Tag: Faith

The Power and The Beauty of One

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

It runs through me like a current of the electric. Strong with awakening.

Powerful in its thrust and pulse.

And haunting like a metronome in its consistent cutting moves.

We can hear a message and it sounds like its cutting through clutter, the thick fog of a world’s static noise with its clarity.

In a season of waiting and working and wading toward Christmas how singular and powerful One is.

I see it repeated in my life like the multiplication tables of my childhood, again and again repetition brings understanding and memory and a lodging in the deep places. Where facts or is it truth should make its home and remain.

The power in One’s.

So my heart and my head just hear a singular message and it could be tucked away as many lessons are. Or it could be shared, as this one is.  But you always seem to be so generous with your one life in how you listen in love here.

I hear and feel the gentle whisper to give it wings. This picture of the power so often held by one.

There is strength and power in one. And it is made clearer in our Advent waiting for the celebration of the holy night into which Our Savior was born.

And God being God could have sent an Army, a battalion of Saviors. He could have sent triplets or twins or multiples to accomplish that which he so lovingly planned for our reconciliation to Him. We sinful, He holy.

But He sent His only Son. He sent One.

And so I look at His world and my world and this world through the lense of just how powerful one can be.

We have one heart, but two ears and two eyes. One heart keeps us beating breathing from birth to death. One.

And I look in the sky at a moon  by night and a sun by day. Day in and day out we are sustained by both. Singularly life giving, the sun its light. The moon and the tides and all that I don’t understand about the holy mystery of that.

The power in the heavens. By ones.

We women who are married live with the gift of one husband. And I think mine does the work of three or four men daily. And every day the beauty revealed,  the mystery grows  more holy and unfathomable.

The things accomplished through love in a family utterly amaze this wife of almost 25 years. And we have only just begun. Those things learned within a family are holy mysteries.

One family can teach us much about living.

The bride of Christ. One bride, one bridgegroom. The work to do on earth is large and ever looming. One and one. Just Amazing Grace.

After pouring out on the pages here words of offering as encouragement or hope or just art, the art found in weaving of words, I have often had one single comment speak into my heart…if only for that and for her it was all made worthy. It became something of value if it reached one heart of one woman or one man. One soul. A single solitary soul.

I write for One but often I am touched and blessed by one reader. And it is tender and merciful. I shake and shutter at the interaction between reader and writer.

And in this season of preparing for Christmas I am frozen in my ability to design and construct the proper expression of my love for family and friends. Numbed and deemed unable to decide how to move with a release of gifts and talents and money into the land of Christmas giving.

For my giving is an excercise in the imperfect  mirroring of love, as He gave everything, His one child. So we give.

And I know if I am wise I can impact the life of one with my giving. One child entangled in a cycle of poverty. One family, maybe with my giving.

It is inconceivable that I could really touch one, another with a gift. The unfurling of my meager offering. To love as Christ loved me.

That we all can, each one of us can.

And that one is enough, though it seems small. One is a good start. And one is important. And he can increase and multiply the power of Ones.

If God saw power,  life changing power at that ,in one, who am I to minimize the power in one gift, to one child, or one family. To another one in this world.

When I feel small and insignificant and frozen into inaction by the meagerness of my giving, I think on God’s ability to multiply my starting point.

The power of God to do big things with my small offering.

To inspire me to increase or expand. To take a gift and magnify its effectiveness.

If I let loose of my gifts, give them to Him, release and trust them to Him,  to use and heal and give hope, then I  give Him his rightful authority and power. To do with my oneness bigger things than I could do with any single offering.

To Him be the power and glory that are His, and may we release our singular offerings to His service, His glory and to  be used for His Divine choosing. For His purposes.

I am going over to the Compassion Christmas GIft Catalog. To ask Him how what I have may be used over there.

I need nothing. I want for nothing. My family and friends need and want for nothing, truly.

But maybe, just maybe, God can take my small offering and turn it into something much  bigger than I ever could.

On my own.

Alone. I haven’t  been the best steward of all He has given me. It would be wise to release more back to His hands for His use.

There I know they are in good hands.

There I know they will be used for His glory and His purposes.

