Tag: Inspiration

The Mix and Mingle of Old and New – How to Welcome Surprises

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

There is a beautiful dance of the old, the traditions, when it reaches for the hands of the new.

And says come dance.

There is a tension between the comfortable, the familiar, the routine and fresh new thinking and living.

How do we place a foot strongly in tradition and step a foot off the curb into the new.

And at Christmas when family traditions are steeped in continuing and following familiar rhythms of life and faith.

But what if we had an expectant heart for the new.

What if the soul of the family would seek the unexpected.

Gabriel announced new, the shepherds doing the mundane were surprised by extravagant change, life-changing wonders.

Mary gave herself over to miracle  with an all in  servant’s heart. And faced a path rich in the unknowing of a baby conceived as a Virgin.

What if we lived out the hours of our Christmas Days expecting holy surprises and awestruck wonder. What if we cracked open our hearts, the very eyes of our hearts and looked for 2012 miracles.

If the God of today is the same as the God of yesterday, could this Christmas bring miracles of healing and discovery and redemption and new thinking.

I want to open wide the door and welcome Him in in all His glory and all His unbridled majesty. I want to look for wonder all around and to be an instrument of change.

Giving more, and taking less.

Serving, blessing, and sharing more extravagantly.

Can Christmas look today like it did on the first sacred year, the Day of Christ’s birth.

Doesn’t an extravagant Creator God long to lavish his children with surprise and wonder, even miracle.

If I walk out my days as if I planned them, as if my calendar and to do list dictate my every step, have I left room for the miracle to move and breathe and deliver its glory into my days.

If I live as though I know what’s coming next I don’t live as though I actually know who came. On the day of the Savior’s birth. A radical change from a God who saves and loves and longs for us to receive all that He has.

A Manger Miracle.

A Heavenly Showering of Love.

A virgin birth, amazing grace. The child of God came to earth, was God incarnate. Miracle.

An Extravagant Offering from Heaven, which changes and changed and forever will change our very lives.

I want unbridled Christmas, and I want to unshackle the very chains that are an invisible ceiling, a threshold on the movement of The Spirit in my world, our world.

And I can’t catch that which I do not have my arms wide open to receive. I have crossed my arms and held them tight to my chest; gift and the unexpected bounce off the rigid and fall to the ground.

Open to receive and expectant of Joy, oh the longing oh the desire for the holy surprises.

What power He has when we allow Him room to operate and  bless and breathe and touch.

What a power of old and new, the perfect blend of surprise, the unexpected, the life-changing touch of A Living God.

May we all be surprised by Joy, surprised by Christmas Joy.

He is not boxed in, cramped in, stuffed in a Christmas of our making, of our limited vision and design.

So may we prepare Him room, plenty of room to surprise us this Christmas.

His love knows no bounds, His mercy and Grace are unfathomable.

May Love come down and walk and breathe and heal our very lives, and the lives of the broken.

Merry & Mary very surprised Christmas Season.

And a Joyous  Advent filled with making Him room. Plenty of room.

And hoping we catch the Joy, catch the miracles, releasing them to a hurting world …all these Christmas days of our lives.

I’m bursting with God news, I’m dancing the song of my Savior God… His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before Him.  — Luke 1:46

shadows eyes and donkey

Joining Eileen, Jen,  and Heather today. Writing in community is a privilege and a joy.

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In My Dreams I Play A Song

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

In my dreams I play a song on a keyboard, piano
Not keys drab and gray.
And sing for you a song of hope with words,
They are my notes.
But oh how I wish that they would sound
Like music to your ears
The sharps the flats, allegro con brio
Beautiful chords played by dancing fingers on piano,
Ivories, like flying love gifts up and away, dolce
Kite tail like they waft and drift up to the
Heavens and to your ears.
In my dreams I play a song on the black and white
Keys that strike the chords of harmony and rifts
Up and down they dance in line, a beautiful song.
And I would play a song back straight on the bench
Hovered over piano shiny black
Not keyboard Macbook back lit.
No it would be a baby grand and there I would
Pour out my heart in song to you and let the notes
Sing and sway right to your soul.
And sing, like tender lullaby a song of
Hope and Longing, poco allegro.
But this is what I have instead
My words, not notes, not song
So dream with me that they are music
And listen while I play for you
A love song, a hope song, a grace song
As gift, that in the downbeat you would know
That
In my dreams I play a song on keys, piano,
Just for you.

(photo credit: wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons)

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Poetry

~ 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.

linking with Emily and Michelle

Adagio: A Poetry Project

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

Writing is, most often, a solo venture, a process worked deep inside the confines of one’s heart and soul. But when two pilgrim poets turn towards each other and embrace the tension that lies between, something new emerges.  A writing “pas de deux” is born and the two begin weaving their words together, in and around, over and under, into something bigger than themselves. The writing becomes a lifting, a balancing, a turning…and the words on the page become an Adagio.
Learn more of the birth of the Adagio project at Holly’s writing home.

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It is in this spirit that we have threaded together pieces of our souls as our offering to the world of poetry and to fellow poet friends. Most especially, though, we offer it as a gift, and lay it right at the feet of our Creative God who is  the Giver of this love of writing and purposeful word weaving.  Today we sing this song and tell some of our story…..elizabeth and holly.

Writing Across The Distance

Her words they twist and swirl creamy smooth

One into another and I drink them in deep and long

She dips her pen into the well of ink

That is her very crimson rushing pulsing life.

And brings up words to stamp white page.

She is like the smiths of old, holding passion fire hot and glowing

And working the ember into ghostly shapes

That cool only when set aside

Full of vibrant living breathing voice,  poetic prose

For all to know her very soul

She lives into days fringed with salt-crusted breezes

And her words they ripen and swell

And drip heavy the fruit of quiet days made full with patience and wonder

She dips her pen into places wet with tears of joy and sorrow mingled down

Always honest, her voice knows only raw and real

She a pilgrim soul on a journey long and winding

Open and bare her heart rests upon the feast table

She is waiting quiet and still

While the shaping takes place

She is still and she knows.

No room for mask or veil or artificial

Her art, like incense to her God.

And she’ll dip her pen in nature’s oil

And mingle earth with bone and flesh to make a  mix of all the world

Not leaving places unexplored, she will blend the wild and tame alike

And make a holy sacrifice and offering of her very  self

A calm and tranquil melody

Poetic heartfelt words.

Two pilgrims on a journey.

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Will you join us as we move in faith on this new poetry journey? And perhaps you might consider partnering with another writer to come along side us in this endeavor?  We covet your presence in this space.

Holly may be found writing often at her home, A Lifetime of Days. My writing home is here, wynnegraceappears, Elizabeth W. Marshall. We are writing across the distance as our homes are hundreds upon hundreds of miles apart.

Joining Jennifer, Eilleen, Emily and Duane