the human condition | Telling the Truth

July 21, 2017

Captured on camera

In the blink of an eye
Memories take me back
Surrounded by music
I want to stay here forever
Feeling the harmonies
The ebb and flow of
Joyful voices surrounding me
Filled with hope for tomorrow
Lost in a magic sliver of time
When all was right with the world
We were ambassadors
On a mission
Ready to die if needs be
My heart aches for what we lost
On our way from there to here
So many hidden wounds and
Untold secrets and yet
One concert after another
We entered gladly
Into His gates with thanksgiving
And into His courts with praise
Eager and ready for whatever
Tomorrow might bring

This photo was taken in 1962-63. It’s the Ambassador Choir—the concert choir of Columbia Bible College in Columbia, South Carolina (now Columbia International University).

It was D’s senior year, my junior year. He was president of the choir; I served as accompanist to the choir. Mainly piano, and a little organ. D is on the third row from the top, 2nd from the left. I’m on the same row, 3rd from the right (with glasses).

We’re in the college auditorium, in front of the college motto and a huge globe of the world. Many students studied at CBC/CIU because they wanted to be missionaries. Among them were bi-lingual ‘missionary kids’ who came from all over the world.

Bill Supplee, our beloved choir and music director, was a stickler for getting things right. In the photo we’re grouped according to gender and height. However, each concert required a new lineup created by Mr. Supplee. We stood in groups of eight (eight part harmony for many songs), never next to anyone singing our part.

Getting it right meant on pitch, from memory, with no sliding notes or coming in early or hanging on late. Precision mattered. Articulation was paramount. Drawing attention to oneself by swaying or making head motions was absolutely forbidden.

This wasn’t about us, it was about the Gospel. Always presented in a carefully crafted sequence of music. The choir processed from center and side aisles onto the risers. Unison at first, breaking into eight-part harmony at the end. All to invite the congregation into the Lord’s gates with thanksgiving.

Each concert ended with a brief challenge to consider what God might want you to do in response, followed by a glorious recessional. The message was clear, and always well received.

Not clear, however, was how many of us carried hidden, unresolved pain from our childhoods as we processed down the aisles. Today I’m aware of stories I didn’t know then, and have shared my own. Many of our friends are already gone.

Still, I’m no cynic. I value the privilege of having been part of this spirited endeavor. It gave me the privilege of being regularly surrounded and held by music that kept my soul and my spirit alive. And, along the way, gave me the gift of knowing and falling in love with D.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 22 July 2017
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Gate

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July 19, 2017

a grownup’s prayer

I want to be in tune with You –
Listening to my heart sing
Surrounded by music

Maybe You could arrange for me to live in nonstop song
At home in my skin, content, grateful and unafraid
Connected with those I love or haven’t yet learned to love

Would You kindly spare a few moments
to sing me back together?
I’d rather not have another operation.

***

A few evenings ago I was listening to choral music, singing along from time to time. A bit weepy though happy. Grateful for small gifts during the day.

It dawned on me that I’m most content, most at peace when I’m surrounded by music. Especially, but not only, grand hymns old and new.

So I dreamed a bit. What would it be like to live in nonstop song? And might my Creator be willing to oblige me? Without ungodly pain?

Coming from a grownup, the ungodly pain part seemed a fair request. After all, I don’t have as much time for fancy procedures as I used to have. Besides, who wouldn’t love to be sung back together?

Hoping your day/evening is filled with music that softens your heart and sings you back together.

Elouise ♥

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 19 July 2017

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July 17, 2017

What’s for dinner?

Edible. Such a lovely word. Especially for hungry people, and especially if it’s offered as a banquet served on silver platters, with drum rolls and fine patriotic music in the background.

So what’s for dinner? Why are you so secretive about what’s on the menu? You say it’s going to be Beautiful, even Great! Much better for my health than the food I’ve been eating all these years.

Am I to believe you and your not-so-carefully scripted words, or my own well-honed gut instincts?

Do you have a complete list of ingredients? A nutritional profile for the long-term edibility of this fine feast you’re serving up? My gut won’t tolerate just anything, you know.

