Food, Fellowship and Healing – Letters From The Village

February 27, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

We sat down and it all began. The flow of life, the pulsing heart beats of woman, of writer, of friend, of fellow Christ-follower. And the synchronization of all the labels and titles and banners we wear meld into perfect harmony. And we are just two souls. Hungry.

We begin a marathon of interchange. And food may be the anchor but there is a long thread which forms a tether between her vessel and mine.

We have stories that are untold. Don’t we all. Life can find you storing up more than you know when you walk out your days at a decidedly quiet pace. Hours of parenting and wiving and mothering and living can fill a soul with much to peel back. Processing is an act of revealing. Sharing a meal can set the stage for sharing a life.

And food is our anchor.

When she brought it sur table it was if a painter unveiled the master’s most recent canvas, her soul work. Or that of the chef. Art as food. Food as art. Our beautiful anchor was photo-worthy. Fried green tomatoes and shrimp from a stone’s throw away, the bounty of the sea, from the very village where she and I meet for more than nourishment for the body. On a bed of greens, the pinks and greens laid out in perfect symmetry surrounded by slices of sun-burst orange slices dancing along the rim of the plate. And diamonds of pineapple slices popping up here and there for sweet delight.

The senses are delighted and the heart follows suit.

And this could be the story of a writer’s lunch. And it was. Or this could be a story of a girl’s lunch half-way between our island home and Charleston, the holy city, the port city, the city of stories and a gourmand’s haven. The heavenly delights of that place. (I met the Patient One there back in the 80’s. You should know this important piece of my story if you read here. Writer’s sigh inserted here.)

But this is a story with chapters of mother’s at lunch breathing words of their children between and over bites of fried green tomatoes. And one with pages of writers chewing on writing and words and the passions that stir line after line on blogs and beyond. Of poetry, story, redemption and grace.

Of poetic prose. And of dreams cast with nets that reach beyond blogging.

But I know well that the only real story which I can rightly tell is the one which is mine. The one which I live. So I will not speak for her. She does that well daily in her exquisite voice of redemption and story, blended and baked up with perfectly timed phrases, going heavy on heart.

So I bookmark the chapters that tell of healing. And I highlight the parts which taste like restoration to the delight of my tongue. I savor that we who have come from a storm, a schism and a breaking can come in peace. That we, who found ourselves on opposite sides of a whirlwind in our church community, can break bread over the table of wholeness. No strife. No division.

Simply lovers of Christ, lovers of words and lovers of life, lovers of peace.

Building a friendship and walking around the frayed edges of the broken places. Seeing the common ground and overlooking the differences, whatever they are.

Tasting and seeing that He is good indeed. In all seasons. That the God of our lives is a lover of relationship. That wholeness and healing are good and fill the soul with nourishment of grace and mercy.

That the fruits of the Spirit may be the most delectable of all there is to bring to the mouth of the soul for growth in Him.

So she and I hug and part ways and promise to do this more often. We lose track of time and lose track of more than that. All that division. And we focus on the hungry parts of all woman, the need for friendship, relationship. A longing for a listening ear and a shared understanding of the joy and the struggles of this messy living.

And we plan to come around the anchor again. The one that keeps us decidedly in community. See clearly that need to break bread, to feast on fellowship. To heal relationships.

The anchor of love.

Joining Jennifer Dukes Lee and Emily Wierenga today. The community of writers at Imperfect Prose of Thursday’s is writing on the word prompt, food.

Telling The Story In The Middle: A Study in Wait & Pause – Living In The Waiting

December 5, 2012December 8, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

If there is a protocol for blogging or a template for writing blog posts or a committee of oversight for writing, they may tell me this one is coloring outside the lines too much. Well at least the long and winding title. In which I tried to say too much and didn’t opt for the pithy. The brief. The succinct.

And who has time to read through a long title? Today things should be brief and catchy and short and simple is always better, right?

How incredibly ironic and frustrating and so very timely is the spinning chrome ball forcing me to wait as I write a post impatiently on waiting. Pausing.

There would be no reason to write on waiting and patience and finding myself in the middle of much if I didn’t know in my deep down places that it is a core human struggle.

And in the writing, in the sharing, there is a collective group sigh or exhale or head nod— I know this place too. Or there could be. If you can make it through this long post. If you feel up to waiting for the end.

And yet in the middle of it all are such deeply personal and individual lessons from God for me that it feels like a sacred tutorial. He is sanctifying my heart and soul in a season marked for me. A something I need to really get and embrace and be challenged by. And grown by.

