Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Nature

October 27, 2017

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris

It’s the end of a busy week, and we’re hoping to visit Longwood Gardens tomorrow (yay!). One thing that helped me stay focused this week was Mary Oliver’s poem below. My comments follow.

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Mary Oliver, Thirst, Beacon Press 2006

Mary Oliver invites me to attend to small things right before my eyes, often at my feet. Pay attention. So much attention that I can’t stop thinking about it/them.

One small thing caught my attention this past week. At first I didn’t see any connections. Or hear any voices speaking into my silence. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

‘It’ is a small, striped-tail chipmunk (ground squirrel) that regularly sits on a cement block wall just along the edge of our backyard driveway. He or she? I don’t know. I do know it’s often sitting or lying on that wall in just the same spot. And has been since the wall was completed several years ago.

Sometimes it runs down the wall and jumps into our pile of yard trimmings, looking for food. When the weather is chilly, it stretches out on top of its favorite cement block and soaks in the sun. Other times it sits there alert, watching for possible intruders.

I think it has a nest inside one of the cement blocks—on the unfinished back side of the wall. Sometimes when I walk by on the way to the garage it quickly races into one of the cement blocks.

Several kinds of hawks frequent our area. I’ve watched them swoop down into our back yard to surprise a large gray squirrel, a slow sparrow or a dove. I’ve also heard our small chipmunk squawking out the alarm, joined by other small backyard creatures. Sometimes the hawks have their way.

We live in unsettled times. It takes determination to focus on simple things that inhabit our lives. Especially when there are hawks out there with their beady eyes scanning the ground for juicy tidbits.

Mary Oliver’s poem invites me to pay attention to the chipmunk. To hear our Creator’s voice speaking through the simple things of life. Not giving up, but staying alert, living each day simply and fully. Which can be a way of saying thank you. Without fancy gestures or heavy words laden with heavy thoughts. This isn’t a contest.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 October 2017
Photo found at Pinterest

9 Comments
October 23, 2017

Going home

Maybe it’s the steady march
of autumn fading into brown
Or birds migrating south
in twos and threes and twelves

Then again it may be nothing
more than daylight diminishing
into shades of deepening night

Unexpectedly I wake up
anticipating the unthinkable
bidding farewell to this world
sinking below and beyond
the horizon into unending day
finally at home and at peace

Writing these words troubles me
Has deep discontent wormed its way
into my soul?

Yet there it sits.
This world of aching beauty and sorrow
will not be my home forever

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 October 2017
Photo found at pinterest; taken by David Allen Photography
Sunset from Clingman’s Dome, Great Smokey Mountains, North Carolina

9 Comments
October 11, 2017

tiny drops of dew

We exist only because
God believes in us
And risks everything on our account

And who are “we”?
We are not the United States of America.
We are not any country on the face of this earth.
This is not our earth; not even our good earth.
It too belongs to God who believes in us
Not as the exceptional stars of God’s show
But as the everyday gardeners whose sole duty
Is to plow the ground and harvest the fruit
Of God’s great Harvest most of which
We will never see in our lifetimes.

We are not the stars or the sun or even the moon.
We are reflections of God’s great glory shining
Beyond light into our darkness filling our cups
To overflowing with tiny drops of dew each morning
Enough for this day when given away before it
Evaporates and returns to God who sent it.

I exist only because
God believes in me
And risks everything on my account

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 11 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, August 2017
Daily Prompt: Exceptional

12 Comments
October 7, 2017

yesterday’s memories


bluer than blue
greener than green
yesterday’s memories
filter deep water
refocus depth of perception
brilliance and light
shadows and darkness
in this transient season
not of our making
or understanding

Photos of reflections on water often capture more depth of perspective and color, along with greater detail than we could see in the moment the camera clicked. And, strangely, there’s often truth and beauty in these photos that captures my heart even more than it did when the camera clicked.

In the end, Truth lives beyond our individual perceptions. All the more reason for humility, openness, and listening ears. For me, this means at least a twofold commitment to spiritual elasticity that

  • doesn’t give away or abandon Truth,
  • and fully understands and even loves that it cannot see or own all Truth.

It isn’t all up to me. My part is to follow Truth and report what I’m seeing. Not what you’re seeing.

The Truth I follow is a person, Jesus Christ, who leads by way of life wisdom, not folly. The path is difficult. Never crystal clear, not engraved in stone, always dangerous and always evolving. I pray for spiritual elasticity to yield and stretch faithfully, in keeping with Jesus’ life, death and deceptively brief ministry on this earth.