Poison in any form is inedible. Especially when cooked up in a private club-like kitchen with chefs and assistants who look strangely like each other, smile a lot, and keep saying what a Beautiful Thing this feast is going to be. Just what I need to Make My Health Great Again!

Really? Why is my stomach already churning? And what’s that stench in the air? Don’t you smell it? I haven’t even taken the first bite, and I’m already looking for the closest bathroom!

Are you going to force-feed me? Did your parents force-feed you? Do you force-feed your children? Your grandchildren? Your nephews and your nieces? Why aren’t there any exit signs in this room?

Is it really too much to hold out for edible food? As I see it, a dry crust of bread shared with peace of mind would be better than this banquet of trouble.

With thanks to Proverbs 17:1 (Good News Translation)

Better to eat a dry crust of bread with peace of mind
than have a banquet in a house full of trouble.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 18 July 2017
Image found at pinterest.com
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Edible

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July 15, 2017

Something about prayer….

My history with prayer is all over the map. I’ve probably heard more prayers than I’ve heard sermons. Too many to count. On the other hand, I’ve always struggled with prayer. Here are two posts talking about my childhood struggles with prayer: here and here.

Last year a friend gave me a slim volume of poems by Mary Oliver, a winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. The volume I’m reading is Thirst.

What caught my eye this week was the first stanza of a longer poem titled “Six Recognitions of the Lord.” I’m still taking in the first stanza.

I know a lot of fancy words.
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray.

When I read these simple words, I feel lighter. I grew up hearing and trying to replicate, in my way, prayers that would be polite and proper. Yes, I spoke from my heart no matter when I prayed. Yet I also felt unbearably self-conscious about my prayers, especially about the words I used.

It didn’t matter whether I was praying privately or publicly, I feared my words wouldn’t live up to what God expected to hear from me. Or that they would be used by others to judge my spiritual formation.

Looking back, I know my family upbringing contributed to some of this. Whether by design or not, my prayers to God felt like baring my soul to whomever was listening. I feared someone was grading, judging or scrutinizing me. Would I pass the test?

Mary Oliver’s words are to the point and liberating. They’re also primarily about personal prayer, not public prayer. Though they may apply there as well.

The best analogy I can think of would be a child talking to a trusted parent or caregiver. Freely, without shame or hiding. With no need to impress anyone. Not calculating or careful about choice of words or what the other person might think about what I’m saying.

God just wants me to show up, talk and listen. Listen and talk. Using my own words. No matter how I feel today about God or myself.

First, Mary Oliver invites me to tear all fancy words from my heart and my tongue.

Praying your Sabbath is filled with childlike joy and delight.

Elouise ♥

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July 12, 2017

Why I haven’t buried God

I can’t count how many times people ask why I haven’t given up on God. Why I don’t curse God. Why I still call myself God’s beloved daughter-child.

Even though I’m a theologian, my reasons are deeply personal. Rooted in childhood experiences with my father who insisted I call him Daddy.

Daddy, a preacher, had his own kind of God. He desperately hoped his God would have mercy on him, though I never knew exactly why. Daddy also hoped his God would straighten me out into the submissive little girl and young woman Daddy thought proper and seemly for his #1 of 4 daughters, no sons.

So why didn’t I curse God, or at least bury God with honors? After all, Daddy kept saying he was following God’s law. God’s order. God’s instructions for parents and for children. And then he would beat me. All within a strangely church-like ritual that required my full attention, cooperation and submission to Daddy as God’s servant.

It wasn’t church. And it didn’t feel like a safe home. It was worse than being left out in the cold. Furthermore, I now know the God on which Daddy called was not God. He was more like a quixotic bully to be avoided and feared. Friendly one moment; cold and calculating the next.

So why haven’t I buried God? Because my parents did something for me, early on. My primers weren’t little Jack and Jill reading books. They were hymns, choruses, verses and entire passages from the Bible. All memorized and reviewed at home, and later in my grade school Bible classes from grade 2 through 7.

My father had a phenomenal memory and was eager for me, his daughter, to exercise her memory as well. Especially Scripture, but also hymns and poetry. I took to it like a duck to water.

