Tag: beauty

Moving At A Snails Pace (Photo Blogging)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

Oh the best laid plans. 

To go one way and then you find yourself heading another way entirely.

Spontaneously slow walking and talking, at a snail’s pace really.

Uncovering the unexpected. And stopping. Often. 

To ponder on the stumbled on wonder.

To view the world with a shift in your life lense. The one through which you view things in the daily ordinary.

But the summertime lense can bring a cool green change in perspective.

Cut flowers from the yard, petals on the path, shadows through the gate they lay down and ask to be stumbled upon.

When you find yourself moving at a snail’s pace. Because you walk in the shadow of a generation before. And you know you have this one glorious day.

And the gift comes in taking the path marked by another one. Whose pace is not your own.

And isn’t that what love does? It shifts gears and changes pace and waits on others.

It is patient and it is kind. And I think sometimes it moves slow and steady, at a snail’s pace. And the only rushing sound is that of the waterfall. I am learning to love like this. Slow and patient. Unrushed.

But I am slow at learning to love, like this. And oh it is so slow and hard, this new kind of love.

But that Joy comes in the unrushed dog days of summer in the shadow of another generation is a good lesson to learn. Summer teaches with her slow warm hand. She turns the head and opens the heart to learn anew.And shows  in the  slow light of  a June day how to love to the beat of another’s pace and stride. To love the other’s ways. To bend down in love to another’s needs.

Even if I learn it at a slow snail’s pace, it is that I learn it at all, in the days remaining that is important. 

And the light creeps through and shines like the Hope that I have to learn it well and to learn it  for good. The good that is lasting and the good that is slow
and patient and kind.

We are three generations watching in love at how we care for and love another. Three women with a pace and stride unlike the other’s, learning to bend in love. Slow loving the other.

Slowing down for love on these dog days of summer. 

 

Linking with Ann today at A Holy Experience dot com

Leaving Quite An Impression

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Counting gifts with Ann over at a holy experience dot com. This is a beautiful way to start a Monday.  A day of new mercies.   Before counting gifts, and there are many, I want to express my gratitude to readers.  Thank you that you are here. Thank you for your encouragement.  You bless me with your feedback.  I look over my shoulder and see and hear you there, on this journey.  I am praying for each of you, may His grace mark your day with a deep groove of the holy on this day in the midst of May.  May the landscape of your life be touched by His Mercy, in the joy, in the hard, in the soft, and in the muck.  In the mundane middles,  in the fresh new starts, and in crossing the finish lines.

Looking down the bridge of this nose on this face and counting the right smack here gifts in this very messy living. This life.  The one  with the bumps and the bruises, the turns and twists, the highs and the lows, the peaks and valleys and the ebbs and flows. The gifts are underfoot and might even get stepped on if we don’t step lightly and walk softly through the very messy living.

Counting the multitudes on monday:

middle son’s weight loss, still amazed and impressed by his determination(90 pounds is a lot to register on this momma’s heart)

sweet unexpected surprise in my comment box from my daughter, love in the words, love in her heart

kayak’s and how they offer a way to quietly see life, slow paddling with The Patient One and sitting for hours in solitude while the kiddos took the SAT

Our favorite worship song in church yesterday led by beautiful voices and an elbow in the rib from sweet girl of mine, followed by her singing loudly her praises….grace IS an ocean…..

Going to take home communion yesterday as a trainee –shifting the lense of life and seeing the bread and the wine bless one who is bound by a wheelchair.  

There Is A Place Somewhere, I Imagine

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others”    —    Lewis Carroll

And there is a place somewhere I imagine,

where all of the small things are really quiet large.

Where one small word has the power to change hearts.

Where one word of gratitude changes perspective, forever.

Where one apology heals the broken and restores love.

Where  a word of encouragement mends a fence between a mother and a child.

Where a small meal is like a feast at a banquet when family gathers around.

Where one phrase spoken in love and compassion brings healing between friends.

Where one sign of hope restores faith.

Where one moment of silence can restore peace in the soul.

Where one small prayer uttered in faith tethers the heart of a believer to her God.

Where one simple thing in all the world points a searching world to God’s Grace, God’s Mercy, and God’s Love.

The Art Of Eavesdropping Slash–Honing Your Observation Skills

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments


This is a story.

This is a story of yesterday.

And actually the day before yesterday too.

I drive to another zipcode to grocery shop. I know thats shocking for a one-zip-code dweller.  And I stroll down the isle of the frozen things.  The day before yesterday part of the story goes like this.  My family had a very odd on-the-way-to-church conversation on Sunday.  It was all about crazy coupon shopping.  There is a name or a title or a badge of honor that goes with that skill.  The Patient-One wants me to do this.  This is not the current me.  Might be the me he wants me to be.  Going to another zipcode to shop in a much less expensive grocery store was part of me trying to be more cost aware.

The isles are quiet.  Very quiet and calm.  There was almost an echo.  Monday must not be the day for all the mad coupon mommas.  I digress.  That story stays in the former paragraph.

And  I hear a beautiful story.  I hear a painting and I hear a poem.  I hear art. The eyes of my heart hear a sliver of a life story.  They see the art in the life moment.

The words were tender.  The transaction between two men was small but it was huge.  Beauty in the moment.   Threads of life weaving between two men.  One young.  One old.  Both working on this day.

I slow down.  I am captured by their sweet interaction.  I am moved by the exchange.  This life transaction tendered before my ears and eyes touches place in me.

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering — Winnie The Pooh


Take a life slice, stab it with your fork, place it on the taste buds at the tippy of your tongue. And savor.  Move it around from the sweet to the savory, those buds that register different flavors.  Suck long and suck hard.  Make them last for a long forever.

Pick up the paint brush of your inner knowing and paint a picture of the life you see.  Record it in a place for keeps.  So you can know you lived. Know you live.  Remember the all.  The glorious and the unglorious.  All the parts and pieces of the mosaic that is yours.  Your one.  Your only.  Your life.

One isle over I see my special friends mother.  I am not a good friend.  I don’t mentor well.  I have not returned her child’s call.  I say I missed Quailla’s call.  She smiles and tells me all good things.  I think.  I believe it to be good.  The fact that there are changes.  I send my love.  And I bury my guilt in the knowing that they seem well. I hear of spring break and a trip and new things.  And we smile.  This time between two mothers.  And we talk about one child.  I celebrate spontaneously in this isle.  I don’t know its name.  But its a good place to celebrate change.

Go grab a pen.  Be your historian of your one life.  Scribble it down and put it in a place for safekeeping. Jot it down all messy and real, its yours.  Give it a grand heros welcome.  Roll out the red carpet for it, for them.  Memory will take good care of all that is preserved.  Guard it all.  Guard it well.

And the bees were next.  Lots and lots of bees.

Look and see all the bees.

I took pictures of bees and more.

They are there for you to see. ( Dr. Seuss may be creeping in. Oh my.  First Pooh then Dr. Seuss. smiling here)

And there were words.  Some were good and sweet and tender.  And some were not.  Some gave encouragement and were life affirming.  But I take the all and I mix it, blend it, taste it, and name it mine.  There were moments that taught and words that cut.  There was a blur of beauty and a swirl of pain.  There were pronouncements of new birth coming from across the way in the house looking out in Hope and new life.

The end.

Not really.  Its not the end of the story.  Its Tuesday. And Tuesday has a story of her own to tell.