Tag: Faith

On The Platform – A Reflective – Part Two

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

Its election day and there are storms brewing and God.

And God is unchanged.

We rolled down the east coast back in June on a mission trip.

And saw and lived New York, Brooklyn.

Down in her belly, for some hours. We are marked and changed.

A day can jump all over a soul who has no hope. Who wears fatigue like a worn out flannel shirt, with holes and missing buttons.

The day can drag you down as you stare and stand on a subway platform, weary worn out.

The eyes tell almost all you need to know. You know those hollow weary orbs.

I asked her if she’d play the game, designed to bring some joy. Her body spent, she sat. I sat. We sat. For minutes lives merged in the belly of a city. On the platform.

If you stop and take a minute and look ’em in the eyes, and tell them a little of your story and invite them to play, well things begin to happen.

We came to bring some joy to the subway with our scrabble game, all taped up on the subway tiles. Some Christ Hope. The ministry of presence presents itself selfless, as a gift.

But the giver is the receiver and the giver drowns in blessings, down in the bottom of a dirty city, white pants worn, standing out like neon in a dark dank place.

We entered in and invited in and stood for hours, rats ran by, and smiles beamed bright.

People told their stories, to us. To strangers.

We were the strangers in a city needing soft and gentle. Hungry for the words, taped up on the tiles.

There is a world of hurt and a hurting world. And people really want a minute of your time, to play, even if its scrabble taped up on the walls.

People don’t have strangers care, enough.

And we don’t play enough. The letters in the basket, taped up on the wall, the group effort, the spirit of community.

Taking the love of Christ, down, down, down, and to to to.

There was one woman, I am haunted by her story. And her face and her eyes and her hurt. You can stand on the platform and smile and care and you can be a receptacle of pain. I watched as others poured out love into a hurting soul.

I merged with my own past on that platform. I see myself now, haunted by the lonely subway rides and waits, alone. It was 1980 something and I lived in the City. There are enough lonely stares to fill a Milky Way, little twinkling eyes, dim and grim.

You can bring a salty boat load of joy to a sea of hurt all the way from Charleston, South Carolina and dump it right there.

On the platform.

And on a day when winds blow through the nation and a N’or Easter simmers off the coast, and New York is in a world of pain, you can spread your salty joy, your Christ-love, your Christ-hope right smack dab where you are.

You don’t need duct tape or painters tape and cut out letters and a very clever puzzle, though it is a beautiful tool. A joy magnet.

The salty tears, and salty Mercy work to salve a wound.

You can stand in line, you might today, to vote.

And you can stand in awe of what Jesus’ love does when it meets someone in their world of hurt.

Look ’em in the eyes and put on your listening ears. Your Mercy ears. Your sweet compassion, an eagerness to know, their story.

Wear it to the polls, and wear it on your sleeve, and wipe a tear with Hope.

You can find a hurting soul in the line at The Pig or Trader Joe’s or Walmart I am sure.

Brooklyn has her fair share now, and she did in June too.

There was a man who wore 500 tatooes for a shirt and he was mad. He was madder than mad. At this world and at this life and wore his pain like a badge. But Margaret smiled her smile and stayed in love, in the conversation.

Love stays. It doesn’t leave. Love presses in, in gentleness.

He swore he wouldn’t play the game. But a mind can change and love can soften. And he did.

And his story leaked out like an old Chevy leaking oil, right there on that platform.

Margaret wiped it up with a Mercy rag.

My insides wept and maybe my outsides too when we left Brooklyn.

They haunt me, those faces. Maybe I’ll find a hurting soul in line to vote and ask him if he wants to play. Or maybe I’ll just smile and look into his eyes.

It is sad we tell our kids to watch out for strangers. We do. We must.

Strangers are the ones who seem to hurt the most.

If you have any interest at all in Part One, it is here. Or you can read yesterday’s post, which will accomplish the same thing. Bless you for being here on this journey. Wishing you a boatload of grace today.

Linking with Heather.

Day 19 – Peace In A Sea of Change

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Today is Day 19.

{Writer’s Prologue – Strangely my spirit grieves the two/third’s way through, my math mind is icky, or so, I find myself in this Series. It has brought so much richness and fullness and I release to God the Day 32 which is to say the first day without the Series guiding and shaping.  And your eyes and heart here provide me a richness of community. If you would like to receive posts via email click here. The future is full of endless possibility and words beyond this series. Thanks for being a Pilgrim with me. ]

There is what is called the “cushion of the sea.” Down beneath the surface…there is a part of the sea that is never stirred. The peace of God is that eternal calm which, like the cushion of the sea, lies far too deep down to be reached by any external trouble or disturbance…
Dr. A.T. Pierson

Do you know this place where change looms all around. And it feels like sediment stirred up from ocean’s floor. You seek the sieve to filter what of it is good. Perhaps its all. Good. From the God of Good.

Can you hear the seas roar loud like Lion’s roar, a strong bold change.

We sit for long sessions now, The Patient One and I. And there is so much for us it takes my breath away. So much for us to discuss and navigate through. This ship, our lives.

Our church is experiencing deep and wide and profound change. We may make one too as it makes its, change. I walk around with a grievous spirit. And fear that I will weep on Sunday as I serve communion at the rail. I look in eyes that experience a ripping kind of change. Division and confusion. We vote on change.

