Why I Long For Nothing Or Why I Want Intangibles This Christmas

December 10, 2014December 11, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

I ache for intangibles. I am longing for a filling in of the void. I am craving, in my empty hollow pit, change and love come down and hope cracked open. Hope poured out. A drowning out of pain. I limp like the war wounded, dragging a limb with chronic pain. I limp with a ghostly pain for Love to seep into the cracked and bleeding places. Heal as aloe on our weary souls.

I look for The Healing Balm with the eyes of my Advent Heart.

I want with a weary wanting.

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And God is good to allow the empty hollow hunger. For me. I am moved. Pushed in my spirit by the Spirit to a place of chronic pain. To seek the unseen. Covered by the fog of self. Love wide open love Divine all Love out-dwelling. Love indwelling. Love Incarnate. Wash over us. This soul ache means I am made for more. For serving man and other.

If you wrap your love, which I too will do. Whisper prayers over paper and bows. Breathe the breath of prayerful change over boxes and bags of packages wrapped in love and lovely. Look out and in. And help me look in and outward too. To find the intangibles in their walking flesh and bone. And breathe new life. To heal the hurting. Calm the storms. Be the love lived out. Hands and feet multiplied. Oh Multiplier of Mercy.

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Oh but I am in my comfort. With the companion of my ache. And I am with my passion, words. I am not there. The Liberia’s with my serving servant friend. Or Haiti. Where the others that I know are walking. I am here. Longing for nothing. But a Christmas with an overflow. From the heart. Joy jumping high like hot grease in the frying pan, cooking up the Sunday bacon. Hope cracked open like the farm fresh egg, yolk of yellow nourishment. Healing spread like the salve of a mother’s kiss on a wounded blood-soaked knee.

Great tidal waves of salty seas. Of grace. Grow feet and walk up on our shores.

And mark the world with Love come down at Christmas. Love. Unfailing Love. And leave us change. By grace. Leave us changed by Grace. Love the battle winner. Love the conqueror. Love the healer of all ache.

Amen?

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The Concrete Bench (Unseen, Behind The Lens)

November 22, 2014November 22, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

The Concrete Bench

You would have no way to know

For I am showing you only beauty

It is what I frame, in the imaginary crosshairs

Of my lens

Cropping out ugly, should it

Creep into my viewfinder

As I sit alone, in grateful solitude

On a bench I call my own

Made in my imagination

Just for me, grey, stone-cold, sturdy

Reflect

And be reflected

Dream and watch the dreams float by

Held

And undergirded, by the sea

The seen and unseen

Pass me by

While I count the joy and toss the pain

Into the sea, a salty grave

For tears

Dear Ones, I Came To The Mountains

October 1, 2014October 1, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Welcome to Day One. You are here. What a joy to have you along on this October journey. I am joining hundreds of other bloggers/writers as we write for 31 days in October with The Nester.

In case you want to catch up on what you may have missed, which isn’t much, click the link to go to yesterday’s introductory post. (Yesterdays post is here). All posts will be gathered in one place on the page at the top of my blog entitled #write31days2014. Here you can follow the series or catch up on any posts you may have missed.

Dear Ones, I Came To The Mountains

To
look dementia in her steely eyes
Surprise
And be surprised
Remind this disease, I am watching you

And
I went up into the hills
To see
The thief it thought it was

Gave
Restored
In the taking, joy’s rebirth

The veil is thinner here

They say
Divine, I am glad I am not

For I could never dreamed
Of this

Dear Ones, I Came To The Mountains

It is lovely, filled with runcible clouds
Spiral fluted mounds of
Earth
Blazing foliage bursts forth
Searing every other limb
Beauty shadows slate grey clouds

We will roll the thunder, darkness
Back, unfurl the flag of grace

Or
Celebrate, it’s already
Done
The thief
He has not won

Wish you were here
To rejoice with me

And watch me stare down
This disease
It may come to me one day

Here I practice
Tucked inside
The cover of the forests’

Trees

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Things That Never Were

September 23, 2014September 23, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Things That Never Were

If all the words that never were
written down
never were allowed to
leave
the fingertips
and all the souls that were called
to come
never came and sat a bit
lingering on the warm sweet breathes
never hearing the sound
of every silent word
that never left
a heaving heavy laden chest
swollen, wrapped in anxiousness

never stopped to stay awhile
nor sit
and tell the stories of the simple things
in a wooden chair
creaking, slow
while rocking back and forth
side by side out on the wide and open
porch

and all the joy that was due
a pregnant waiting
never giving birth
never delivering

you or you

and all the colors that were mixed and meant
to
stamp out dreary shades of
white and black
melancholy of a two-toned world
never were

and you had never come to me
never with a kiss upon your lips
nor flowers, mixed bouquet
picked from the garden
that was never planted on our land
and I had never come to you
what a love-less nothing
life would be
untold stories of un-lived lives
that never were

left out of all the dreams
and even out of our imaginings

void

the never were’s

of you and me

amazing grace has written
instead
stories too beautiful to tell
or so it nearly seems

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joining Laura at The Wellspring for Playdates With God

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