Tag: Grace

One Beautiful Mistake

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

wpid-20150107_173818.jpg

One Beautiful Mistake

Perhaps redemption looks a lot like this. Or a little like this. Or something like this. I’d like to hope that there is a splash of brilliant transformation on the mistakes that we have made. Brushstroke by brushstroke. Wet with the tears of remorse and cries for forgiveness and new starts.

Forgiveness and new mercies sent to Earth on the wings of His amazing grace. And I whisper the prayer, give me the eyes to see Your loving arms around each one of my own, Beautiful Mistakes. Made beautiful by Your grace. Washed clean. Changed into holy beauty, by Your unfathomable, unbelievable, unending, and unmerited grace.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

One Beautiful Mistake

Red bleeds pink from the sky
one night
Writing cryptic messages

Heaven’s hieroglyphics
I run to it
I run away

Catch what is lost
My breath

I see the beauty
In one beautiful mistake

Redemption
Written by The
Sky-writer
Lover of my soul

I nod a billion times
Each a nod of gratitude
They number,
Mirror every unseen star

Feel
You dry my leaking eyes
And hear
You whisper
At the start of night

There was a fire in the sky last night
Before the earth
Was wrapped
In skies of frigid cold
Remember long, the beautiful
Remember long, the warmth
Hold loosely to each gift
And wait for the Beautiful’s return

Red bleeds pink from the sky
One night
Writing holy messages

Why I Long For Nothing Or Why I Want Intangibles This Christmas

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

wpid-img_20141210_090006.jpg

I ache for intangibles. I am longing for a filling in of the void. I am craving, in my empty hollow pit,  change and love come down and hope cracked open. Hope poured out. A drowning out of pain. I limp like the war wounded, dragging a limb with chronic pain. I limp with a ghostly pain for Love to seep into the cracked and bleeding places. Heal as aloe on our weary souls.

I look for The Healing Balm with the eyes of my Advent Heart.

I want with a weary wanting.

++++++++++++

And God is good to allow the empty hollow hunger. For me. I am moved. Pushed in my spirit by the Spirit to a place of chronic pain. To seek the unseen. Covered by the fog of self. Love wide open love Divine all Love out-dwelling. Love indwelling. Love Incarnate. Wash over us. This soul ache means I am made for more. For serving man and other.

If you wrap your love, which I too will do. Whisper prayers over paper and bows. Breathe the breath of prayerful change over boxes and bags of packages wrapped in love and lovely. Look out and in. And help me look in and outward too. To find the intangibles in their walking flesh and bone. And breathe new life. To heal the hurting. Calm the storms. Be the love lived out. Hands and feet multiplied. Oh Multiplier of Mercy.

++++++++++++

Oh but I am in my comfort. With the companion of my ache. And I am with my passion, words. I am not there. The Liberia’s with my serving servant friend. Or Haiti. Where the others that I know are walking. I am here. Longing for nothing. But a Christmas with an overflow. From the heart. Joy jumping high like hot grease in the frying pan, cooking up the Sunday bacon. Hope cracked open like the farm fresh egg, yolk of yellow nourishment. Healing spread like the salve of a mother’s kiss on a wounded blood-soaked knee.

Great tidal waves of salty seas. Of grace. Grow feet and walk up on our shores.

And mark the world with Love come down at Christmas. Love. Unfailing Love. And leave us change. By grace. Leave us changed by Grace. Love the battle winner. Love the conqueror. Love the healer of all ache.

Amen?

++++++++++

+++++++++++++++

The Time I Lived Vicariously

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

wpid-20141109_173114.jpg

The Time I Lived Vicariously

While watching a gray and feathered flock

Brown pelicans sunning in November on the dock

And entered into community from my place

Of solitude

And thought of you

You duplicate my life

And make it two

One of here and one of there

Not duplicitous am I

But honest in my telling that you give me more

I hear your words echo from the Frio

And beyond

From the high places

You were called

I was not

God is good to give us lives

Multiplied in two’s and mores

The time I lived vicariously

Was one of those

You spoke to me while I was, yet

Not there, not haunted by the singleness of one

But tethered by the Spirit

To you

Canyons echo, multiply

Community, sacred echoes I have heard

Sacred echoes I have found

Joining Laura and Kelli

The Art of The Drifting Mind

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

wpid-img_20141028_161154.jpg

The Art Of The Drifting Mind

This is not a case “in defense of the drifting mind”

Or a thesis on “the art of the wandering mind”

Or a theory on “why we gaze”

I hear “mother you are staring”

No surprise, I have it down to a science

I check the boxes on the forms under hobbies and interests

Gazer, starer, dreamer, ponder, netter of poetry

Somewhere in the quiet spaces where the sunlight flickers and rocks

On branch and limb, limb and leaf,

Decidedly undecided whether to rest in the shadows or dance in the radiant puddles of light

The mind births an idea

And the idea becomes art

And the art becomes inspiration

And the inspiration becomes solace

And the solace becomes a balm

And the balm of the drifting mind

Can rest at peace

Her work is done

Until her glance meets the window pane

Through which she pours out

And breathes in

Again