Tag: Art

Church

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 16 Comments

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Church

A place for dry bones to shake rattle and roll in the spirit of the Lord
Among a cast of hundreds of women who were strangers
Strangers I tell you until hours before
A foretaste of heaven
Look to your right and to your left
Look with the eyes of your heart
The countenances shine like you have stepped to the other side
This is the Hyatt for goodness sake
This is a hotel, glory be
Sisterhood deep and wide like the mighty Mississippi after the rains
Came for forty days and forty nights
Shoulder to shoulder breaking bread
Singing standing, singing sitting, singing dancing
And there were tears
No shortage of the salty rivers of release
Each drop a celestial star, blinking, twinkling
A milky way of mothers and others.

A room
Small and crowded
Where you listen deep and hard and squint and furrow
Your eyes and brow
Like a net, you cast your soul to catch every single drop of good words
About art on the other side
Of the cross
You meet a woman
A sister
She is waiting in another repository of words to tell her story
And you listen
To why you breathe and make and write and why it matters
And a sister jumps up and ends the talk in prayer
Preach it sister
Preach it
Worship, in a small crowded room
Hearts seeking to make art to His glory
A gathering, communion of saints, prayer
A good word delivered
Focusing on Him
In a downtown Greenville hotel.

And we rush out
Discuss how very late we are
We are late paces from the house
We are at the door
Their dog is lying in wait for church to let out
And her bike with the artful basket
Propped up on the side of this old
Church
We slip in, slither in a pew, the sermon
It is well into the resurrection story
Of life and death
You could hear a pin drop among the sea of graying
I cast my net
Eager for words of living and dying
Shoulder to shoulder, twenty-five years
And a baby cries
And the organ plays
And we speak to the preacher on our way out
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
As it was, it shall forever be

The dog picks up his people and they go home
Church is out.
And we breathe deep the glory from our time
In church.

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Joining Laura at Laura Boggess dot com

Maple Syrup On Sunday

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

Maple Syrup On Sunday

Quiet lulls like soul food, soulful
Margins widen
Again
After the long lonesome loud
Period.
Sometimes you have to call it like it is
Or was
My soul was drowning in noise
Of churning, change
Learning, living, out loud
Speeding Road Runner and Wylie-like
Braking at the last minute
At  the edges of the cliffs
And not the white ones of Dover
Pastoral and pure
More like
The ragged jagged ones
Barrel rolling over the
Falls
Nearly, but bailing out right before rolling over the
Niagara white foamy frothing falls with fierce
Break-neck speed
Like the Tasmanian Devil swirling twirling
I don’t buy that Devil in the Details
Stuff, not one bit
But in the racing like
Nascar through life
Yep
He may crouching tiger
Lay there ready to pounce

But mercifully
Peace seeps in, creeps in
Like maple syrup drips out of a tapped tree
Blanketing a stack of white and fluffy
Flap jacks with sugary sweet
Jesus peace like a river
Re-attends

And life is wondriful
A hybrid blend of glorious wonderful
Again

When Oliver wrote those words about joy and crumbs
I get it, really get it
And if joy were a condiment
It should be maple syrup on Sunday
Poured out slow and steady
So thick and sticky
You couldn’t wash it off if you tried
It wants to linger in the air
On fingers
Counters
Somehow leaving traces of itself everywhere
Creating stagnant pools
In cracks and crevices
Of joy
Sweet like maple syrup on a slow motion morning
Quiet lulls like soul food, soulful
Margins widen
Again

And poetry
Is born again.
pink beach sadie

Left Behind – A Very Very Short Story or When Art Holds You Hostage

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

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Today is Day 14. We are rolling right along on this journey. I am honored and over-joyed that you are along for this ride. And if you missed a previous invitation to subscribe to all posts in this series, You are cordially invited to subscribe. And follow along on twitter and on facebook if you’d like.

To read Days 1 through 13, click here to catch up and see a listing of all the offerings in this 31 day writing challenging.(I am joining the nester at the nester dot com.)

Books, Art, Library

Once upon a college tour a day or two ago, I was help hostage by art.

Well, loosely speaking. My rather large group of perspective students and parents went on a tour of a college which is right up there at the top of her list. Let’s just say, this place is saturated in history, fantastic architecture and an overall cool vibe.

