Tag: Grace

A Few Things I Learned In June {Joining Emily Freeman}

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

I learned a few things in June. What a month. Packed with life in all its wonder, glory, joy and pain.

I am still processing so much of what this month revealed to me. And if you have been reading along here for awhile you have heard me say “I am a slow processor.” Think the crockpot of cookeries up against the ultimate microwave. I process the things of life which I ingest over a longish period of time. Hours not minutes. Days not hours. Often.

That is to say, I am not ready to share all that I have learned. But here are a few things which I am longing to share.

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1. When we choose to do that one small thing, its impact is multiplied. Simply put, simple things can and do become grand things. Small gestures can and do become life-impacting.  The Small and The Simple are to be embraced, cherished and sought after. They take on the attributes of the magnificent. Capitalizing the lowercase things of this world.

They, after all are the game-changers, the life-changers, the emotional softening of the hard and crusty places. In June alone, I have seen this played out over and over and over again. My eyes leak and my heart hurts at the beauty and wonder of the transformative power of small. Look with me. Do you see how beautiful the small things of this world are. In a wink, a blink and a nod there are pieces of beautiful waiting to be captured, recorded and cherished. Cataloging life this way fills me up to over-flowing.

And I am learning this again and again. I am learning and believing that this is the way we are meant to see the world. I am a slow learner. And slow is really okay.

2. As a writer, I am called to use my words. And as a reader, you are invited to enter in and see the picture on the canvas that is the page. Have you seen the gold balls that drop down from the heavenlies. I found two pods this week.

(If you follow my instagram feed you may know I am in the glorious Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina for a respite). You can Google with me….there is a tree which drops gold, rounded pods. And they are fragile as parchment paper, bumpy like a golfball, golden like Oriental silk. And beautiful. I am always looking for wonder and posting what I find on Instagram. It helps me to stay awake at the wheel. And no I did not take a picture of the golden balls. But we will find them on Google together.

The day I found one, I proclaimed. Gold balls are falling from heaven. No anomaly was that. I found a second. Don’t we love Google for solving the earthly mysteries, like gold balls which nature has made. Amazing.

3. Voxer is my new best friend. This I did not learn in June. This I have had amplified in June. As I am writing this post I am Voxering my very special friend Shelly Miller in London  (which by the way this “What I Learned Series” is a favorite tradition within the bloggy world  – thank you very much Emily Freeman)

Voxer is a phone app which allows you to talk, walkie-talkie style, text and send photos. Welp. That is pretty much a communication dream package, you hit the lottery, what more could you ask for. I know there are some downsides somewhere in there, but for me (and I haven’t even up-graded to Pro yet) it is the bomb-diggity. People. I get to stay in touch with writers, bloggers and friends all over the whole wide world.

4. Releasing often, maybe always involves trust. A young couple approached me at the gas station last week. They asked me for one dollar and fifty cents. For the bus. I cannot stop thinking about their need. Their circumstances, because they told me the Reader’s Digest version of their story. I am still thinking about them. Hoping for them. And when I remember to I hope I will pray for them. That small interchange, eye-ball to eye-ball, exchange of money from my hand to theirs leaves me changed. Who asks for so little. Why didn’t they go for a 20 or more. They had a need for a bus ticket from one town to the next. Small again. I wish I had been willing to give them more.

5. People like to talk about their gardens. If you know anyone who has a garden, ask them. How are your radishes this year. How are the rainfall and the soil in your world. Ask them what is thriving and what is wilting. I think the vocabulary of gardeners is the vocabulary of the soul. And if you want an ice breaker, conversation starter, or if you just want to connect on a human level with another human being, ask them about their garden. Open the garden gate and see what transpires. And you can ask yours truly about hers or follow me on instagram, where beginning July 1, it is all about my garden and chickens. AGAIN.

Gardens are a beautiful, never-grows old, metaphor for life. A place of paradox. Life and death, thriving and struggling, flourishing and floundering.

How does your garden grow?

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A Matter Of Grace

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Grace

A Matter Of Grace

For the life of me

I cannot find where it stops

And starts

There are those who have the off valve at their disposal, and those

Who cannot find the switch marked “on”

They,  being of a large herd of people, otherwise known as sheep, who hear his voice and claim to control the grace valve

For the life of me

I stand under the pining Jesus, starring, as though never before having been introduced to grace which is my imagination at work, because I have known grace for an eternity, marveling at raw new grace as if for the first time, for the life of me and all the sheep

And I ask him to stand by me

As if we were looking out in tandem, out at the world on the cusp of another July

And I ask, in a muffled prayer, and squint the eyes of my heart, because they are closer to 20/20 than my old eyes, arriving upon another July

“Where does the grace begin and end?”