He is the One who knows the need and has the power to redeem my ineffectual and just plain wrong choices on spending that which  He has lavished on me.

And by His grace, mercifully, He gives me another chance to give away.

One that I want to be used in love for good.

Like the one moon that shines bright, the one sun that sends rays of life giving light, the one husband who loves me and blesses me with his life, and the One Savior who was  born in a feed trough for me.

May God take my offering and make it holy and beautiful.

This one Christmas 2012.

Here is one place you can look when considering  your gift giving this year. I may see you over there looking around the pages of Compassion Christmas Gift Catalog.

Wherever you choose to give this year, may someone who is hurting and lonely and in need to blessed.

Merry Days of Christmastime to  each one of you, sweet readers.

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click the link below to visit Compassion International’s Christmas Gift Catalog:

http://www.compassion.com/catalog.htm?referer=128060

Linking with Laura and Ann today.

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A Donkey, Carol, and A Soul In Need At Walmart

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

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I wonder if The Water Walker, the stretched out on the cross Christ came down into my Advent heart what He would find. I feel dirty as the dusty donkey that his parents road into town in the dark cold night, looking for warmth. And I passed a woman lonely at Walmart a few weeks back that I had known, she walks a lonely road herself and I didn’t speak. When I had a mouth that works my heart did not. I left her there without a touch of grace, not even a hello. So I could be the keepers of the inn whose heart would turn away the Mary and the Joseph of today. Looking for warmth and a place to birth the King of Kings. And I wonder if He were to walk in as I am covered up in paper and plastic if he would speak gentle correction and have me strip it all away. And say the tree with glitter shiny looks like excess in a world of want. That you can peel it all back and find just bone and flesh and marrow and beating hearts and Him and that is celebration enough. But then you’d have to peel back all the stuff, the boxes and the bows.

And so I wonder if He were to knock like Carol did a few weeks back, the Jehovah’s Witness at my door, what He would find that pleases Him of my preparing Advent heart. And if He were to shadow me in all my ways during all my days leading up to the 25th day of next month, what would he say of me. How when I walked the dog I hoped the neighbor didn’t speak because I wasn’t feeling particularly friendly at that moment. Too cold and focused on getting on with my selfish life.

Yes, I could be the innkeeper who’d turn away Messiah, if I’d turn away a neighbor on a cold November Day.

I wonder as a wander down the days leading to His birth, how I could prepare like a knower of and lover of and believer in Him. How I could honor Him and bless Him and glorify Him in all, that’s ALL I say and do, my every breath my every word, my every deed.

I simply wonder what the Knower of All and Lover of My Soul is beholding, of me and my house and my heart this Christmas Season.

I pray for grace. And I pray for eyes to see anew, all the Wonders of His Love.

Its a season of miracles and I long for the miracle of a worthy Advent heart, perfected at the Hands of a Stable Born King.

And a heart to seek and speak and love like one who knows better.

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Today I am participating in a five-minute writing excercise with others here.
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And I ask for forgiveness because it is highly likely I ran over five minutes. Colored outside the lines….got grace?

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Poetry

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 12 Comments

A funny thing happened on the way to poetry. And humor is long over due. Or due. Or something that involves laughter and joy. Because the world has a weight of its own and a heaviness that is expressed in phrases like the weight of the world.

And then there is the path to poetry. Which had some funny haha and funny odd things happen along the way to it.

There is a long story there that would wind you down a path you would rather not travel on. Should you choose to go there. You would likely feel lost and having not laid bread crumbs along your way, you may be a little mad at the writer and say I never really intended to walk down that long and winding road with you though I do love Paul and The Beattles.

And as much as I love a good story and you probably do too if you are reading, you are prone to like writing. Somehow the two seem to go together like sweet tea and mason jars. i know you thought I was going to say like hand and glove. I almost did. How did you know. But liking a good story as you do you may not be ready for a very long one.

And brevity is possibly a reason for embracing poetry. Though writing about brevity can actually be rather long and cumberson and tiring. So when writing about brevity and poetry it is important to keep it on the brief side or you may in fact lose your reader.

