with all their evil plans.
He has brought down mighty kings
from their thrones
and he has lifted up the despised;
and so will he do today.
He has filled the exploited with good things,
and sent the exploiters away with empty hands;
and so he will do today.

His promise to our mothers and fathers remains new and fresh to this day.
Therefore the hope for liberation which is burning in me
will not be extinguished.
He will remember me, here now and beyond the grave.

Rev. Zephania Kameeta’s song was published in Why, O Lord? Psalms and sermons from Namibia, p. 15.
© 1986 World Council of Churches, published as part of the Risk book series

Thanks for stopping by today. These are troubled and troubling times. I pray we’ll find our way home, one day at a time.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 December 2021
Image found at pinterest.com

12 Comments
December 20, 2021

Christmas in bleak midwinter

Outside my kitchen window
the sun beams bright and clear
on a cold Monday morning

Hungry birds run into each other
trying to gobble as many
ripe red berries as the law
allows in this increasingly
lawless dreamland called
these ‘United’ states

A slight glimmer of hope
remains despite our
greedy determination
to spend it all on ourselves
before we disappear into
the vortex of a tornado or
wildfires of human mayhem

Christmas has rarely been
this bleak though in truth
it first arrived in bleak midwinter
when powers that be weren’t
expecting the revolutionary
transformation sparked by
one small baby born and laid
in a manger surrounded by
hopes and dreams despite
the stench of reality

Outside my kitchen window
the sun still beams bright and clear
on this cold Monday morning

With apologies to my friends on the other side of the globe, experiencing what may well be a bleak midsummer.  And with thanks to persistent songbirds that captured my attention this morning with their determined dive-bombing for holly berries!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 December 2021
Photo by Terry DeLuko found at pixels.com

12 Comments
December 9, 2021

tear-splashed windows

sunbeams stream
through tear-splashed windows
the old woman blinks

~~~

This is not the turn I thought life would take
when I reached my late seventies.

Yesterday’s newborn chicks have finally come home to roost
not in my back yard but in my body.

Today I bear marks of what being female, white and alive cost
from the day I was born until now.

So far in my life, I’ve been able to function without getting entangled in multiple prescription drugs.

For the last several weeks, however, I’ve been looking at three prescription drugs (each from a different doctor), wondering which options would be relatively safe. Especially given my kidney disease. Some prescriptions drugs can’t be discontinued precipitously, which means no trial period.

I‘m also forced to consider my determination not to be caught up in staying “alive” at all costs. When do I cross the point of no return and stop attempts to fix what is unfixable?

I’ve never missed posting so much as I’m missing it now. I’m grateful for your visits and pray each of us will find a way through troubling times that sometimes overshadow the true gift of Christmas.

Thank you for stopping by today.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 December 2021
Photo found at maxpixel.net

15 Comments
November 23, 2021

choices I don’t want to make

If you had gently hinted
just one short year ago
that today would find me
lost and bereft
I might have laughed

On the other hand….

To say my situation is
better than so-and-so’s
misses the point altogether
while denying reality
screaming in my feet

How to live with this
malfunction on the outside
and agony on the inside
challenges my educational
upbringing and experience

Daily and nightly reminders
pile on unavoidable witness
to the slow decay of this body
still struggling each day with
choices I don’t want to make

I haven’t posted regularly for what feels like an eternity. Actually, it feels like hanging in midair, waiting to find out how this will play out. Peripheral Neuropathy. My new ‘friend’, though I still don’t know the full picture. The day after Thanksgiving I’ll have an MRI with the hope that my neurologist will learn something new or at least helpful.

My focus today is on what I enjoy doing. Unfortunately, my feet like to remind me of what I don’t enjoy. Nonetheless, my new curriculum is interesting. Bottom line: What would I like to do right now? What brings me joy, so that I don’t even notice what my feet feel? (For example: looking at David’s Longwood Garden Photos; playing the piano, riding my indoor bike.)

In addition to two books I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m also reading a book by Mims Cushing (who lives with this disease) and Norman Latov, MD, her neurologist. Title: You Can Cope with Peripheral Neuropathy: 365 Tips for living a full life. It’s a bit dated, but the self-help pointers are ageless.

Bottom line: I feel myself becoming a ‘different’ person–not so driven, more laid back, grateful for small gifts of each day and for you.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 November 2021
Photo taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens, December 2015

11 Comments