Category: Faith

The Waiting & The Rising

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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The Waiting & The Rising

I woke to the rising. In the evening we laid down the embryonic balls of yeast. Flat, filled with expectancy. Colorless, void of much. Hoping the transformation would yield goodness. Trusting the changes would give us, the hungry, sustenance even abundance. In the morning.

In the new mercy morning, the air told faint tales, held shy signs and gave hope. There would be a rising.  Fullness would come. Yeasty promise had started its morphing into promise. Hope was rising.

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We went to bed last night with a heaviness. Some one dear to us is struggling. From miles away we wrestle with all the emotions. This longing for the best for this wanderer is an ache that pierces. It rises up within us. And yet it is not for me. I lay it down again and again. Knowing the promise that He is there. I offer the pain into His hands, again. He is the potter. And what lovely work He has done. He has shown me. I must recall.

We are co-wrestlers in the battle for a life well-lived. A life of yielding into His deepest longings for us, His children. A life of bending a knee and bending an ear. Of surrendering and yielding. Listening and seeking. Yearning. Quieting our spirits to hear his will.

Goodness and mercy are here and coming. Heaving up in the rising.

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I offered a gift. My soul knew. I had been there before. Heard the faint cry. I will send it soon. But the collecting and gathering, the sending of little hints and clues as to what it will be will bring me joy. I will anticipate the giving as she anticipates the receiving. We will delight together. My friend and I will gather as two around the table of fellowship. Just as the prayer gathers around the hurting and wounded. Just as the Christ-follower hovers over, in gentle tenderness, with love in love, for the ones with  spirit that is broken.

I will give. She is open to receive. A transaction of love will take place.

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Oh that we would await the rising up. Hold fast in the waiting. Hold steady, though fragile, in the times of doubt.
I know the gifts He has given in the seasons of waiting. I remember his goodness. I recall it. And I look for clues that there is more goodness to gather up.

The Yarrow he designed is tall and waving. The Queen Ann’s Lace is transforming my yard into a garden for royalty. The hummingbird came to my window last night at dusk in search. My garden is exploding with promise. A packet of seeds is in the past. The fruit on the squash is tender and young. Strawberries are green, but they will be crimson and sweet. Soon. They promise me and hold me in my waiting.

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This morning the flat monochromatic mounds rose up. And turned a light brown. Layer upon layer of goodness held a steamy comfort in every bite. Croissants. Every bite a remembering. Of times and things I have loved.

Joining Sandra

A Confessional: Why I Write Imperfect Poetry ( & Prose) – Part One

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

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Sunday feels like a good day to write a confessional blog post. And when you tell another writer you are going to write said piece, you have some built in accountability. AKA, there is no turning back. I told Esther on Voxer that I was working on this in my head. That I was trying to get it out on paper or on a screen. Anywhere but inside of me.

I am sitting in a wicker chair. One that holds me like cupped hands. The mountains present themselves before me, like a movie screen painted and prepared for an audience. Artificially beautiful. But realer than real. And I am down the road from the church I attended this morning, as a guest. I can still smell the holy and hear the hallowed hymns. The stone and wood and worship linger in the air. My soul feels a lingering in the confessional we spoke. I prayed for the church today. It feels like a particularly important time to come clean.

I am not a great poet. I am not a great writer. I don’t know where I am in the bell curve of learning and honing my craft. But honestly, I am just a mediocre writer at best. But I have the fire in my belly and a passion under the folds of my wrinkling skin to write. Hiding out is an option. Always.

Giving up is always an option. I have an old computer which I could heave over the side of the mountain and life would go on. (Poetry is all about specificity. I would tell you just how old this Mac is but I truly do not recall….it is THAT old.) See the ellipsis back there. That is a taboo in the guidebooks of some writers.

Let’s face it. You can go other places for richer writing. Poetry, certainly, which shows more and tells less. Words that reach deeper with less adverbs. Lines which travel deeper into the beautiful. Verses which sing sweeter and lift you higher into the holy.

But my craft and my art are simply dressed in their everyday ordinary. I am honing and grooming them. Hoping for leaps of growth. Trusting that I will not remain in my writing where I reside this day.

But honestly. I am flawed as a writer. Imperfect. But I am flawed as a parent. Imperfect in my mothering. And certainly I fall short as a daughter to a mother suffering from dementia. My house could be cleaner. My food burned less often. My time spent more wisely. My morning devotions  could be longer.

But grace attends me when I write and when I breathe and live. And tells me to continue. No, encourages me to press on. Perfecting my imperfections.

My mother has dementia. Often her speech borders on faint mumbling. But I listen. I would not stop. She has something to say. And she is alive and living and wants to enter in. To tell what she sees. How this life feels and  how it smells. She wants and needs to process her living.

And so do I.
And so I write imperfect poetry. And prose
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Please join me tomorrow for Part Two.

The Witness

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

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The Witness

It was deemed that I was worthy
I took a vague vow of bearing
That my senses would capture
Catalogue the beauty
Override the pain
War analogies make me weary
(Messy mirror of the bloody real thing)
And yet, I am suited up, armed and ready
Battling as correspondent in the middle
Of this war
Rallying, as a witness
Recorder of the beauty
Crying out
I swear to tell the truth
There is beauty in the pain
Hope with me
We were called to tell these stories
Joy will not die, shattered
Scattered on the cynic’s broken

Battlefield

The witnesses remind us
Hand raisers, promising to tell nothing
But the truth
Hallowed is the ground where beauty lives
Buried are the memories
Mercy holds an olive branch
White flags fly from pole and post
My eyes have seen the glory

Extravagance

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Extravagance

These are the days of extravagance
Want and wanting, desire and desiring
Dim in a rearview mirror, malfunctioning
Objects of desire may appear smaller than they once were
Plenty erupts into abundance
Do not misread the meaning
(Grab and consult Webster if you must, Google it)

For I have looked the giver in her eyes
And touched her coal black skin, said no
And thank you a million times
Refused the gift to a fault
Desire to give out of what she had, burned between our hands
And history rewrote itself

The force with which she gave was mighty
And I was weakened by her might
Turnips and sweet potatoes, an olive branch
Apples for the pie ( she told me to bake)
My no’s were extravagant
Her yeses like steel

Church on the sidewalk
History in the remaking
A sliver of time which doesn’t make sense
Extravagant generosity of a stranger
Left me forever changed

She wore frailty as a badge of her living
My life of never-needing, never-wanting
Rose up like a geyser of guilt
Oh how rich the gift of a giver who has little

Blessed are the poor
Extravagance is a turnip the size of her heart

I walk with a limp, burdened by a heavy load
Shame of a hoarder
Heavy-ladened by the richness of
The gift
Restless
In search of the needy
Schooled on the side of the road by the one who
Knew
She the Samaritan
I, the ditch dweller

Apples woven, again
Into a story of love