Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Nature

June 17, 2017

blossoming like a rose

Today’s prompt brought back an anthem from my college choir days. It’s been playing through my head all day–one of the most beautiful anthems I’ve ever heard.

The lyrics are based on Isaiah 35, a poetic passage that foresees a time to come when all will be well for the blind, deaf, weak and weary. For all who are discouraged, afraid and convinced they’ve been forgotten. Holiness will reign and injustice will be a thing of the past.

And what about this earth? It will also change in ways we can’t imagine. The opening lines of the anthem set the tone. From my memory…

The wilderness and the solitary place shall rejoice,
And the desert will be glad, and blossom like a rose.
For in the wilderness shall water break forth,
And streams flow in the desert.

This is Isaiah’s poetic vision of coming peace with justice. To some it may seem naïve or even make-believe. Yet doesn’t each of us harbor a wish, if not a vision for a better tomorrow?

The account of creation, the fall, and the resulting impact on all generations can sound heavy if not heavy-handed. Nonetheless, the God described throughout Hebrew and Christian Scriptures never gives up. Over and over opportunities are offered for turning around and taking another path. One that leads to justice with peace.

The God who created us is angered by injustice, moved by the plight of those who pay dearly for the decisions of others, including rulers of all kinds. Some leaders work with every intention of doing what’s best for everyone. Others seem intent on doing what’s best for themselves and their own, not for the people they serve or for strangers within their gates.

A beautiful anthem doesn’t solve our problems. It does, however, remind me that our leaders are not God, no matter how committed they are to doing good, and no matter how much we the people may want them to be God.

The anthem also reminds me that I’m not God and you’re not God. No matter how good or right we think we are, we can’t ensure that all will one day be transformed, much less pull it off.

I can, however, take one precarious step forward at a time, and trust God to do right, as the only Judge of all the earth.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 June 2017
Photo found at emeralddesert.com – Desert Bloom in Palm Springs, California
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Blossom

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June 2, 2017

Longwood’s Garden Benches | Photos

The WordPress Prompt for today is Brassy, not one of my favorite words, given its history of being used in negative or derogatory ways. Nonetheless, in the photo above you see a ‘brassy’ cat! Note that she’s gorgeous, beautiful and calm. Also content and independent-minded. With a coat the color of a gleaming brass tuba or trombone. Enough said.

It’s Friday, time for more photos of Longwood’s garden benches. D took most of them over the last few years. In the top photo above, we’re sitting with one of three Garden cats, looking back at the promenade that leads to the Conservatory and Café.

Sturdy, tasteful garden benches line the promenade,
with plenty of room for wheelchairs.

Here’s another angle on the promenade and its benches,
taken in warmer weather from beneath a huge copper beech.

The Meadow Garden is a favorite during late Spring, Summer and Fall.  A handful of benches and a few covered pavilions line the edges of the meadow. Here’s an example of a rustic bench, followed by what you might see if you’re sitting on this bench, looking back across the meadow. Notice the cool, shady garden benches at the edge of a wooded area.


Here’s another set of two.
In the first we have a well-behaved gentleman named D
sitting on one of those shaded benches,
along with a photo of the view from this bench in later Spring.

There’s nothing like the café after an hour or two of walking or hiking through the meadow. Below you’ll see outside seating followed by indoor seating in one of three café dining rooms with views of the gardens. You can also be seated in the upper-priced restaurant. We almost always choose the cheaper café with its healthy and unhealthy options. Something for everyone!

The Gardens have public restrooms in three strategic areas–the Visitor’s Center, the Café and Restaurant area, and the Conservatory. Even though you may not be in dire distress, I highly recommend a visit to the Conservatory restrooms. These are by far the most spectacular public restrooms I have ever visited. Imagine restrooms so beautiful you can’t resist taking a photo. And the garden benches? They’re behind the doors, at least one behind each door, plus lots of room, a beautiful sink and mirror. You’ll think you’re royalty!

Following are other indoor options for sitting and enjoying the fragrance, sound of water, an occasional musical concert from the side hall, or happy shrieks from children exploring the Children’s Garden. You might have to look closely to spot the seats.


One last promenade photo taken on my birthday, two years ago. We’d just spent the day exploring the meadow and Conservatory, and are on our way to the Visitor’s Center (far left corner) before heading home.