So as my guide, slash our guide, lead us through the library, of which they are extremely proud, why was I the only one who slammed on the breaks for art. I know of their pride of place because she described in great detail the size, comparable to three football fields, and you people the place is beautiful. Really. But they left me in the dust, the whole group including the tour guide. I was the only one that stopped and took a picture.

Ya’ll I savored this amazing display made from books and shredded paper. Alone. Admittedly, I wanted to appreciate the art with another soul. To discuss what we were ingesting. What was being said, communicated, displayed for us in the center of this grand space.

I live in a wee little shrimping village so you may think I don’t get out much. And hey, that explains her being left behind.  But I have lived in New York and Paris. And I do live right down the road from Charleston, with all its art, museums and history. So I have seen a little more than shrimp boats in my short, well not that short, life. But I slammed on the breaks for this beauty.

My practical side knows that if we had stopped we would have made undesirable library noices with our oooh’s and aaah’s.  But we were on the first level and we had already been told that the third level was the “you can hear a pin drop” level.  So that leads me to believe that these other people on the tour must see really cool sculpture made from books and shredded paper every day.

Either that or we, as a people,  are not easily amused. Or we don’t care about art made from books and shredded paper. Or we are in a hurry or we have become jaded.

People, stop and savor the art. Some talented artisan crafted something valuable here in a sea of shredded trees.

In the noticing is discovery, in the discovery is amazement, in the amazement is gratitude and in the gratitude is a sense of joy and wonder.

I can only think about all the art I have missed along my hurried way.   I was a willing victim in this hostage taking, in the library, one recent day on a college tour.
I would like to hear what she is saying.  I want to hear what everyone is saying. What about you?

Ready, set, go notice.

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I am joining Laura at Laura Boggess dot com for her Playdates at The Wellspring. One of the joys of my Mondays. Join me there?

And I Heard Be Still

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

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I heard you arrive. Your breathes, some rushed and hurried. Some slow and halting. You stepped across the threshold to this place. And when you came you brought yourself. As you are today. In this moment now. Let’s capture this day together. It must be an art, no science, this noticing. It must be practiced and possibly never perfected. But there is joy in the practice. Ready, set, go notice.

Aren’t we all archeologists digging in the soil of our very lives. Chipping through the rock and rubble looking, even longing for the shiny. The diamonds in the rough and rocky. Ah but there is beauty in the rusty patina places. The layers of living leave their beautiful marks. They paint strokes of story and telling, leaving whispers, shouts even of what has happened here. Don’t we long to know what lies just below the surface. The untold story. The unseen beauty, hidden art, waiting glory, buried treasures of extravagant grace.

We the curious seek a soul knowing. Early on we toddled around touched everything, put everything to our lips and in our mouths to answer the question what is it. Why do we slow down in our discovery. Halted by age, slowed by a deliriously jadded heart. Frozen by complacency. Settling for the whatever.

Seeing past the very surface, the cliches, the what is clearly showing brings joy and gratitude. I saw the spanish moss last night, dripping in all its grey glory, majestic like cashmere scarves thrown over the shoulders and limbs of the oaks. And I saw God’s creative wonder, His very intricate design. And I said yes to His world, anew again.

I was in the Presence of The Living God. In a world watermarked by the wispy strokes of His creative hand.

I am dancing in a place of quiet searching. I am looking with a hungry heart. I am slowing down to see and listening to the whisper of be still.

We prayed last night to the sound of crickets and cicadas. Our little village bible study. Our first night. Doors wide open. Fall sneaking in to still our frenzied hearts. We struggled with our calendars to make a schedule for our group. Oh the irony. We are studying simplicity and are calendars do not want to bend into the schedule of twelve weary travelers.

But the chorus of night’s choir calmed. And a  soliloquy of sudden singing soothed us while we prayed. And I heard be still.

Listen with me, see with me, in the middle of the messy living. Cry out with me, pray with me in the still of the fallen night. Look with me into the deep crevices of wonder. Find with me the lyrical and the lapping rhythms of the day. See with me past the surface, into the God places slightly hidden from view. Wonder with me at the treasure trove of buried beauty. Excavate the layered living. And mine the God Beauty of this day.

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Push it. Examine all things intensely and relentlessly.  — Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

(This is day three. Are you following daily. Let’s notice together. Visit me on facebook, on twitter, or subscribe to this journey. Click here to read all posts in this 31 day series. Did you notice I said how grateful I am to have you here. I am grateful you are here. Truly.)