A few thoughts for this weekend and Sabbath rest, given the world in which I find myself today. Not bereft of beauty, comfort and hope, and equally no longer the world I thought I knew. Now, more than ever, I need and am grateful for companions on this journey.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, May 2017 at Longwood Gardens
Daily Prompt: Elastic

9 Comments
October 6, 2017

the wind of the Spirit

The wind blows where it wishes
and you hear the sound of it,
but do not know where it comes from and where it is going;
so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3:8 (New American Standard Bible)

I want to receive and be part of the wind blown by God’s Spirit. Margie, my friend who died recently, was part of that wind. Quietly and without fanfare, she lived a frugal, disciplined life dedicated to one thing only. Helping others become the persons they were created to be. Not by working magic on them, or offering wise advice and counsel. It was much simpler and far more difficult than that.

Margie’s life was about praying. Finding out where the hurts in this world are landing, and praying for persons in pain or trying to find their way home. Praying not just once but daily, using notebooks to record her life of prayer. Following up and asking how things are going. And sometimes asking for prayer for herself.

I still say prayer changes me. I say that because often it’s the only evidence I have that anything is happening. The rest is up to the Spirit of God our Creator who has a Great Heart with unlimited space to enfold all of us together.

I’ve been restless lately about the meaning of my life now that I’m retired. This morning I’m thinking that maybe this season of life is about letting the wind of God blow through and on me, one day at a time. Beautifully and gracefully on some days; brutally bitter and cold on others. The way it did for Margie.

Though I’m not Margie, I want my writing to be a form of prayer for us–all of us. That we’ll be open to change that softens and toughens at the same time. Allowing the Spirit of our Creator to do through each of us what we cannot do on our own. I know it’s possible, because I’ve seen it already in many of you and in myself, as I did in Margie.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 October 2017
Photo found at Pixabay.com
Daily Prompt: Genius

6 Comments
October 4, 2017

A Bird came down the walk —

Here’s another childlike poem from Emily Dickinson that’s filled with adult insight. My comments follow.

A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw –
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass –
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass –

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around –
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought –
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home –

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam –
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

c. 1862

Emily Dickinson Poems, Edited by Brenda Hillman
Shambhala Pocket Classics, Shambhala 1995

Here’s how I see this poem today—informed by my own observations, and the article I mentioned earlier about possible trauma in Emily’s life. The author saw multiple signs of this, especially in poems written around 1862 and beyond. Emily was about 32 years old when she wrote this poem.

  • Despite the childlike language and scenario, Emily’s poem conveys a sense of mystery. The Bird hopping down the walk is being watched and doesn’t know it. Might it have done something else if it had known someone was looking?
  • Though the Bird does something natural, the unnoticed onlooker doesn’t simply say the Bird ate a worm. Each action gets a full line in this short poem, perhaps to emphasize the suddenness and horror of the unsuspecting Angleworm’s demise. Is it important to identify the Angleworm? Or are they just a dime a dozen or more. Dispensable.
  • Stanza 2 seems to say life goes on as normal for the Bird. Still, it isn’t clear why this Bird hopped aside to let a Beetle pass, since birds regularly eat beetles.
  • Beginning with Stanza 3, Emily seems to know this Bird. She sees a vigilant, even frightened Bird whose eyes and head can’t rest. Constantly scanning for what?
  • The opening line of Stanza 4 is ambiguous. Who is in constant danger, Cautious? Perhaps both the Bird and Emily. Emily cautiously offers the Bird a crumb. Is this all she has to offer? In other poems she describes herself as starved. Yet we already know this Bird isn’t starving. Instead of taking the crumb from her hand, it spreads its wings like oars and heads for home.
  • Stanza 5 almost painfully highlights the ease and beauty with which the Bird and Butterflies, row softly and soar brightly above this ocean world in which vigilance is a constant companion.

I think Emily wishes she were a Bird or a Butterfly—beautiful in flight as she soars silently, through and above this ocean-like world of danger. Somewhere above the Banks along the seashore, making her way to a place called home.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 October 2017
Photo found at favim.com

5 Comments
October 3, 2017

The cost of endurance

The cost of endurance drags heavy
on my feet increasingly unwilling
to put one step before another at this
snail’s pace – a lifetime sentence of
fallout from disasters beyond control
out of synch with my world-weary soul

Outside the front door sirens scream
their way toward yet another disaster
while beyond my kitchen windows
trees beneath blue skies and home to
songbirds entice me into yet another
day – interest enough for this old soul

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 October 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, Longwood Gardens, June 2017
Daily Prompt: Interest

12 Comments
Video | October 2, 2017

A Bird came down the Walk —

I just found this nimble, lively, graceful, agile and elegantly athletic interpretation of Emily’s well-known poem. Emily wrote the poem in about 1862. The young woman who produced the video prepared it for one of her school classes. Don’t miss her creative credits at the end, or her short interpretive written summary.

