What I Am Working On, Still

January 23, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

And I tell myself…we can do this but man oh man is it hard and now I know why I write. There is comfort behind these words. And it is frightening and vulnerable out in front of the shield they provide, the comfort they give.

And I wanted it to be imperfect and man is it.

But I wanted there to be a heartbeat and a breathing, living pulse put to the words from my heart.

You may not hear it but they both are there.

Grace and Peace to you. Thanks for large measures of grace for “What I Am Working On, Still.”

The words bring peace and solace and more, they are a calling. My family needs me now. To fix dinner and make things neat and clean and orderly. They need me to be and love and embrace and nurture.

And I am working on loving them, raising them, guiding them and mothering them, still.

{The Patient One made me the beautiful fire in the fireplace before he left to do what The Patient One does.}

What I Am Working On

January 23, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 11 Comments

When that word showed up on my doorstep that day, I embraced it and said it was mine. At least for the year.

And there are many different mediums and forms and formats. Suddenly being flat and one dimensional as a writer and as a struggling poet has reached a restless place.

I cried out to a fellow blogger and shared with her my heart’s desire to produce my first video blog post (VLOG) and she spoke back.

A community is a living breathing being. And we are in community together. She reached out to me and said “I can help you.”

At the simplest level of our humanness is that desire to be heard and cared for. For a cry to have a response.

And as an artist and writer we may need to have someone come alongside as a fellow writer and say, I can help you with your craft. To develop it in a way you are dreaming about. Hoping for.

I am flat, with an avatar and only written words to the readers of my blog. I have a longing to put my voice and my clumsy hand gestures and my southern accent to my poetry. I want to be a “three D” me, if only once. Or maybe even more than once.

So this is what I am working on. A short little vlog post with my voice quivering and my poetry shaky wobbly on my lips. My accent revealing a bit of where I am from and my heart coming through in my word choices.

This is me now, in a flat screen back lit world. But this lover of words longs to give them a different vehicle. And send them off riding into the arms of her readers.

So I am off to work on my project and to pick a poem to read.

Have I told you lately how you bless me?

May you be encouraged today in all that you are lead to do, in work, in love, in relationships, and in service.

(Photo courtesy of Laura Hutto, Shades of Gray Photography

Finding Joy In Wash, Rinse, Repeat

January 22, 2013January 22, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

The repetition of the beautiful can feel more like repetition of the ordinary.

The let dog in let dog out days of in and out of the washer and dryer she adds a load, changes it out, and tries to mix it up.

She sees the ordinary but strains for the extraordinary of the cycles of life. The make the bed and wash a load and empty, re- load the machines that wash the things that are dirty hums its dull hum.

And the check the mail and fluff the pillows and call a friend and go to the store and wipe the counters again drills go on and on and on.

But what if she sees a nuance of change and a strain of the beautiful in the repetition of the everyday.

And what if she began to lace the duties of life and living with prayer and praise and songs.

Taking the sheets of music to the bed as she folds the sheets. And raises the window to hear the birds as they serenade the cycles of living. The daily fringed with songs of grace.

And what if the breathing of the home she holds dear begins to sound like the breathing of the family that will walk in soon in need of nurture, both of the soul and of the body.

So the wiping of the counters begins to look like a prelude to an act of love, of service.

And the mundane looks like a view through a kaleidoscope when she shifts the view, turns it slant to see, really see what’s hidden behind the veil of the daily.

And “viewing life through a lense of grace” breaks out anew from its cocoon of hiding and is reborn.

She sees the grace of life. She sees the joy in wash, rinse, repeat.

She reframes her ordinary with extravagant love and wipes the counter with a cloth of dripping wet grace, in the living, grace in the everyday.

And He does make all things new. In the moments of the everyday everyday.

So she turns it on its head until the blood rushes in and shakes and spins it round and round. And when the day gets turned right side up it’s flush with living, flush with the flow of blood all through the living breathing it.

The life has rushed back in and the life flows strong and bold through the day.

The turning, flipping bring shades of new, shades of the life-blood show, shining through. And it blushes with crimson, tinges of life-red.

The stale looks fresh, the old looks re-born and the mundane places are fired-up with the electric new.

She views life through a lense of grace.

And all the things on life’s pendulum, swing to the beat of a recalibrated heart.

And life fills her home again. And the beat goes on and on and on.

Dancing to the songs of grace.

Joining Jen and Heather today.

Scales

January 21, 2013January 21, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 16 Comments

Scales

I’d much rather take my pen and paper, my abstract mind, my struggling poetic voice over to the school of fish.

I’d find more peace, though it may be rough and smelly, navel-gazing with the fish, their coats of small shining shards of fish fashion. The blues and greens and browns sewn on like a quilt of slimy mosaic, smelling of the sea.

Like a stained glass of small cut pieces, the whole is more telling than a microcosm of the total package.

I’d rather meditate and pontificate on the scales which can hurt a girl’s hands rather than the other ones that have hurt girls’ hearts.

Not the ones that society would do well to just plain do without.

Throw the scales out with the bathwater.

Not the ones that bind and shackle, tease and taunt, tell a number, a false gauge of worth.

Not the heavy object that pulls to itself, power-grabber, as a magnet, calling out in a weighing heavy metal empty whisper, from the floor, wielding power it’s stolen from the true granter of worth and praise.

Take the scales off my eyes, that blind me when I try to see, Truth, is not a number.

Remove the scales, deadskin flaking, keeps me from true beauty.

Give me beauty, true, blues and greens on the fish that swims so free, in its coat of many colors, allowing it to blend into the beautiful, blend into the sea.

Wearing proudly the scales designed, meticulous

By the Hands of One,

Who sets the captives free.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Writing on the concrete helps us understand the abstract. And Amber Haines does it as well as anyone I know. She’s got a great little community of writers writing on scale today. I am there too.

Scales.

And I am joining Laura at The Wellspring.

And joining Ann at A Holy Experience, though I am quietly walking through my up and down again counting. Lord, give me a disciplined heart for seeing your gifts.

(Photo courtesy of Pam Wooten)

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