My favorite was Psalm 23. Yes, it’s beautiful. And it’s more. It helped me endure many beatings. Daddy wielded his rod. But Jesus used his to comfort me. To shield my soul and give me strength to endure.

I also grew up hearing and reading the Bible. I loved the story about Jesus welcoming the children when large, grownup know-it-all disciples tried to send them away. Jesus rebuked the disciples, called the children to him and blessed them.

I don’t know what God looks like. But I know what God’s Son Jesus did with children just like me. The kind who seem to make too much noise. A distraction from the serious things of life. Always getting into trouble, or wanting to talk to Jesus about trivial stuff—not theology, or when the kingdom is going to arrive.

Like Jesus, God never sent me away, but offered a safe haven, especially when things weren’t safe. I never felt rejected or unwelcome. Nor do I today. I like to think that as God’s beloved daughter-child, I look a bit like one of Jesus’ sisters from time to time.

Why would I ever want to bury this God?

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July 10, 2017

How to write my life backwards

No one ever taught me to do this. Not directly. Yet I find myself wanting to write my life backwards. And with a feather, no less!

I’ve already written many posts on my childhood, youth and beyond. I drew on memories, records and old photos to describe my interior life along the way and how all that affected me as an adult.

It’s one thing to describe and reflect upon my experience as a traumatized child in a Christian family. Just doing that has been more daunting and rewarding than I ever dreamed it would be.

Yet when I read what I wrote three years ago, I’m aware of perspectives I didn’t consider back then. I want to name and explore them. Not for my sake, but for the sake of the little girl and young woman I was back then.

Here’s a small example from one of my first posts. In The Shopkeeper, I describe what happened to me that day, how I felt, and how I concluded that I didn’t really need to tell my parents about it and why. I dreaded, for good reason, that the consequences for me would be grim.

Yet now, over three years since I posted that memory and my reflections on it, I have at least one more question. Not for me, but for my parents. It’s simple.

Why did you send me into that shop in the first place?

This was the only shop near the campground we stayed at during those summers. More than likely, one of my parents had already been buying milk there and collecting the deposits. One or both had likely seen the filthy environment and experienced first-hand the unkempt, uncouth old man who ran the place.

I never thought about this back then. My job wasn’t to question my parents. It was to answer their questions—and accept the consequences.

Yet the question remains, and looms large today. Larger than dread about questions my parents would ask, and the possible verdict that I was, as usual, somehow at fault. Or that this wasn’t really all that important when I knew it was.

In going back, I don’t want to retell what’s already been told. I want to give a voice to this young girl that I am. She already seems to believe that no matter how she talks about what happened to her, she’ll be found guilty.

I believe she deserves to be heard, especially at this distance. Her courage astonishes me, even though she didn’t feel brave most of the time.

How to do this is the great discovery I have yet to make!

