Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: the human condition

November 25, 2017

A prayer from Catherine of Siena

What is it
You want to change?
Your hair, your face, your body?
Why?
For God is
in love with all those things
and He might weep
when they are
gone.
—Catherine of Siena

Found at Spirituality and Practice

Though not framed as a prayer, this small, poetic plea is, in fact, a prayer from Catherine of Siena to me. I imagine her sitting here with me, asking tough questions about what seems almost innocuous—my desire to change things about my hair, my face, my body. Especially, but not only, at this age.

I don’t want to be unhealthy. It isn’t wrong to do what I can to improve the way my body functions.

This prayer, however, isn’t about that. It’s about accepting my body as it looks today. On the outside. Loving it as the body my Creator loves. The graying hair, wrinkles on my face, avalanches on my body. Not looking as young or youthful as I once did.

When I was very young, I longed for more hair on my head, a smaller forehead, and skin that would tan and stay tanned for more than 24 hours. When I looked at other girls and young women, I didn’t feel ugly. I felt plain.

I longed to be less plain and less pale. Not a striking beauty who might call unwanted attention to herself, but a pleasant-looking female. Less plain and less pale.

The thought that my Creator might be in love with my hair, face and body on any given day never crossed my mind. I thought God cared about the spiritual me. And yes, of course my Creator also loved the physical me. But really? That much?

When I think about all the body issues women carry in secret, it pains me. I’m as guilty as anyone.

I’m also astonished and chagrined at the suggestion that God might weep if I tried to change all those seemingly external things about me.

This  very day, am I willing and able to accept, bless and love what God loves about me? That would include my face, hair, and body, on any given day. I am, after all, one of a kind. A precious pebble on the beach, distinct, and still in process. Part of our Creator’s grand collection.

Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 25 November 2017
Image found at thriftynorthwestmom.com
Rialto Beach Pebbles, Olympic National Park, Washington State

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November 17, 2017

cracks in the pavement

she tiptoes on eggshells
of shattered dreams —
cracks in the pavement
of life after death erupt
with unexpected beauty

For all the children of the world, young and old,
who live with shattered dreams.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 17 November 2017
Image found at lovethispic.com
Daily Prompt: Mushroom

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November 16, 2017

Fleeting reminders | Photos

God our Savior,
hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas,
You formed the mountains by your power,
having armed yourself with strength;
You stilled the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.
The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
Where morning dawns, where evening fades,
You call forth songs of joy.

Psalm 65: 5b – 8 (New International Version)

Psalm 65 lifted my weary eyes and spirit this morning. Below are photos that remind me of the seasonal wonders our Creator has woven into the fabric of this earth. Which includes each one of us, precious and vulnerable. D took the photos at Longwood Gardens in late October.


 




Where morning dawns, where evening fades,
You call forth songs of joy.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 16 November 2017
Photos taken by DAFraser on 27 October 2017 at Longwood Gardens

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November 14, 2017

the long walk home

I wonder—
Do breathless trees
dusky skies
and lengthening shadows
remember what they see
beneath fading twilight
swathed in heavy garments
unsure of her destination

Is this a woman? I think so. She seems to be taking the long walk home. Which may or may not be that dark cottage hovering in the background, watching as she makes her way.

Is she alone? I think not. The trees, skies and passing shadows reveal more than what’s happening on the ground or in the background. If this world is God’s poem (thank you, Mary Oliver), we have reason to hope. Not because of the play of light in the trees, on the ground or in the background, but because of the Light that shines even in our darkest hours.

Sometimes, perhaps always, we must leave home to find our true home. Or better, to be found by God’s everyday angels in this world that belongs not to us, but to God.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 November 2017
Autumn Landscape at Dusk, 1885, by Vincent van Gogh found at Wikiart.com
Daily Prompt: Dubious

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November 6, 2017

ready for harvest


Ripe and ready for harvest
The meadow lies before me
Still standing yet stripped
Of all but essentials

The sum of my present life
Waits for release into new life
Seeds dropped here and there
With no guarantees

There is no cure for death
The goal toward which
Every heartbeat has driven me
The home for which I long

I feel only loneliness and sorrow
At leaving behind loved ones
And this beautiful threatened world

D took this photo on our last visit to Longwood Gardens. No more stunning meadow flowers, and not so many joyous birds and butterflies. Instead, it’s full of late term life, ready to give its well-aged beauty to anyone willing to spend time looking and listening.

It isn’t as perky as it was just a month ago. Still, it isn’t ugly, or a sign that all is lost. Rather, it’s a sign that life is brief and fragile, and that it’s important to love it while we have it. One way or another, death comes to each of us sooner or later. With or without time for last goodbyes or heartfelt conversations.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 November 2017
Photo taken by DAFraser, 28 October 2017
Daily Prompt: Panacea

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November 3, 2017

weapons of warfare

intention to harm
shot from loaded heart and tongue
backfires brilliantly
exposing raw self-contempt
seething beneath thin skin

What will it take to give us, as a nation, eyes to see beneath the surface of bully tactics?

