Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Memories

June 28, 2018

In the presence of my enemies

It’s January 2006. I got to my office early, and was preparing to drive to the airport and catch a flight to Houston, Texas, to be with my sister Diane who was dying of ALS. She had opted for comfort care at home. No food and no medication. Just fluids and whatever would comfort her. This might be my last visit with her.

As I was about to leave my office, the phone rang. It was D. His premonitions were correct. The president of the university had just requested D’s resignation. So here it was, after several years of difficult personnel and budget issues.

No, D didn’t want me to cancel my flight. Instead, I flew to Houston in a stupor of spousal pain and rage, and gave D a call that evening. I continued as dean at the seminary. D was now free to follow his heart and eventually accepted a position with an international organization he’d helped birth.

Now it’s August 2008. I’m on a platform in the university gym along with other dignitaries. We’re in full regalia, ready for the fall convocation, installation of new faculty, and installation of the new chancellor of the university. The man chosen as the next provost, one of D’s friends and faculty colleagues, would be installed as the new chancellor. My job was to offer the installation prayer.

Inside, I was a mess. When the time came, I stood at the lectern facing the university faculty along with our seminary faculty. A number of university faculty had been unhappy with D’s administration. Some bitterly so.

On the outside I was a professional. On the inside I was in melt-down, shaking in my spirit and fully aware I was facing some university faculty who felt like enemies, along with many others who still grieved D’s resignation.

The newly minted chancellor stood next to me, and I invited everyone to stand with me for the prayer. It was simple and direct. And yes, it was a prayer for me and for D, not just for the new chancellor.

The prayer made use of Psalm 23. I couldn’t find the original script. It went something like this:

Because the Lord is your shepherd and knows everything about you, you will never lack for anything you need.
When you’re weary, may you find rest in green pastures, and follow your shepherd to pools of quiet waters.
When your soul is troubled, may you find restoration, and be guided in paths of right relationships that bring honor to your shepherd.

When you go through times of deepest darkness and despair, may you fear no evil;
Your shepherd will be with you, to find and comfort you no matter what happens.
When your shepherd prepares a banquet for you, and your enemies are looking on or sitting at the table, know that you are an honored guest in the Lord’s house, worthy of the best wine in the world.

Finally, remember that this goodness and mercy will be with you all the days of your life, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord, your good shepherd, forever.

Amen

I don’t understand all the dynamics of this event. Nonetheless, when I sat down I was calm inside, ready for whatever came next.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 June 2018

11 Comments
June 27, 2018

A Prayer for Yesterday and Today

This morning I came across a prayer I wrote and delivered in May 2008, one year before I retired as dean. It was for our seminary’s special chapel for graduating seniors. It brought a few tears to my eyes, and I decided to share it with you. It isn’t easy to be human, is it?

Merciful, Gracious, and Most High God,

We come to You today just as we are
And because You invite us into your presence.

On this special occasion we lift up our graduating seniors
Our Brothers and Sisters, just as they are—
Filled with anticipation and perhaps a little anxiety;
Filled with excitement and perhaps a little uncertainty;
Filled with relief and perhaps a little dread about what comes next;
Filled with gratitude and perhaps a little disappointment or remorse.

We pray that Your will, not ours, would be accomplished in and through them.

We pray they will grow beyond this place in wisdom, skill and grace as followers of Jesus Christ, regardless of the cost to their reputations or professional standing.

Grant them grace and courage to grow
In and with their families;
In and with their churches and communities;
In and with their spiritual accountability partners;
In and with this world You love so much

Send Your Holy Spirit to keep their hearts soft and open as they move into new roles with more responsibility, and heightened pressure to look competent and successful.

Send Your ministering angels from time to time to remind them of their humanity, and to remind them that they are always beginners, always God’s beloved children still learning what it means to follow Jesus.

We pray that You would keep them and all of us as we learn to negotiate and inhabit this world You love.
A world plagued by natural disasters;
Political, ethnic and religious disasters;
Economic disasters and inequities;
Relational disasters and deep, unrelenting sorrow.

We pray for Your will, not ours, to be done in this world, beginning right here with us.
Your will for justice;
Your will for reconciliation and forgiveness;
Your will for courage to talk about and embody what makes for peace–
Beginning right here on the corner of Lancaster and City Avenues.

Just as we are, we come today to the foot of Your cross—
The cross that illuminates and is illuminated by the life You lived with us in Your son Jesus of Nazareth, and through the power of Your eternal Holy Spirit

We celebrate the degree of wholeness You have worked in us and in our brothers and sisters around the world.

We anticipate Your bringing all things to a conclusion in us and in this world
To Your honor, Your perfection, and Your glory.