And if there is anything you don’t want to do when writing it is lose your reader. Oh, perish the thought of a lost reader along the way.

But there is a funny sort of thing or two that are worth telling in a short and sweet matter because the matter is sweet. So that would add a touch of the ironic which is always or almost always good to add to keep the reader interested. Irony is just so darn ironic.

But when you set upon a path and you don’t know where you are going, its a bit like being lost in the Hundred Acre woods like a bear and his friends and a  young boy named Christopher Robin who probably wanted to be lost because of the weight of his world. But he had his friends to keep him company in a wild and wooly world in those woods. Yes, he had a friend to hold his hand.

So when on this path of unknowing that involves poetry you may find that what you discovered all along was simply not really poetry at all. Though poetry was a byproduct. Or maybe you found poetry plus a large red cherry on top. Though not as laden with sugar as those cherries. But maybe it was sweeter and richer, in fact.

Because writing is a solitary endeavor, often. Most often. Which is good, because God is close by. But there is still the deep craving for another.

And writers can be lonely sometimes if they are not careful. Unless they turn on the music of the world, not the heavy world but the crisp and light and beautiful noise of the God-creation.

God had the brilliant idea that we live in community and breathe in community and in so living and breathing,  perhaps also writing in community.

So a funny thing happened on the way to poetry. I found a beautiful friend along the way. And you may too if you were to write with a friend, new or old.

You just may find the eternal on the path to your writing.

You may find a treasure. A friend.

This post is dedicated to Holly A. Grantham at A Lifetime of Days for stepping out in faith at the invitation to write in the unknown. She is a gift, she is a beautiful writer and she is now a friend. Her writing home is found here at www.walkingintheslowlane.blogspot.com. She has taught me more than words can express. But one day I will try. For now this is my offering of thanks.

linking with Emily and Michelle

Adagio: A Poetry Project

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

Writing is, most often, a solo venture, a process worked deep inside the confines of one’s heart and soul. But when two pilgrim poets turn towards each other and embrace the tension that lies between, something new emerges.  A writing “pas de deux” is born and the two begin weaving their words together, in and around, over and under, into something bigger than themselves. The writing becomes a lifting, a balancing, a turning…and the words on the page become an Adagio.
Learn more of the birth of the Adagio project at Holly’s writing home.

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It is in this spirit that we have threaded together pieces of our souls as our offering to the world of poetry and to fellow poet friends. Most especially, though, we offer it as a gift, and lay it right at the feet of our Creative God who is  the Giver of this love of writing and purposeful word weaving.  Today we sing this song and tell some of our story…..elizabeth and holly.

Writing Across The Distance

Her words they twist and swirl creamy smooth

One into another and I drink them in deep and long

She dips her pen into the well of ink

That is her very crimson rushing pulsing life.

And brings up words to stamp white page.

She is like the smiths of old, holding passion fire hot and glowing

And working the ember into ghostly shapes

That cool only when set aside

Full of vibrant living breathing voice,  poetic prose

For all to know her very soul

She lives into days fringed with salt-crusted breezes

And her words they ripen and swell

And drip heavy the fruit of quiet days made full with patience and wonder

She dips her pen into places wet with tears of joy and sorrow mingled down

Always honest, her voice knows only raw and real

She a pilgrim soul on a journey long and winding

Open and bare her heart rests upon the feast table

She is waiting quiet and still

While the shaping takes place

She is still and she knows.

No room for mask or veil or artificial

Her art, like incense to her God.

And she’ll dip her pen in nature’s oil

And mingle earth with bone and flesh to make a  mix of all the world

Not leaving places unexplored, she will blend the wild and tame alike

And make a holy sacrifice and offering of her very  self

A calm and tranquil melody

Poetic heartfelt words.

Two pilgrims on a journey.

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Will you join us as we move in faith on this new poetry journey? And perhaps you might consider partnering with another writer to come along side us in this endeavor?  We covet your presence in this space.

Holly may be found writing often at her home, A Lifetime of Days. My writing home is here, wynnegraceappears, Elizabeth W. Marshall. We are writing across the distance as our homes are hundreds upon hundreds of miles apart.

Joining Jennifer, Eilleen, Emily and Duane