Rock Me Gentle, Sunday
Category: Art
Beautiful Broken
Maybe the best way to write of the broken, to tell of the broken, to bleed words of broken, is in a broken way. And that is all I have any way. Outside of The One Who Makes Things Whole and New. The Great Restorer Of All Broken.
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Why do I miss the beautiful in the broken, when the broken is the beautiful. At first glance I saw a dried flower. Crooked, bent and missing petals. At second glance I saw through a lens of grace and true beauty.
I played and basked in the warm early Spring sun, wrapped in layers of warmth. My body warmed by clothing. My soul warmed by her children. Their creativity and passion for living called out to me. Called out to my needy soul. Their invitations to enter into a world of imagination were beautiful and trusting. We had never met. But we were lost in the world of playful discovery for two of the happiest hours of my week, this Holy Week. I was renewed, my dry bones in need, by two children who took me from my broken adult world, into their precious world.
My joy came from their contagious child-like joy. To see through the eyes of little ones with their unbridled thirst for twirling and running and dancing. For going as high in the sky as the swing will go. Brave and bold. Their hunger for a story of imaginary brides and their clover bouquets. And eyes that see dirt as a canvas.
I looked at the dried hydranga. And though it is my favorite flower and the one that I long to see bloom in the spring, I missed the beauty upon first glance. And then the artist eyes of Kelly revealed the beauty to me, anew. Fresh. Glorious beauty in the broken. Do you see the transformation from broken to beautiful. The tender way her fingers hold this fragile flower.
How many times must I be shown the beauty in the broken.
He reveals it to me fresh and new, in His patient way. And I am a child learning again.
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I keep returning to this picture taken by a friend, my dearest. I have spent time staring at its broken beauty. The wall is gray, the day was
gray, the one when we stumbled on this wooden cross. But what shines through is the rugged beauty, tilted beauty and simple truth about the cross. Here there is no gold, nor diamonds or even turquoise or silver. Here there is wood, faded and barely hanging on.
There is beautiful broken redemptive love shining through the gray.
And I am learning to see the beauty in the broken. And to seek the broken and find true beauty there.
That is what I am and He loves me in my broken, shattered, imperfect, fragile state. And sees even me as beautiful.
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The new life is seeking to push through the cold dark winter that does not want to end. And daily I am wrapping around the needs of the broken
lives of friend. We pray for each other. Cry out in pain to one another. Please, please pray.
And I write down the names and the list is long. And I read the news and shutter and walk away. At the brokeness. At the pain and despair.
But the beautiful part is that He knows, sees and feels every ounce of my pain and hurt. That my trembling is held in the hands of the Healer. And that He hears the weakest of prayers and the feeblest muttering of my heart as I intercede for my family, friends, and strangers.
We are broken but held, broken but heard, and broken but Loved.
And I can take it all in my broken strides and my limping gate to an Easter cross where the Savoir arises from the dead and the broken body is made whole.
There is so much glory in the broken.
And I am learning to seek understanding as I wait for the re-creation of broken to whole.
As I look upon that wondrous cross…
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I see beauty and my heart cries out for Him.
He is making everything Easter new. That news is worthy of loud praises, shouts of Alleluia and twirling and dancing like a child, a child of God. Write it down, in the dirt of the earth. Write it down and remember.
Finally, I am learning again and again to see through a lens of His amazing Grace, the beautiful in the broken.
With and through the eyes of a child.
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Learning To Live As A Child
I sat in the middle of a field of clover yesterday, cold spring wind chilling my bones while my insides were warmed by discovery.
I sat in the middle of a playground yesterday, not as a mother or grandmother, but as a new friend to small children.
And I walked through the backdoor of childhood and saw the world through the portal of wonder. It was as if I were a little Alice for an hour or two. But you don’t get there in the blink or the nod or the snap you might think.
No it is a slower dance than even I thought it would be.
Re-entering the world of little ones. You walk gently into sacred territory with respect and eyes wide open to wonder.
And it looks like preparing for a make believe wedding with clover bridesmaids bouquets. And it smells like dirt balls thrown high to the sky. They are snow or dirt or sand. You speak it and they are changed.It feels like ice-cold metal chain. You hold the chain while you push the swing and if its March and Spring is late, the metal is cold as blocks of ice on your trembling flesh.
When I pulled the white down comforter up over my memories of the day and tucked myself into bed I remembered. I remembered what I learned from being a child, the stirring of emotions my backdoor entrance into childhood kept me awake. I longed to hold on to the day that I knew could not be repeated. Not one of them can.
I can still smell the clover, sweet and fresh. I lifted the flower to my noise over and over this day trying to recall if I remembered this fragrance.
But it smelled new to me. As so much of the day felt new. How had I forgotten the smell of clover or had I never recorded it in my youth.
Had I let my self grow so far away from the mystery and wonder of seeing the world as an Alice?
I asked my new friend who is five or so to see if she could find a four leaf clover. And then I waited for her return. Sweet excitement in her face, she brought back a hand filled with new discovery. That a four leaf clover can be a three leaf clover plus one borrowed leaf from another. That life can be viewed and seen in so many different ways. We limit ourselves as adults. I looked down at the three leaf clover plus the ripped piece from another, sacrificed to total four. Amazed by her creativity, I long to see the world with saucer-shaped eyes. To see it slant in all its mysteries.
At her invitation into child’s play, I entered into a game of hide and seek and found so much more than my friend hiding behind a tree trunk. I re-discovered play and release of the bondage of adult sensibilities, if just for a few minutes. Life is full through the eyes of a child. We watched dogs race and return a thrown ball to their human. And we found squirrels’ nests nestled in the bare tree limbs. And in these frozen moments on a cold spring day, I stared at a squirrel scratch an itch behind his ear. And helped my friend see two messy nests. Where have I been looking if not up. How have I missed so much.
And in throwing a baseball back and forth with her three year little brother, I observed meekness, gentleness, and forgiveness when the ball hit hard on her back. I learned in an afternoon in the park what I needed to tuck into my soul for a refresher course. I needed remediation on play.
I needed to count and run and watch a made up disco dance. And say good job. My soul was hungry for looking at art drawn in the sand with a stick. My soul needed to watch a paper plate soar as a frisbee on a windy day. My imagination lay dormant more than I knew. Until it was cracked open a bit at the hand of a wildly creative girl and her brother.
Discovery came through the eyes of a child, on a cold day, in a park in Charleston. When the world of an adult was frozen, thankfully in time. And a dormant imagination began to wake up to the new world that waits all around.
I was Alice for a day because of friendship and a playdate. One boy and one girl helped me see the world through the eyes of a child. And I am learning to live as a child again.
Joining Jen and Heather.
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Collide
Punctured through the thin membrane
She glances back through glazed wet eyes
Pierces life suspended, breaks with fork prong
Pokes the times that crashed though cushioned
Twisted metal years collide held in gentle memory
She stares at hope, mercy new broken through
The soil of new black earth
Wet with promise
Holding pregnant pauses possibilities
Birth and death collide
Your days, our lives
Intersected crossed, our paths
Left marks that tell of living
Skid marks, post marks
Sealed the envelope of life with love
And cracked it open time and time again
Sheltered cushioned every time
Amazing grace how sweet the sound
Has saved each misstep along the way
And held we were by mercy’s arms
By Glory here and Glory there
A halleluia chorus gathered round and rocked us into safe sweet arms
Though
We collide.
elizabeth w. marshall 