I hope your weekend brings unexpected beauty and delight!

Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 2 June 2017
Photos taken by DAFraser, and other family members

12 Comments
May 3, 2017

Beholden to no one

Beholden to no one
Proud head held high
He sweeps past
With grace in his wings
Pauses in midair
Before dropping down
For a singular feast
On juicy insects bored
From a rotting tree trunk

My feet rooted to the ground
I watch his great beak extract
Life from dust of the earth
Still calm and confident
he lifts his regal head
Surveys the cemetery
Spreads his sweeping wings
And sails majestically over
White gravestones
Silent in awe of his beauty

Wings flapping slowly
He salutes those who are gone
Then rises into dusky air
Lost in a stand of spruce and beech
Giants welcoming his arrival
With graceful open arms

Seen on a walk with D several evenings ago, just after sunset. The male pileated woodpecker was brilliant in red, black and white, calm and confident. I hadn’t seen one in the park for more than four years. Just one call with its haunting rise and slight fall alerted us. He seemed quite comfortable being the star of his show. As though the king or queen were passing by. Unafraid, self-possessed and gracefully regal.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 May 2017
Photo found at photoshelter.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: None

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April 26, 2017

thick roots revisited

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thick roots tangled knots
barely hanging onto bank
drink deep waters

This haiku was my third post to this blog, published on 3 January 2014. It still haunts me, though not in the same way.

I first saw these roots when D and I were walking with our daughter and her husband through Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. The tangled roots were beautiful and foreboding.

A bit like blogging, which I’ve experienced as a formidable venture into unknown territory. Like being born and surviving. Sometimes against all odds.

Writing lets my exposed roots show, often whether I realize they’re showing or not. Writing also stakes my claim to a tiny, precarious plot of land that sits open, vulnerable and visible to passersby.

I’ve traveled a long way since my early posts, yet my roots are still my roots. Bare, and barely hanging onto precious ground that’s stronger, deeper, and more nourishing than I could have imagined.

Deep waters aren’t visible, and they don’t untangle all the knots in my life. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re drying up.

Yet even in dire circumstances, I discover more than enough to get me through each day. Sometimes with tears of sorrow and disbelief. More often with joy and sheer gratitude for the privilege of being human. Able to thrive in the forest next to redwood giants, with miniscule ferns growing around and from my feet.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 April 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, October 2012, Hoyt Arboretum, Portland, Oregon
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Roots

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April 17, 2017

Monday Morning Jolt

Fair warning, my friends. I’m writing this primarily for myself. I woke up this morning feeling gray, drippy and overcast. Just like the weather. Miserable.

Were there reasons? There always are, aren’t there? Still, if I don’t put one foot in front of the other, this day will take longer to traverse than it otherwise would.

On my way down to make my morning smoothie, I picked up a small book I read when I was in graduate school. Less than 100 pages. Written in honor of one of the most beloved preachers of the Nazi era, Christoph Blumhardt. Speaking on behalf of those begging for a cup of cold water, he wrote the following:

We must not be silent. The social struggle of millions in our time is not a coincidence….The ferment in the nations, the agitation of the poor, the crying out for the right to live—a crying, given into the mouths of even the most miserable of [us], which can no longer be silenced—these are signs of our Lord Jesus Christ…They do not know that it is Jesus who wants it.” (Action in Waiting, p. 8)

Yet Blumhardt didn’t pour his entire life’s energy into political life. He saw that neither political nor church movements for social justice could deliver a final solution to the world’s agony. Instead, we long for human fellowship that both waits for and experiences the fulfilment of that for which we are created. Not simply in our places of worship, but in everyday life.

Was Blumhardt a dreamer? I don’t think so. I believe he saw within the misery of his world the seeds of something greater. Yet not so overwhelming that we can ignore right now the work to which we’re called daily. Especially in the midst of political, national, social, religious and economic warfare in which some are winners at great cost to everyone else.

