Of Things That Have Been – Guest Post: Holly Grantham

November 26, 2014November 26, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

What an honor to have my friend Holly Grantham visiting today. I invited her to bring her words. And she graciously said yes. Holly and I have enjoyed working as poetry partners in the past. You may recall our project entitled Adagio.

We have plans to collaborate after the first of the new year, writing poetry, sharing the lines and space, creating and word weaving together.

Enjoy now, the words of this beautiful woman..

Of Things That Have Been

I finger them mindlessly most days,
These tokens of thanksgiving.
In some familiar corner of my brain I am
aware of their weight and
the anorexic string that
keeps them connected to a well
untended.
But something has shifted
inside of me and
I can’t remember
how to see.

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I have a bowl that sits on my kitchen counter
and in it are the scraps and corners and pieces of
meals prepared and cooked and fed to
the people that I love.
The contents of that bowl get tossed,
mindlessly most days,
into a growling pile of dirt.
Layer upon layer of repasts
Just sitting there
Marinating
Giving themselves over to death.

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Most days since Spring
I feel a hollow ringing somewhere just
below my rib cage
as if my heart was suddenly deafened by
the weighted silence left in absence’s wake.
I long to be overwhelmed by wonder.
And then, one day, the memory, it returns
Joy, it grows in the humus of things that have been,
in the layers that settle at the bottom of my days.
I remember slowly
how to give thanks.
I remember, friends, how to see.

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Holly Grantham, Bio

Holly is a wife, very relaxed homeschooling mom of three boys, snapper of photos, coming of age writer and a soul drowning in grace.

After years in Atlanta where she attended college, married the love of her life and lived in an intentional community, she found her way back to her home state of Missouri. She now lives in an antebellum stone house, raises chickens (sometimes) and pretends she lives in the country.

Holly may be found at her writing home A Lifetime of Days, on twitter @HollyAGrantham &
on her facebook writer page.

The Dream Of The Waiting Soil: A Guest Post — Laura Boggess

October 30, 2014October 30, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

Today is Day 30. Welcome. I am NOT ready for this series to end. Perhaps you are. Just as I’m getting into the groove it is time to wind down this October writing challenge. I am just being honest. I think that is important. Don’t you.

Please join me tomorrow for what will be the last day of this series. I am still scheming and dreaming of how to say goodbye. Or how to pull the curtain. Or how to build a bridge to November. if you’d like to receive posts in your inbox (they slip in quietly without much fuss), click on the tab marked Subscriber at the top of the page. But of course, you already knew that.

I am so honored to have my writer, blogger, friend, Laura Boggess guest posting today. Laura was one of the first bloggers I connected with when I began my writing journey in the land of the “interwebs”. And she was one of the first bloggers I had the sincere pleasure of meeting in real life. Yes I have looked directly into her beautiful blue eyes, into her soul. And she is a treasure. A gifted word weaver and a very gentle lady.
Enjoy Laura here. And then treat yourself to a copy of her new book, “Playdates With God”.

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I spend the mornings in the flowers–cutting back, pulling up, raking out. I’m late this year–the frost already thick on the grass when the sun drops the diamonds of first light. My mother-in-law told me to wait; let the birds glean what they will, she said. And they did. The coneflower is dry as straw, the Black-eyed Susans blink. All the color is gone from the garden. The brittle browns and faded rusts shush me as they rub together in the wind.

I rake leaf remains out from around tubers–their subtle reds and golds like scattered gems. The thick bans of iris greens break easily with fingers. I smooth around their fibrous heads, let them breathe. Already the leaves have started to make rich compost–the soil underneath fragrant and dark. I breathe deep its heady scent, close my eyes and dig fingers in the cool moist.

This afternoon the robins are in a frenzy over my newly cleared soil. I watch from the window as they hastily march back and forth amongst the stubby remains of my garden. It looks so clean. The mulch around the dormant clumps of green holds such promise. I wrap my arms around my sides–hug close this seed that strains against the dark soil of my heart. Yesterday the first snowbirds came calling. You are too early, I said to them, through the glass of the kitchen window. I watched them pick at the ground for stray seeds, rosy beaks and slate feathers speaking the horizon of scant days.

When i was in the seventh grade I wrote an essay about what I want to be when I grow up. Mr. Kovalan, our English teacher, assigned us a theme every week. It was my favorite thing about school. Each week I looked forward to discovering what topic he would put before us. Mr. Kovalan never said much, but his comments on my themes always encouraged me. This is very well written, he might pen. Or: A very good story. There wasn’t much I was good at, but Mr. Kovalan helped me see that telling stories was something I could do. But this one? What did I want to be? A girl like me didn’t have a lot of choices. A girl like me rarely left the hollow. I thought long and hard about it.

When Mr. Kovalan graded my essay, he left me with few words.

Your choice surprises me.

That was all he said. That dear, dear man.

It was the first time I thought that maybe I could be more. That maybe…maybe there was more than what I know.

When I was in seventh grade I learned to dream the dream of the waiting soil.

I am a sleeping garden. I dream of shoots of green breaking through earth with pointed fingers. A glimpse of sky rests on my memory–white on blue with golden hues. in darkness the dream speaks hope into the night.
In the darkness the garden becomes a thing of expectation–of sleeping joy.