To that end, we join our voices, our hands and our hearts as we pray together the prayer Your son Jesus taught us to pray, saying
Our father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil;
For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 June 2018

4 Comments
June 25, 2018

seeping through pores

Seeping through pores
The virus takes root
Invisible at first
A sense of not being
At home or abroad
In this sea of strangers
Wandering in and out
Filled with good will
They come and  go
Dry and desolate
A thought takes root
Without reason
The only welcome visitor
Whose words unheard
Make perfect sense
In this dying hope for miracles
That never arrive on time

In recognition of our most recent national upsurge in suicides attempted and/or completed, and in honor of family members and friends who ended their lives on this earth, or made the attempt and failed.

Always a thousand unanswered questions. Always a sense of ‘what could I or we have done differently?’ Always a desire to go to sleep and hope for something better when I wake up.

Multiple resources are available online. Hotlines and chat rooms are open night and day. Sitting there, waiting to be used. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 June 2018

2 Comments
June 19, 2018

Dear Toothfairy,

This morning I happened to open this file, and had more than a good chuckle. It reminds me of many things I love about our adult son Scott, and some of the other stuff, too! Already writ large in this brief but spectacular note is his business-like, relationally savvy approach to life’s little challenges.

Also writ large is his diplomatic determination to turn looming failure into brilliant success. Of course the Toothfairy was moved with compassion. What other option was there, really?

Then again, he never did explain why he didn’t go looking for the clearly missing tooth.

Happy Tuesday!
Elouise

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 June 2018
Photo of Scott and Sherry taken by DAFraser in the early 1970s, Altadena, California

8 Comments
June 18, 2018

Why we’re here, together

What’s it all about, anyway? Is there any method to this madness?

This past Saturday I attended a gathering of people from our church, the community, the seminary where I served, and visitors from other churches and states. We celebrated the ordination of a graduate, now a faculty member at the seminary, who has served at our church since the early 1990s. She was one of my students, and later became a colleague on the faculty.

Since retiring in 2011, I haven’t returned to the seminary for social or formal occasions. What happened with the seminary since I departed hasn’t been easy. From my point of view, the less I knew, the better. It was easier to be somewhere else, and better for my health.

But now many colleagues from the seminary were coming to our church for a celebration I wasn’t about to miss.

Was I uneasy? Let’s just say I was a bit short of a basket case last week. First of all, I had to decide what to wear. My normal church clothes (blue jeans, t-shirts and jackets) wouldn’t do.

Yet what to wear was nothing compared with apprehension about seeing colleagues and students I hadn’t seen in years.

I needn’t have worried. From the moment I walked into the sanctuary and saw one of my colleagues, I felt like I’d just come home. In fact, sitting there, surrounded by several rows of ‘us’ felt a bit like going to heaven. I think. I’ve never been there, so I can’t be sure….

Among my colleagues was a woman I’d hired as our director of student formation. My mind went back to the first sermon she ever preached at the seminary. It was about when we all get to heaven.

She asked us why we were all there on the corner of City and Lancaster Avenues, just across the street from the city of Philadelphia and just on the edge of the western suburbs of Philadelphia. And why were we such a diverse group?

We weren’t simply diverse as Americans, but as international students from all over the globe. All now thrown together in this little seminary on the corner of City and Lancaster Avenues. Perhaps feeling culture shock. Never quite sure what someone meant by that turn of phrase, or that look or that comment or question. Or why some people laughed now and some people laughed then. And others didn’t laugh much at all.

At the end of her sermon, she suggested we were at this specific location to  practice getting to know each other now, getting along with each other now, breaking the ice with each other now, so that when we get to heaven we won’t have culture shock when we see who else is there!

I’ll admit to a bit of creative memory here. But I know that was the point of her sermon. We closed with a rousing hymn, “When We All Get to Heaven.”

Just seeing and being with former colleagues and students made me grateful to be welcomed into a seminary alive with humanity. Imperfect, yet alive in ways I’ve rarely experienced in other institutions of so-called ‘higher’ learning.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 June 2018

13 Comments
June 9, 2018

Shaming and Punishing Women

One of my longtime followers, Fran Macilvey, left the following request in response to my recent post, Voices long silent.

I’d like to hear more about your view on “….shaming rituals and periodic public displays of what happens to strong women…” because I’m sure it doesn’t just happen to women, and I’m curious to consider why we do it. What are we frightened of? Disapproval??

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, especially about how things like this happen to men. At the same time, from my childhood on it seemed women and girls had to be kept in their places. My personal fear wasn’t disapproval. It was harsh punishment. Not just as a child, but even as a professional. It was important to ‘walk the line’ and remember that I was not in charge. Today I might simply walk out. But that freedom didn’t happen overnight.