The video is short–less than 2 minutes. I’ll have my say about the poem later this week. Here’s the written version, in case it’s difficult to catch all the words in the video:

A Bird came down the Walk –
He did not know I saw —
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass —
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass —

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around —
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought —
He stirred his Velvet Head

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home —

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam —
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

Emily Dickinson, written c. 1862

Happy Monday!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 October 2017
Video found on YouTube
Daily Prompt: Athletic

2 Comments
September 23, 2017

Caught in a near nightmare

This morning I woke up feeling strangely empty. And weeping. Partly because of a near-nightmare and partly because we’re living, it seems, in a near-nightmare.

In the dream, I’m alone in a small room, just getting ready to exit. I’ve decided this small room isn’t going to work for me. Suddenly a man I don’t know and have never seen before walks into the room. He isn’t impressive in stature or looks, yet I know in my gut that he’s potentially bad news. He immediately flops down on the single bed near the door.

As I walk toward the door to exit, he reaches out and grabs my hand. His face clouds over with contempt and a sneer. I know I’m done for if I don’t take charge. I feel small and defenseless. Caught in a nightmare not of my making. I feel his grip tightening on my hand.

I wake up not knowing what to say or do next.

The man’s eyes, the sneer on his face, and the totally invasive nature of his presence and behavior communicated his firm belief that I was totally irrelevant. In his eyes my life mattered not a whit.

It’s sometimes difficult these days, especially since I’m on the older end of the age spectrum, to maintain a sense of relevance. But this was bigger than that. It was about the invader’s power and willingness to exercise it no matter who I might have been. Though I’ll admit it didn’t help to be female.

This tired old world is in a season of growing visible and present chaos. The kind this world has seen before, though not with so many growing warehouses of nuclear arms and an over-supply of trigger-happy leaders ready to prove their supposed virility. Ordinary people seem to have become irrelevant. Except as props on a political stage.

I don’t fixate on this every day. Nonetheless, it’s always in the air begging for my addictive attention. If I remain fixated, I’m a goner, dead or alive.

Instead of playing along with the ‘dream’ man’s agenda for me, I relax, ignore his eyes and disgusting speech, and pray out loud and in a strong voice these challenging words from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Six Recognitions of the Lord.”

Oh feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
The fragrance of the fields and the
Freshness of the oceans which you have
Made, and help me to hear and to hold
In all dearness those exacting and wonderful
Words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:
Follow me.

Mary Oliver, Thirst, stanza 5 from “Six Recognitions of the Lord”
Beacon Press 2006

Which is my prayer for all of you as well. No matter what comes next.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 23 September 2017
Image found at givaudan.com
Daily Prompt: Irrelevant

17 Comments
September 22, 2017

Happy Weekend Photos from Longwood

Have you ever seen leaves like those above? They’re in the sun garden just at the beginning of the flower walk. This time it’s all about late summer madness–a riot of color and texture and lush vegetation. No hiding. Just masses of color having their last fling before autumn begins in earnest.

Here’s the setting for the leaves shown above. I don’t know the name of the plant. All I know is that it thrives in the hot sun, and I could hardly tear my eyes away from the graceful folds and colors of the leaves.

Leaving this area we began the flower walk. Always the same basic color layout–cool colors on the first half, warmer colors on the second half, set off by a fountain in the middle, with a small detour to the right, overlooking a sunken garden. Today the golden warm colors reigned.

Here’s the central fountain, and a quick peek into the sunken garden. Don’t miss the chrysanthemums around the pond, getting ready for their turn to bloom.

Back on the flower walk now, here are several more gorgeous blossoms. We saw tons of dahlias, and various kinds of sunflowers. Below is a rare dahlia followed by an unusual sunflower and another dahlia. No, I did not take notes on names of flowers. I was too busy looking!

Time for a quick look at the late summer/early autumn meadow. It’s also decked out in yellow, orange and rusty colors. First a look as we came up over the crest and looked downhill from the forest toward the meadow. Then a look from above at one of several walking/hiking paths through the meadow. The sight was stunning–gold everywhere!

Next we have close-up shots that give more detail. The weather was warm, though there was a nice breeze and it wasn’t too humid. Just right.

 

Just to prove I was there….We took the central path up to the forest line, before walking around the perimeter toward the formal exit.


Here we are at the formal exit, looking back across the meadow to the old farm-house, now an historical museum.

Just putting this together was an exercise in craziness! D takes way too many gorgeous photos, don’t you think? Actually, putting this together was a relaxing, enjoyable way to end this week. Hoping you find beauty in small things this weekend.

Thanks for coming along!

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 September 2017
Photos taken by DAFraser, 11 September 2017 at Longwood Gardens
Daily Prompt: Leaf

11 Comments