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July 8, 2017

Not in this World to see his face —

~~~~~Antique Primer, School Reader ca. 1923, Bolenius Illustrations

Here’s a clever piece by Emily Dickinson. In it she comes to a well-considered outcome. One that happens to suit her immensely. Who says you can’t strike a bargain with Himself? My comments follow.

Not in this World to see his face –
Sounds long – until I read the place
Where this – is said to be
But just the Primer – to a life –
Unopened – rare – upon the Shelf –
Clasped yet – to Him – and me –

And yet – My Primer suits me so
I would not choose – a Book to know
Than that – be sweeter wise –
Might some one else – so learned – be –
And leave me – just my A – B – C –
Himself – could have the Skies –

c. 1862

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

The setting, not described directly but alluded to, seems to be a Library. One that contains a rare Book, Unopened, on a Shelf. I imagine Emily standing there pondering her options.

It seems she longs to see his face, but doesn’t want to wait until she’s in another World. By the end of this short poem, she has adroitly moved to a solution that solves not one, but two problems! What could be better?

I think her logic goes something like this.

It seems I must wait to see his face in another life, another World. Yet haven’t I read somewhere that this life is a Primer to a life as yet unseen? Unseen because it hasn’t yet been opened.

In fact, this life is hidden over there on the rare Book shelf. See it? There’s a Clasp that keeps the Book tightly shut. Not just to me, but to Himself.

Hmm. You know, the more I think about it, the more I like my small Primer. After all, it introduces me to whatever comes next, and it’s filled with lovely things that point toward whatever comes next.

How about this for a solution? I keep my Primer, and leave the more mysterious Clasped Book for Himself. And maybe for the learned theologians! Surely they would love to figure out the other-World secrets locked within the Book. Then one day they can all see Himself in another World and find out whether they were correct!

As for me, I’m more than content to stay with my simple A-B-Cs. The birds and bees, butterflies and flowers, oceans and sunsets. I already see in them more than enough glimpses of Himself and of me.

Is Himself content with simple A-B-Cs? I don’t know, but if he’ll let me be content with my Primer right here on this earth, I’ll gladly leave the Skies and all other locked mysteries to Himself and the learned theologians.

Something like this. Maybe….

Hoping your Sabbath Primer is filled with mysteries that point to Someone greater than ourselves and to the persons we’re invited to become.

Elouise ♥

9 Comments

July 7, 2017

writing life backwards…

The past
a muddled conglomeration
bits and pieces
scraps
in colors drab
dripping red
rags

Socks with holes
that hold no water
no deep thoughts
nothing worth saving
but my embodied soul
such as it was
small
scared
scarred
hypervigilant and
anguished

Dressed for church and company
Awkward, unseemly nice
Plain and forgettable

I will not forget

I write obsessively now
since the dam burst

Is this my confession?
Relieved capitulation to truth?
Sorrowful search for a little girl lost?

Yes Yes Yes and Yes –
All that and more

Written with a feather–
Backwards

***

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 July 2017
Image found at salon.com, previously featured in Crazy Happy Lady
Response to WordPress Daily Prompt: Quill

4 Comments

July 6, 2017

an untethered life

Annie J. Flint, Poet (1866-1932)

I like being in control. Or at least thinking I’m in control. Yet the older I get, the less control I have over my world, much less yours. I don’t relish feeling tethered by circumstances beyond my control.

Annie J. Flint, composer of the well-loved song below, lived a tethered life in her later years due to severe arthritis. Her ability to work or function as an independent adult was limited. She experienced what it means to ‘reach the end of our hoarded resources.’

Yet she still touches us with grace-filled lyrics such as these. Here’s one of her most-loved songs, unedited.

He giveth more grace as our burdens grow greater,
He sendeth more strength as our labors increase;
To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials he multiplies peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,
His power no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

Words by Annie J. Flint (1866-1932)
Found at CyberHymnal.org

Today, six months into this year, I’m tempted to despair. I struggle with discouragement about national and international issues. I don’t know what I can do, or who I’m to be in the midst of growing chaos gone crazy. The options seem tightly restrictive.

Happily, these lyrics don’t lull me into spiritual make-believe land, as though I could escape all this. Instead, they invite me to keep an open mind and heart, stay engaged, and loosen my hold on that tether I think is binding me.

After all, Flint’s lyrics are about receiving, not about giving.

I’ve lived most of my adult life as a giver. Though it’s exhausting, I confess some addiction to it. Especially now that I’m not able to feed the giving habit as regularly as I might like.

Perhaps I’ve reached the end of my giving tether, and need to cut it loose. Annie Flint would likely agree. In fact, when her options became severaly limited, she picked up her pen and began writing her life in poetry. Not primarily for us, but for herself.

How selfish? No, how wise. I can’t think of a better way to receive gifts than to unwrap, admire, and use them.

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July 5, 2017

born yet again

born yet again
loving and leaving
peeling growing itchy
skin too tight

between lurches
a hatched pattern
unfolds
creases rise edgy

birth canal angular
made to order
a fearsome adventure
unrehearsed

a snail’s pace
catapults me
inch by sub-inch
toward light

***

And that, my friends, it what this plucky woman felt when I woke this morning. Keenly aware of my age and of the many times I’ve said goodbye to ‘me’ and hello to the new, exciting (?) unknown ‘me.’

Today nothing is set in concrete except this: I am God’s beloved daughter-child. Along for the ride, and learning to relax my way into it.

Happy Wednesday!

Elouise♥

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