A Child’s Cry in an Adult Body
Don’t try to correct me
Just listen
Don’t tell me ‘the facts’
Just listen
Don’t interrogate, remind or debate me Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth
connecting the dots of my life
Tag: Relationships
July 13, 2015
The Gift of Time | from Diane
This children’s sermon isn’t just for children. It’s for all of us from Diane, my Sister #3. She gave this children’s sermon in August 1990. In fall 1996, just six years later, Diane was diagnosed with ALS. She lived with ALS for ten years and died in 2006.
Without knowing it yet, Diane describes one of the biggest challenges of her life–the number of days she has left on this earth, brought into stark focus by ALS, a terminal disease. Read the rest of this entry »
July 11, 2015
Early Marriage | Photos 1968-69
Christmas in Savannah, 1968
Time for another show and tell! I’ve gone through hundreds of old photos lately, and have a few choice shots to show you. I promise not to do this every time you turn around. I also promise to do it again…. Read the rest of this entry »
July 7, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 21
~~~Seven months pregnant, June 1968
I’m pregnant! Also self-conscious, excited, apprehensive, disbelieving, elated and more.
There’s no denying it: D and I have been ‘doing it’! Doing it?
I’ll never forget a conversation with my 18-year old daughter. Read the rest of this entry »
July 5, 2015
Framing Freedom
I’m writing this on July 4, Independence Day in the USA. A day that’s all about freedom. That intangible, inalienable ‘right’ highly valued in our national rhetoric.
When I was teaching theology I couldn’t help noticing how many seminarians defined Christian freedom as free will. The kind that makes choices—yes or no. As some said with fervor, ‘You can take away my house, and even my life, but don’t you dare try to take away my free will!’
I understand what they want to protect—their own freedom of choice, as a kind of inalienable right. Something God gave them that needs to be protected at all costs. The freedom to choose right or wrong, this church or that church, to believe and live this way or that way.
The ability for human beings to makes choices of any kind comes from our Creator. Yet I wonder. Do we understand the meaning of Christian freedom?
Even if I’m speaking of generic freedom, I’m not free to choose just anything. If I think I am, I’m overlooking most of my history.
- I didn’t choose to be born in this country.
- I didn’t choose my gender, my race, my parents, the color of my hair or my eyes, my sisters or my extended families.
- Nor did I choose the way I was received into this world.
- Or the genes I carry that shape the kind of person I am and the illnesses I might one day suffer.
In fact, I didn’t get to choose much of anything when I entered this world.
On the other hand, I don’t believe everything about me and the course of my life was or is chosen by a higher power or some shadowy political system.
My decisions count, though not every decision is equally weighty. What I wear today isn’t nearly as life-changing as choosing to marry this person instead of that person.
Still, I can choose to live in what I’d call false or make-believe freedom—as though I were God. Or the Queen of the Universe. But I am neither of these, and acting as though I were wouldn’t make it so.
My freedom as a Christian is about one thing.
It’s about freedom to choose life as defined by the Holy One
who created life and chose Jesus Christ (not me)
to be the person who shows us what a free and faithful life looks like.
My Creator doesn’t force this on me. Yet as a follower of Jesus, it’s the only truly free choice. Anything else would be pledging allegiance to some other god — to myself, or to some other human being or system of thought.
I’ve chosen to frame my life choices with reference to the narrative that runs through Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to negotiate relationships or the moral and ethical dilemmas that face all of us daily.
It does, however, mean I’m committed to being guided by (1) the life of Jesus Christ who shows us what freedom looks like, and (2) by the reality that I serve but one God—my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustaining Spirit.
It also means I’m free to be who I am—one of God’s beloved daughters and sons. Nothing more and nothing less.
I’m free to choose to love and serve God with all my heart, follow Jesus, and love my neighbor as myself. I’m also free to return home to God as often as needed—as the prodigal daughter I am, or as the self-righteous stay-at-home daughter I also recognize in myself.
Finally, I’m free to say No to others who demand my unswerving allegiance, or pretend to be my King or Queen for a day or a lifetime. In the end, saying No might mean my death–as it did for Jesus Christ and still does for many of his followers.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 July 2015
Image found on internet at seedquote.jpg
June 27, 2015
Sabbath Pretense
When I was growing up, my parents and teachers sometimes made us say we were sorry for hurting or disobeying someone. Sometimes I pretended to be sorry. That’s because the way I saw it, it didn’t really matter whether we were truly sorry, or who was really in the wrong.
What mattered most Read the rest of this entry »
June 25, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 20
From the beginning of our marriage, I struggled to listen to D. I’m talking about non-anxious listening. The kind that isn’t on edge, waiting to get my next comments out there on the table based on what I think I know.
This is ironic. Read the rest of this entry »
June 23, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 19
Ever since posting Part 18, I’ve been wondering about empathy and whether it was present in our early marriage.
To put it baldly, Read the rest of this entry »
June 20, 2015
Early Marriage | Part 18
I’ve got empathy on my mind this morning. Or better, lack thereof. When I think about capacities I didn’t have when I married D, empathy is right there near the top of the list.
It didn’t come up for debate or discussion the way money, sex and spirituality did. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 