In a recent telephone conversation with one of my sisters, we talked about ways young boys shamed us at school when we were in the 5th grade. Our father also shamed us at home every time one of us was beaten. I was the prime example of what would happen to my three younger sisters if they dared to live ‘outside’ the lines of what my father considered proper behavior for females.

So we shared our experiences in the 5th grade. Both involved shaming by a male classmate. There was no one safe to talk with us. Not at school, and not at home. Each of us lived with the burden of believing we were the problem. The truth, however, is that our young, developing female bodies were the problem. Not to us, but to the boys who tormented us.

Silence about things like this, when carried for decades and magnified by repeated body shaming is like carrying a dead weight in one’s body and soul. Still, the only safe way to get through was to keep our young mouths shut and just keep going.

I can’t begin to describe the feeling of release I felt because my sister and I had finally dared tell each other about this insult to our souls and bodies.

Then there’s the companion side of this dilemma. Often when women stand up and report harassing behavior, they become the subject of investigation. Maybe it was your clothes, your tone of voice, the look in your eyes, the perfume you wore to work today. Hence the silence of women afraid to report abuse of any kind on the job, at home, in schools and universities, in churches, or even in friendship circles.

I’m not saying all women are as pure as the driven snow. Instead, I’m saying that experiences like this need to be unpacked. Perhaps we can change our behavior. Not because what we’re doing is ‘wrong,’ but because it isn’t putting our own safety first. Often we need trusted friends and qualified psychotherapists to walk with us.

Reading books about how to survive various forms of shaming or PTSD isn’t a bad thing to do. We can learn a lot. Yet there’s that internal stuff that isn’t going to go away because we read a book. Sometimes we need a safe person to hear us out and help us examine our feelings and behaviors without blame or judgment.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 June 2018

11 Comments
June 8, 2018

Voices long silent

Dawn's Place circle of friends making paper flowers february 2014

Voices long silent
Spill over each other
Dying to be heard

Sisters on a mission
To recover lost youth
Find each other instead

Secrets never shared
Comfort never given
Tears never cried
Sink into the ground
Of love-starved hearts

How many of us are there? Blood relatives or total strangers, it doesn’t matter. The more I read and hear about the untold lives of women, the more horrified I am at the way we’ve been silenced. I also wonder how long we’ve taken it out on each other?

Starving for sisterly conversation. That’s how I grew up. Silence was enforced and reinforced a thousand ways. Not just at home but in church, in school and in every social or public setting of my life. Even, strangely, in settings that seemed to be made up of women only.

As a child and teenager I was surrounded by a seen and unseen assemblage of rules, shaming rituals and periodic public displays of what happens to strong women. Especially women who speak their minds and make trouble for the rest of us.

Fast forward, and it feels too familiar. Not so much from the bottom up as from the top down. It doesn’t take many men and like-minded women to turn the tide. Especially when women can easily be publicly shamed, if not ruined, in this age of social media.

Many, if not most of us are starving for love. Not for glory or fame, but for safety, acceptance and affection. We’re dying for a listening ear. At least one other woman who will confirm our experience. Laugh and weep with us. Comfort and support us. Especially now, when female life around the world is still fragile, no matter how many grand laws are on the books. Including right here at home in these United States of America.

I know. There are all kinds of barriers and circumstances that seem to discourage this. Yet a smile and a warm hello might be that last drop that turns the tide for another woman. I’d even suggest it’s a way of knocking on a door. Especially in a country gone sour on social niceties.

With hope and persistence,
Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 8 June 2018
Photo: Women at Dawn’s Place, a therapeutic residential program for women

2 Comments
June 5, 2018

Yesterday’s children

Yesterday’s children
Peer back through
Clouded windows of
Earth-worn eyes
Sparkling with tears
Seeing and remembering
Laughing at foolishness

Wistful longing knocks
On the garden gate
Where today’s children
Peer through iron bars
Eager to become
The adults they imagine
Themselves to be

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 5 June 2018
Image found at gardenateaseshops.com

6 Comments
May 24, 2018

The High Cost of Living in the USA | Part 2

The high cost of living in the USA has fallen on African Americans from the very beginning of this nation. The goal has been and, it seems, still is to keep them in their places and optimize the gains of those in power. Including the power of those of us who think we have no power.

The high cost didn’t go down when slavery was outlawed. We simply notched it up with lynching, and then discovered mass incarceration. Some argue that mass incarceration is simply the latest way to get cheap labor and ‘disappear’ Black Americans without getting into legal trouble.