So who tells stories in the messy middle before there is closure and a neat and tidy ending? Who leaves the reader hanging, saying why did you tell me this if you couldn’t also tell me that?

I know only that I write from the heart what I feel lead to share.

And there are things upon which I wait. And it feels like a first world problem, and yet I know He cares to speak to me in all of my living. And He cares deeply about all the details of all of our lives.

As I wait for a return to a call and an email and a text from a woman, I wonder why the delay. The Patient One says I have made her mad. I can’t think how or when or what caused the quiet from her end.

So I will tell you how it ends when I get the return from my call in which I said I need to apologize to you. I don’t know what I have done but please tell me so I can say I am sorry.

I don’t know the ending but I know the peace in the middle. I told her I needed to hear her voice. I hope she calls. I have a measure of peace. I want complete peace. Don’t we all.

I have a child with a desire to be accepted to a specific college. We wait. I pray. We feel like there is a pregnant pause in the air. And God and I are tethered to One another in a way we would not be if a child’s future didn’t hang in the balance. He knows me well. He keeps me hanging. He keeps me waiting. And I know these periods of waiting well.

Of waiting for long cycles of infertlity to end. And being lead to adoption and receiving the gift of another biological child, a daughter after the blessed adoption of a son. He meets me in my waiting. I should long for periods of waiting with Him. They have marked my life with the beautiful. Building my family through waiting, just the way He intended it to be built.

One of the most precious people in my world, my inner inner world, is going through a painful divorce. And I want it to end. I want the pain to stop for her. I want closure and finality and decision. I long for her suffering to end.

She is in the messy middle and she texts me and calls me and I hurt for her. But God will sustain her through the dark period. I reminded her yesterday to hold on to her Joy and not to lose sight of her “what is good”. She has four beautiful children. She texted me thank you for reminding her not to lose sight of the Joy. I wasn’t sure she heard me through her pain. I should listen to my own advise.

We wait for healing in our church family and in my small community. For a new day and a rebuilding of our body after division.

I long to receive a letter from my Compassion Sponsored child in Peru. There are, I believe, long delays in correspondences between Peru and me, typically normally. This will be the new normal through the years of corresponding with her. But much more importantly, she must be waiting on me. I am overdue a letter to her. It saddens me to think I have left her waiting. I have caused her to wonder where the letter is from me.

And I wonder if God is waiting on me too. I want to be obedient in my living and in my writing. I wonder if I haven’t heard Him clearly. What does He intend for me to do and when with this writing. I am working with a friend on a poetry project, Adagio. And we wait to discuss the next season for this our fledgling poetry project. We wait a little.

My daughter wants her room redecorated. Its in process, unfinished. A stark reminder of the physicality of waiting. I walk in to make the bed and its a work in progress. And that is it. That is really a large part of it.

We are in process, we are a study in waiting, we are unfinished business and unfinished creatures and souls daily. God is refining us. And working things out through us and in us.

I lean into the understanding of this and seek to know it all better. We are unfinished until we are perfected by Him. And the right here is full of things to embrace, to learn, to hold to, to study, to enjoy, to celebrate.

On my porch sits a Christmas tree, our second tree. I received a gift which I want to unwrap and use, a box of ornaments from my parents. But there were so many they needed their own tree. And a wide eyed teenage daughter said I really want to decorate the porch.

The tree is lopsided and propped up. I can’t figure out how to “install” the tree in the newfangled tree stand. It is a mess of beautiful. A mess of white lights waiting to go up on the horizontal tree. Maybe the tree could lay on the ground and I could color outside the lines. Hang the ornaments from a laying in wait tree. Maybe that would symbolize the waiting.

We wait for Christmas Day.

But isn’t so much of the joy in the days leading up to the day.

Fining joy in the right here right in the messy middle.

The tree on the porch and I have a lot in common. We wait.

I want to be beautiful in the waiting. And learn from the pauses.

Wait with me, pray with me, learn with me.

It would make the waiting even richer. To wait with one another, in community. As we work through and work out the days of our waiting.

The chrome colored ball has gone for the moment. But I know it will pop back up and make me pause. I hope I rest and pray and find peace in the pauses.

And the disposal is broken and the sink is clogged up and I am waiting on the electrician. Maybe I can spread some Christmas cheer while he is here. While I am waiting for him to fix my brokeness.

Amen? Amen.

Joining Ann, Emily,Emily at Chatting At The Sky, and Jennifer

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Poetry

November 28, 2012November 29, 2012 ~ 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.