Even so, he argued we’re not called simply to work for social justice. We’re called to delight in the beauty of each day:

The earth is so beautiful, the earth is so lovely and full of joy, every little midge rejoices, every tree rejoices; all things are arranged delightfully and beautifully by God so that we too can live and move among them in joy and graciousness…. (Action in Waiting, p. 25)

Finally, just as all nature is ordered toward its Creator, so too are we:

God has already put into us what God is and what God wanted to put into us so that we should become God’s image. (Action in Waiting, p. 27)

I’m not an outlier, and neither are you. We’re already in the vision held close in our Creator’s great heart. My work is to move in the right direction, do what I’m called to do, trust, fear not, and keep my eyes on the goal.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 April 2017
Photo found at pixabay.com, Golden Regulus
All quotes from Karl Barth, Action in Waiting, Plough Publishing House, 1969
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Jolt

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April 7, 2017

scattered remnants

scattered remnants
sculpted rocks of ages
soar above me

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 April 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, July 2013
Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Outlier

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April 3, 2017

family secrets

scattered farmhouses
grace idyllic surroundings —
guard family secrets

***

I can’t see the secrets; they’re underground. Have you ever watched Midsomer Murders? Very instructive. When open spaces are being closely guarded against land developers, the reason sometimes has to do with buried family secrets. Usually in the form of skeletons.

I don’t know if any secrets lie beneath the hills in this gorgeous Virginia valley. Yet the photo struck me as evocative. What happened in the past, matters. Even though we may take the secrets to our graves. Or create lovely graves for ugly secrets.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 April 2017
Photo by marciadc70, found at Weather Underground Photos
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Prudent

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March 27, 2017

petite violets

petite violets
dance with unassuming grace –
shrink into shadows

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 March 2017
Photo found at healthyhomegardening.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Purple

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March 26, 2017

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —

This poem from Emily Dickinson makes me smile every time I read it. My comments follow.

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
I’m going, all along.

c. 1860

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

From about 1860 until her death in 1886, Emily lived as a recluse, writing and serving as a caretaker for her family and servants. She left her family’s house only rarely. Today’s poem comes near the beginning of this prolific period of her life.

Imagine Emily looking around, seeing and hearing life in a great outdoor Orchard Dome. Perhaps leafy branches overhead? Like a cathedral dome, this one echoes with music–birdsong, a bell tolling and a soloist. And then there’s that noted Clergyman God, whose sermons are never long. Emily doesn’t need special Sunday clothes. She just dons her Wings and joins the chorus! Is she an angel? I doubt it. I think she’s probably a little bird. Perhaps the Bobolink?

The contrast is clear. Unlike others who keep the Sabbath by going to Church, Emily keeps it by staying at Home. Is this by choice, or due to the circumstances of her life? Probably by choice, temperament and the circumstances of her life.

In any case, Emily isn’t explaining or defending herself. Instead, she imagines a great advantage in her situation. She also suggests there’s more to Sabbath than meets the eye when we confine it to one day out of seven days. In fact, her situation is far better than the one-day-a-week slow track to Heaven.

Emily isn’t arguing a point of theology. Nor is she explaining why she isn’t showing up in church every Sabbath.

Rather, she celebrates God’s presence in the created world, and the delightful participation of all creatures great and small. As she sees it, she’s going to church daily in God’s outdoor cathedral! A mysterious world of truth that invites her to draw nearer to Heaven. Unlike the slow trackers, she doesn’t have to wait until the end to get to Heaven “at last.” She’s going there every day!

For me, this poem is about more than sunny days and a beautiful orchard. It’s also about more than Emily’s religious practices. I hear an invitation to view every day as a day of rest. A Sabbath. Why? Because Heaven is reaching out, wanting to connect with me every day. Not simply one day a week.

As for my part, I don’t need special clothes. I just don my Wings, retreat to the orchard, listen expectantly for nature’s music, join in when I feel like it, and listen to a short sermon from God. I, too, could be going to Heaven all along — with Emily! Even though I may never leave the house.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 March 2017
Photo found at midewinrestoration.net

11 Comments
March 22, 2017

my heart skips a beat

my heart skips a beat
poised atop blossoming stems
ready to take flight
anticipation quickens
for this I was created

***

Turning words loose to go where they will
Clear about my identity and to Whom I owe my life
Introverted and grateful for it
Highly sensitive to winds of change
Sailing updrafts and downdrafts
Gliding and plunging
through the inexplicable logic of this universe
known only to my Creator
Taking an uncharted ride to places unknown
Giving wings to words

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 March 2017
Photo credit: DAFraser, April 2015
Longwood Meadow Garden, PA
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Acceptance

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