Are we the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes and no. Yes if you’re able to reach and maintain inner freedom and courage in the face of overwhelmingly negative odds. Perhaps we’ve looked to the wrong heroes to show us what true freedom and bravery looks like.

I remember more than one of my younger African American male seminarians telling me he didn’t think he’d live to be an adult. Besides a history of slavery, lynching and entrenched racism, there’s random gun violence every day, entrenched poverty, and limited options regardless of ability. Add to this the availability of drugs and alcohol, and the mistake of being in public space if you’re Black.

Last month a new Memorial to Peace and Justice opened. It’s dedicated to making visible our history of slavery, lynching and now mass incarceration. I want to visit this new Memorial before I die. Why? Because it’s past time to look at this part of my heritage as a white female.

In summer 1950, my family moved from California to rural Savannah, Georgia, just a short walk from what we called ‘colored town.’ I wasn’t aware of animosity between races. I was, however, painfully aware of economic disparities on display every day. Not just in our rural community, but in the city.

I now know from reading about the new memorial, and from this interactive map, that the state of Georgia is #2 in the list of states with the highest lynching record between 1882 and 1930. In fact, from 1877 to 1950, Georgia lynched 586 black men, women and children. Do you know how many were lynched in your state?

I’m told I enjoy white privilege. It’s true. When I get up in the morning I don’t have to worry about thousands of things including being seen in public as a white woman. I would suggest that this ‘privilege’ is better defined as white ignorance. I’ve learned, simply by breathing the air around me, how to be blind and unresponsive to what’s right before my eyes every day of my life.

So where do I go with this? Though data is important, I don’t think the solution lies in miles and miles of data. Instead, I’m rooting for the poets, the songwriters, the storytellers, and the truth tellers. Including truth-tellers like those who dreamed about and planned this new National Memorial.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 May 2018
Photo found at Wickipedia; y Shameran81 – Courtesy Middleton Place, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55786120

14 Comments
May 21, 2018

The High Cost of Living in the USA | Part 1

From my journal, written 17 December 2017. Lightly edited for clarity.

I’m stunned at how angry I am. Here we are in 2017 and some men and women are still trying to minimize what’s happening in the shadows. They want to change the conversation to the poor men who are being humiliated. I’m fiercely angry. This surprises me, since I thought I’d dealt with this and found a way to connect it with my life as it is now. So that my voice is in charge.

Suddenly ‘their’ voices seem to be in charge. The voices of men who violated other human beings and try to dismiss it all as lies or misunderstandings and get on with their lives. Victims be damned. In fact, let’s sue them! For defamation of character! Lies and half-truths.

I saw this behavior when I confronted my father about his abuse of my body and spirit. In his eyes, I was clearly The Problem. Today I hear almost ritual trashing of women and men who were violated in any number of ways. Forced against their will to do obeisance to a perpetrator. And then paying for it with their silence if not their future careers.

I feel the energy draining away even as I type this. What’s so horrendous is the cost of even beginning to connect with this national tragedy. As great as slavery, in my opinion. Though not the same as slavery. Both realities treat women and some men as another class of beings brought into the world to do someone else’s bidding and keep their mouths shut. What were they thinking???

Christian leaders, politicians of all parties, business leaders, prominent actors and producers, everyday fathers and uncles and grandfathers and brothers and cousins. How can such a degrading reality live for so many generations?

I don’t have the energy for this. Still, I’m horrified at the extent to which some are going to avoid, deny, make light of or even ‘kill’ truth.

The headlines are like poison right now. I avoid them. I don’t want to live in a constant state of internal uproar. I need a clear agenda for what I will and will not do to take care of myself in this national war between the courageous and the cowards who think money and reputation will save them.

Maybe all the ‘everyday’ harassment I experienced, especially at the seminary, wasn’t about how wrong I was, but about how right I was and how strong my voice is. I’ve always felt my voice was weak. Though women and some men found it strong, the overall impression I made on the majority of students was, I think, negligible. And according to some seminary officials, the less I said about controversial matters, the better.

But now I wonder. Was all the commotion about me due to the power of my voice? Were they afraid because they found themselves wanting to agree with me yet were also afraid it might mean the end of their hoped-for careers in church and denominational politics?

I’ll never know. Still, it never occurred to me that opposition to a voice might be a sign of the speaker’s success. Fear is a powerful motivator. Especially if someone is afraid of being labeled a trouble-maker or worse.

Cost: cannot be ascertained, only mourned for all women and men whose voices and creativity were silenced.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 May 2018
Photo found at businessresearcher.sagepub.com

3 Comments