Because

For the life of me, of which there have been 56 July’s, to add a frame of reference to some of the things I’ve seen

And I weep and he wails

This artist has depicted him bent and bemoaning

And I as an artist, writing of grace, I feel it is perfectly fitting because of the pain

And for the life of him

I cannot find the end

Of unceasing grace, unending gift, a long tangling and untangling of one more lagnaippe, gift upon gift, generously unfurled

From on high, an example of how to unfurl the fists, clenched

The hands in the crucifix hold the flow of grace

Upon grace

For the life of holy, sacred

Him

For the life of me, I think I may now see, the one more small added grace, upon the existing grace, upon the extended grace, upon the amazing grace, upon the forever and ever amen grace

ad infinitum

let grace flow

For goodness’ sake, for the life of Him in us

Joining Laura Boggess. Because it is Monday

Both Sides Of My Mouth: Lamentations and Praise

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Both Sides Of My Mouth: Lamentations and Praise

Don’t call me duplicitous
Call me human
As I look to the Divine
Rent in two
Ripped and torn
Half here and half there
With a mouth full of lamentations and praise
I have pushed the cheek full of both
The tongue is muted in the mystery of the days
Hoarding the praise, as if it would leave me wanting
Malnourished because of its lack
In a diet
Heavy with lamenting

Heat and heavy hang in the air
It is summer and it is the South
But it is filled with grief and loss
So it is heavier and hotter and more burdensome this year
Rife with pain
Heat and heavy hang here
Suspended in the invisible netting of  time

But I have a place to hold on to both’s and and’s
Do not call me names
Filled with an unknowing
The Psalmists knows this place well
Where they dwell
Across the pages
One from the other
Lamentations and Praise

I will raise a hand to wipe a tear
And I will raise another to point to that which is worthy of praise

C0-inhabitants
Side by side
Prayers running over the cup
I am weak and can barely lift it to my
Two lips
One whispers grief
One praise

Lift the cup for me
And I will life the cup for you
I am drying tears
They mix with sweat on the brow of the mourners

We cannot turn the page, yet
We are called into a time of grief
Joy will come in the mourning

Even The Dog Is Tired

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

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I hear an echo in the hearts of the others. The ones that I know a little and the ones that I know well. Something tells me. Or they have told me. I would say maybe it is just me, but I think it is not. There is a wave of fatigue through the hearts of many. Maybe it is just me and one other. I know the dog is tired. That makes three of us.

Listening and engaging and bending in with most of the fibers of your being (some are reserved for survival) can wear a soul down to the nub. Being alive, fully, not just existing, is not for the faint of heart. And for those of us who feel deeply, overly-sensitive, deep feelers,  sensitized to all the things, we wear down and we wear out. We invest deeply and retreat to refuel. We love and listen and then seek time alone to find the strength to turn around and do it again.

I went to the mountains. Like John Muir and so many others, I had to. We all have a soul place. That place where we anchor. I anchor my soul by the water. The salt has its way with me most of my days. It washes into the folds of my skin, a welcome balm. My senses know salty. It is their normal. A needed, vital, constant element in my life

But the mountains are my gear-shift. The sensuous rounding of the hills, changes the landscape literally and figuratively. My breathes are deeper, subterranean below the water line. Everything is a rush of change to my senses. And I can see again. Smell again. Hear again. We anchor in and know we are home. Exhales give way to rest.

I am certain I did not hear it wrong. In fact. I am confident in these whispers. They are white noise to my soul, in their constant tickling, stimulating my creativity. Which tells my brain which tells my heart. The message is clear. Although they often come in another form,  as hard taps on my shoulders like God needs to step it up a notch with me to get my attention. Whispers work for some people, but frankly, I am not some people. Neither are you. We are fully human who we are. As we are. I need to be shaken, gently, sometimes. He always shakes me gently. Like a father pushes his child on a tree swing, gently.

I hear this banner over my life and it is trying to make its way into a bound spine. A pair of front and back covers. It is not as easy as it may have first appeared. I think the dog is tired of reading my body english. And there are thought bubbles over my head that only God can read. They say a lot. He knows, He’s read them. We both wait for the response. Most people just see a burned out writer. But the dog and God know me well. Ragged in the wanting. Worn down in the bending in to hear and wait and hear some more.

It comes in an unfurling. Messages from Him. Is it that way with you? I am waiting on more of what He calls me to. That is okay. It is just part of my humanity. I am seeking with all of myself. And trying to get out of the way. I am like a a human speed bump. I don’t know why i keep slowing myself down. But I do. I am going so slowly that I may not even be moving.

But He measures time and space and speed and productivity. I leave that to Him. I just know that I am ready to both work and rest. Listen and stop listening. Bend in and hear. And cover my ears to block the loud. And be quiet. And go about the work.

The world is a loud place. And I don’t want to miss a word of it. But this is my time to briefly step aside. Maybe for like 12 hours. Maybe a little longer. To savor the quiet. While I listen.

The speed bumps help me to notice. And that I know is most of what He wants me to pour into the space between the covers of this bound project. Noticing and living aware and alive and awake in the now, require more than being. They require rest too.

We must take deep breathes of rest, to turn around and notice all the microscopic wonderful of His creation. Rest. Pause. Restore. And seek a  recharging of our very souls. To re-enter. Without ever leaving. He provides our rest. He opens spaces and places for deep soul rest. He offers respite and Sabbath and an invitation into solitude and communion with Himself.

The dog is with me in the mountains. We are both tired. But He promises rest. Even to those He is still asking to write out a message of hope and love and beauty and grace. To the people. To His people. He is preaching to the choir. I am preaching to myself. It may turn out that the book was meant for me to write, so that I would read it.

I don’t know. Maybe two or three other people might need it too.

I know the dog is not one of the two, in this particular case. But he is a good companion and he seems to be cheering me on. In his own, tired way.