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Author of the newly-released Playdates with God: Having a Childlike Faith in a Grown-up World, Laura Boggess lives in a little valley in West Virginia with her husband and two sons. She is a content editor for TheHighCalling.org and blogs at lauraboggess.com. Connect with Laura on Facebook and Twitter. Laura’s book is available on Amazon.

In Your Own Words — Restoration (A Guest Post On The Blog of Charity Singleton Craig)

September 25, 2014September 25, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Join me, please as I share my word of the week Restoration as part of a beautiful series hosted by my writer/friend/blogger Charity Singleton Craig.

Every other Thursday, Charity invites writers to writer about their word of the week. Mine,

Restoration — noun

the act or process of returning something to its original condition by repairing it, cleaning it, etc.

the act of brining back something that existed before

the act of returning something that was stolen or taken

Restoration

(Fly with me over to Charity’s. It is a beautiful place filled with her words and the words of her favorite writers. And my poem is featured there today. What an honor. Join us...Click the link and you’ll be there by the magic and mystery of the internet)

The Zigzag Ways of God’s Blessing – A Guest Post From Anita Mathias

March 27, 2014 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 9 Comments

Some days the writing and blogging world seems so very small. Today is such a day. I am delighted to have Anita Mathias guest posting at my writing home today. Anita lives in Oxford, England and blogs at Dreaming Beneath the Spires. Our paths have crossed in the past couple of years by way of blogging communities we are connected to. Anita has just returned from a mission trip to Cambodia. (The details of which I look forward to hearing soon.)You can find her on Twitter @anitamathias1.

Anita is the author of Wandering Between Two Worlds (Benediction Classics, 2007). She has won a writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The London Magazine, Commonweal, America, The Christian Century, and The Best Spiritual Writing anthologies.

Anita lives in Oxford with her husband and daughters. You may also find her on Facebook at Dreaming Beneath the Spires.

Welcome Anita, who writes of hope, trust, faith and encouragement. It is a pleasure to have her gifts and her heart here today. And her words penetrate my soul today with especially well-timed
words.

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The Zigzag Ways of God’s Blessing

Joseph had a rarefied spiritual gift: God spoke to him through his dreams, and he could interpret the dreams of others.

In the night, which belongs to the Lord, he sees his sheaf stand upright while his brother’s sheaves bow to it. He sees the sun and moon and eleven stars bow to him.

He understands that he is destined for eminence.

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And what should the career path of one destined for eminence look like?

Joseph is thrown into a cistern, sold into slavery. He faces humiliation and obscurity.

Was his dream delusory? Had God abandoned him?

Nope.

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“God was with Joseph,” (Gen 39:2) we are told, “and he prospered.” “The Lord was with him and gave him success in everything he did.”

The blessing on Joseph spreads outwards. “The Lord Blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.”

And so the career of Joseph progressed from strength to strength

Nope.

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He had proved his resilience. He had proved his integrity.

He now had to be moved upwards from a comfortable small position to a position of greater influence.

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Dick Woodward, pastor of the church I attended in Williamsburg, Virginia, said that the way God moves you on is a kick from behind and a pull from in front. ( And I think it’s best to stay put where you are, whether at church or work or city or neighbourhood until you sense the kick and pull.)

Potiphar’s wife provided the kick with her false accusations.

And ironically, Joseph was kicked upstairs into the social circle of those who personally waited on Pharaoh.

If anyone had the right to indulge in self-pity, it was Joseph in the dungeon, cast there for his righteous choice.

But dungeon was his means of elevation, the pull upwards.

While Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. (Gen 39: 21-23).

He interprets dreams in prison, but with slight cockiness. Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams. (Gen. 40:8)

He asks the cupbearer to remember him, but with self-pity. For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.

He has yet to become the steady luminous man whose eyes are on the Lord, who sees everything in life as coming to him mediated through the Lord’s hands, because the Lord permitted it; who knows that the Lord could make him fruitful in the land of his suffering (Gen. 41:52), and turn what his enemies meant for evil into good (Gen. 50:20).

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Another two years alone in the company of the Lord in the dungeons, and he will approach the interpretation of dreams with humility.
Pharaoh: ” I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”
“I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” (Gen. 41)
His eyes now fixed on God, Joseph is able not only to use his administrative gifts wisely, but also able, remarkably, to forgive his brothers–thus helping to save many lives.

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I would have expected the life of someone chose, blessed and anointed by God to be marked by happiness, success, prosperity and protection.

And Joseph’s life was ultimately marked by all of these things.

But not all the time.

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His life teaches us:

Nothing can stop you doing the work which God has called you to do.

God may have a beautiful plan for your life, but other people may throw you into a well and sell you into slavery.

You will rise.

You may do your job brilliantly and be slandered and thrown into prison.

You will rise.

You may comfort and help people with your words, but in their season of power they may forget you until it’s convenient for them.

But still you will rise.

+++

When will you rise?

In God’s time.

When you let go of bitterness, perhaps. When you forgive. When you realize that all things come from God, your gifts, your health, your wealth, your freedom, your intellect, your very life.

Then you will indeed have grown into your destiny. You will have become worthy of it.

You will have become one who can “save many lives,” (Gen 50:20).

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