The best solution I’ve found is to stand before the mirror of my loaded heart and tongue. I’m still learning to acknowledge, comfort and care for deep wounds inflicted upon me by others and by myself. The cost, however, is high. I have to let others in, allowing them to see and love me in my self-contempt, sometimes showing me how it’s done.

Is this lifetime skill of loving ourselves as damaged yet unspeakably valuable persons modeled in our homes, our churches, our schools? Do we know how to see into bullies without being hooked by their bows, arrows and buckshot ways? Do we know how to value them without giving up the duty of holding them accountable for the harm they do us and others? No matter who they are?

Our nation is drowning in an epidemic self-contempt raging across every boundary on our maps. It festers and erupts within national and state politics, and within the homes and streets of our neighborhoods. Directly and indirectly it fuels every shot of every firearm ever invented. How do we address this crisis? Or even begin to acknowledge it as a national emergency that touches each of us, whether we realize it or not.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 3 November 2017
Image found at theodysseyonline.com
Daily Prompt: Simmer, Neighbors

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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

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October 26, 2017

The canvas of our dreams

The canvas of our dreams
Writ deep in hazy memories
Unfurls a Master Narrative
Embraced with godly fervor

Layer upon layer added thereto
Fills in once empty gaps
With stuff of dreams and whiffs of smoke
The snake oil of deceivers

Here, drink to this and drink to that!
We’ve always been the greatest
Just raise your glass and repeat with me
Our mantra of salvation –
Then head right to your voting booth
And punch for victory!

In the opening pages of his monumental history of multicultural America, Ronald Takaki defines what he calls “the Master Narrative of American History.”

According to this powerful and popular but inaccurate story, our country was settled by European immigrants, and Americans are white. ‘Race,’ observed Toni Morrison, has functioned as a ‘metaphor’ necessary to the ‘construction of Americanness’: in the creation of our national identity, ‘American’ has been defined as ‘white.’ Not to be ‘white’ is to be designated as the ‘Other’ – different, inferior, and unassimilable.

Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (Little, Brown and Company, 2008 edition, p. 4)
Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness in the Literary Imagination (Cambridge, Mass., 1992, p. 47)

This rules out groups such as those Takaki focuses on in his book: Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Irish Americans, Jewish Americans, Mexican Americans, and Muslim Americans.

The only way to fight surreal snake oil is with knowledge and committed resistance to the purveyors of snake oil.

As a highly persistent woman, I am yet again highly recommending this book. Even though you may not make it through all 445 pages, you’ll find a goldmine of correctives to our current misguided, surreal national obsession with who’s really ‘American.’

Cheers to all my neighbors, near and far. We’re in this together–even when it seems we’re not.
Elouise♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 26 October 2017
Image found at hallidaysutherland.files.wordpress.com
Daily Prompt: Surreal

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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

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October 21, 2017

Great Expectations | Photos

By whose expectations do we live? This post from two years ago, lightly edited, is still relevant, particularly in light of current political and global realities. In September 2015 D and I were on a grand 50th wedding anniversary trip, driving through Scotland. Which more than exceeded our expectations–in every way! But that’s another topic.

D took the photo above in Edinburgh, directly behind the Sir Walter Scott Monument. We’re looking down into the East Princes Street Gardens. Notice the benches. They line the sidewalk from one end to the other. Each bench includes a plaque to honor an everyday person or family member(s) now deceased yet remembered warmly by friends and relatives.

The plaque below caught my attention and made me laugh and smile. How did the Rev Alan B. Cameron MA BD STM, the piping hot Scot ‘prove Romans 8’? I don’t know, but his life of faithful generosity made an impression. Perhaps despite great trials?

Above the Gardens looms the huge Edinburgh Castle and grounds. It’s packed with tributes on stone plaques. The plaque below stood out to me. Though it isn’t small or simple, the words describing Mary of Lorraine are human-size, even though she was “Queen of James V, Mother of Mary Queen of Scots and Regent of Scotland from 1554-1560.” I’m taken by the warm tribute to her character and behavior. Perhaps Mary of Lorraine was related to Rev. Alan B. Cameron, “the piping hot Scot?”


Finally, we have a different kind of tribute in the outer wall of the Edinburgh Castle, overlooking the city.  These aren’t to human soldiers, but to their faithful canine companions. I can make out three of the dogs’ names on the gravestones–Scamp, Tinker, and Feora (?) who was a Band Pet. Even though I’m a cat lover, my heart melted.

Faithful. That’s what I want to be. Not faithful to others’ expectations of me, but faithful to God as one of God’s beloved daughters and sons. I’m drawn to the simplicity of the tributes above. In the end, it’s all about faithfulness–to God, to oneself and to others. Including the faithful bond between human beings and their canine (and feline!) companions.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, published on 23 September 2015 as Small Signs of Faithful Lives | Photos; edited and reposted 21 October 2016
Photo credit: DAFraser, September 2015 in Edinburgh, Scotland
Daily Prompt: Expect

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