In our church in days, in our country in days.

And colleges will vote on whether my child comes to them or not. Or maybe its a sweeping decision of a committee of one at these institutions.

But God knows. And he loves. And we desperately seek His will in a sea of change.

For us it may involve boxes and change of address forms, but it may not. That is the way of releasing all to Him. That is the way of abandoning plans while seeking His.

There may be changes in schools and there is a deep desire to seek this path He has for the middle one, the one who looks at schools for art and schools based on Military dictums or simply coming out into the world.

It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life. Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean revel in Him.

The Message, Philippians 4:4-7

And maybe peace in a sea of change is handing him the oars, the paddle, the motor, any steering mechanism on board and drifting.

Drifting on the swells of trust into His arms.

And praying for Him to guide and steer and love us.

Into oceans of change. While we release and abandon our compasses, our course.

He the Map Holder. We fall into His arms.

And I weep.

My ocean is one of tears. May they be salted with sweet and savory knowing that His ways roar with excellence and perfection.

And that the cross is squarely in our cross-hairs, our plumb line His horizon.

{Writer’s postscipt- Thankful for a community of tear-catchers. You know who you are}

To read the collective click here. Today is Day 19. I weep. Todays word is Change.

Linking this post with my friend, Shelly at Redemption’s Beauty. She is writing for 31 Days. Can you hear the release in the air.

Walking

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 14 Comments

This is Day 17. You may read the collective here.

Yesterday was Fear. Tomorrow, I will be reflecting somewhat on Emily Wierenga’s book “Chasing Silhouettes” and Emily’s beautiful story of hope and redemption.

Today, is a new day…and we’re simply Walking.

To wake up and walk.

Oh the joy in the new mercy steps to life.

To take a step away from old and into the hope-filled new.

From the past  to the promise-filled present.

Like brick-layers we lay a step, lay- place a foot on the path,

Seal it with the concrete Promise of The Cross

And Prayer. Always.

Fill the holes and cracks, the porous with portions of faith.

Make it steady, make it firm, solid

Soil fertile,

Soil rich, with Hope

And walking out not alone but with.

With the weary fellow pilgrims.

With the broken, hurting co-laborers.

Alongside a community of sojourners.

Covering in grace, clothing a weary walker in a word.

Bracing her up with the walking stick of prayer,

Carved in words, as wooden vessels of encouragement.

Walk alongside you weary walkers,

Step in tandem with the others.

Bear up the burden of the fellow traveller.

And carry her when she cannot take another step

As the hands and feet of the Water Walker,

Be the hands, the feet of Him. The Christ.

Walk beside, walk behind,

Walk in love, throw out the seeds of hope to find your way along the trail.

From this to that, and here to there

The One Who Walked On Water has walked it all before.

So Brave and Steady you may tread, along the Walking Path of Life.

So Brave and Fear-less you now may run,

Down the road to Truly, Freely  Living.

The one that’s mark for You.

Writing in community with Duane, Emily, Jennifer, and Ann

When Glimpses Are More Than Enough

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 22 Comments

The partialness and incompleteness seem to satisfy.

Its just enough for now. There is nothing lacking. No unfulfilled place of longing. In the moment.

The glimpses are more than enough.


Gazing a glimpse of blaze. The orange tells the heart there is a brilliant sunset over the river tonight. A glimpse of the beauty satisfies like the small bite of a foiled wrapped chocolate kiss. Its enough.

The wafer thin representation of His body in the open palms, a sign of saving grace. A sacred glimpse into the holy at the rail, with wine and murmurs of a transaction of love and sacrifice. Satisfy deep within the soul of man. It is monumental in its symbol, a glimpse into the Trinity and it is more than enough to wake up the heart of man to the weight of the moment.

This week I glimpse poverty, and grief. A glimpse is enough to awaken the heart of this woman to the weight of the world.

And I glimpse gratitude, hand-penned in black ink from her to me. And I glimpse friendship blended in a moment of prayer, mixed with death and poured out in sympathy. And it is enough to know the power of prayer and the sting of death. A glimpse into His presence in these moments of loss and suffering.

The portion is well-measured. By a God who loves and knows. That glimpses of love and joy satisfy for now. And in His wisdom, and in His love, in time, the glimpse will be more than partial.

There will be fullness. For now the glimpse is the full of weight of His glory. And mercy. And love.

The new moon sliver is all the soul needs to see to know. The full moon is on the way.

Glimpses of Grace quench the dry bones spirit. Glimpses of Hope restore broken Joy.

Peeks into the holy provide a fullness for the longing heart of the believer.

When glimpses are more than enough because we know the fullness of His Love is uncontainable and unmeasureable and unfathomable.

A glimpse is an exponential panoramic technicolor view of His Glory for the eyes of this Heart that believes.

Looking with the lense of gratitude, the glimpse becomes a gift of seeing into the more.

And the glimpse looks like fullness and radiance of His countenance to me.

As I stare in Faith and marvel at the wonder of it all. The mysteries still are. The beauty still is.

And His Love is never-failing.

Linking with Jennifer and Duane today. Great communities, its a privilege to participate with these wonderful writers and their tribes.

And also with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.