There Is Light In The Dark

January 18, 2013January 31, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Today my words are drawn from the inspiration of my niece, Caroline, who is seen and heard in this video. As she paints to the music of Mat Kearney, Breathe in, Breathe Out, I see the beautiful. And so I write.

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There Is Light In The Dark

You know my every breath
The shallow breathing times were the hardest
And the times I held my breath in fear, the stronghold, grip, on me
But fresh the air you gave, new the winds blew in
Restoring peace
You knew the tension, knotted, held, locked tight the lungs
You saw the rattling, ratcheted up-beat of the racing breaths
Too, many, too often
Many times you caught and captured the release in the exhale
Went deep into my lungs, with love
Air of Hope
Breath of Life
Whisper new breath into my deepest places
Make new the stale air
Form new, Your spirit in me
Freeing me to breathe deep
A life which
Hopes
All things
Through and by the very breath you give
Breath of Hope

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Joining emily today for Imperfect Prose. Today’s prompt is Light.

(Postscript – This post was originally published on January 18, 2013. When I go back and listen to music, watch Caroline paint to the words and melody of the artist and interpret I am deeply moved. And as I re-read the poem I wrote in conjunction with Caroline’s painting and Mat’s art, I choose to submit this offering to the Imperfect Prose community today. May the light shine bright in my eyes as I look to live in love, write of grace, and make art that honors Him. The original post title was Breathe Hope. I have changed it to There is Light In The Dark.

Releasing – The Art of Grieving and Rejoicing (A Tribute to Ella)

January 14, 2013January 14, 2013 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 21 Comments

The selfish wants to hold on. To grasp and grab and even hold back. Make you stay and sit here with me. Make you sacrifice so I can keep you here.

I wept and I weep at the thought of you leaving. There is nothing easy in releasing fury joy on four long spindly legs, big eyes that stared me down, laying it on thick when you wanted a hand to rub or a time to walk.

But you were made to soar. To run fast and often like a blue streak. You were the fastest many had ever seen. A blur when you were set free to fly. You smiled broad and wide when you lived your calling.

You shined bright.

You were created for those things.

But in my difficult release you will find freedom, to go and do and be the highest and best that this life has for you.

And so she was released a little bit ago, to a family on a farm. To run and hunt. To run more often, longer, brisker, faster. To live and breath deep.

To play hard and to do that which she loves. She was born to hunt, to run headlong into the woods. It is her passion.

She has been released in weepy, crying love to go. And I mourn her company and grieve my lost companion.

But I rejoice in her joy at living out her passions. Though it is away from me.

She smiled her broadest dog smile when she did. So when I put aside my selfish longing for her, I truly rejoice in her new place of truly living. Though it is apart from me.

And I trust that she is living her passion daily,living her dreams, living her calling. Extravagant living, into all that life has for her.

I want that for Ella. I want that for those I love. For my children, my husband, and my dearest friends.

Ella, you showed me a beautiful picture of what it looks like to grab hold of what you loved. Yes, even a dog can show us how to live with unbridled passion for what we were made to hunger after and for.

She was joy. And she was loved.

I miss you Ella, my Ellison, you are running headlong into the wind. And when I dwell on that, I smile with you.

When you were in my world, you blessed my socks off. And I am truly grateful.

You were a friend and you were and are pure delight, all white and furry, with endless energy and zest for living. You and your playful spirit brought me joy.

Go for it Ella. Go for it girl.

Joining Laura for Playdates At The Wellspring and Ann at A Holy Experience dot com, quietly counting a boatload of gifts, especially Ella, Miss Ellison, Ella-Bella Marshall, our Ella Girl.

A Picture Is Worth, Well Something

December 31, 2012December 31, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 4 Comments

The Patient One and I got in the car and drove an hour and a half to visit a church yesterday.

And studied possibility and new and change and weighed some options, as much as man can. For in all the weighing there is really more of a a wondering, what does He have for us in these months and days to come. As we make decisions at the prompt of His will and opening of doors and opportunity. Abundance on the other side of the stepping off and into a life.

My mind was swirling a bit with my post for today. You know the one where she writes looking over the shoulder, reflecting with sentiment and sap, good sap not bad sap, or with thankfulness and the benefit of hindsight, all twenty twenty. You know the one all covered in out with the old and in with the whatever. I have a love hate relationship with cliches. They are just so cliche. They can’t help it really that’s what they are. I digress.

What if life is just more of a beautiful continuation and less of a stop and start of days and years. Just a generous outpouring of well, life.

My mind was swirling a bit about the what was and what will be. And then I saw this and I could not and cannot stop thinking of what it says as it sings to my soul. And it does that. It whispers and sings and it is so sweet.

It is the beauty in the ash.

It is the hope in things to come.

It’s the new and tender mercy on the other side of pain and disappointment.

It is the unexpected joy.

And I can’t stop starring like an awkward teenage boy at the sight of a beautiful young girl. The picture is romancing me. It is calling to the dark and out of the dark.

There were no rolled eyes when I asked him to stop. Well really screamed stop. He slammed on the breaks when I saw the scene and screamed stop here I have to take a picture.

There was no hesitation. There was accomodation.

When Beauty calls and the world speaks and we stop to listen there is story and lesson and meaning and yes singing too. To a soul.

So I will muse a little in my soul about resolution and change and dreams and desires.

I will plan and weigh and dance around a list of life to-do’s.

But mostly I will dream with an expectancy and hope. I will launch my soul into the days of all that I see in this picture taken after church on the last Sunday in 2012.

Beauty rising from the soil of cold December.

Tender new blanketing the Earth in abundance with pale yellow joy, reaching for the Heavens.

Seeing past the rusted bars and branches of death to a beautiful hope.

Always.

Joining Laura for the last Monday in 2012.

The Land Where The Unknowns Live – (The Power of The Wind)

December 27, 2012December 28, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Cracking the door open a smidge and peeking back in for a moment or two. Oh the challenge of keeping the writers quiet with their paperless canvas, when all the world is swirling and brimming and blustering and shining.

Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The Land Where The Unknowns Live

She sailed her boat on the seas of life where the winds blew white capped waves

Deep cracks and crevices on broken seas crept over her vessel’s sides

She sailed her craft under a sky so grey, with tears on cusp of breaking edge

Salty, stockpiled and ready to roll

Stealing salt from the tops of waves

And she sailed her ship, solo, so alone

To a land where the unknowns lived

Under night dark skies, painted charcoals, ebonies, and slates

Highlighted in battleship greys

Mirroring the melange of a heart and soul

And the sails they flapped and flailed and feinted, tattered and torn

So weak and wobbly worn

Ripped under the power and might of the storms

The swirling howling honking sounds came

And the all arounds blew

Under its gale-force currents of power and might

The breakables broke and the sediment shifted

While the trees they snapped, the roots gave way

As the wind tears all that’s shallow and weak

And the limbs bent, broke, tumbled, tossed

Then felled

As the howling power, like a runaway train

Brought the loose things loose while the winds swept the land

And carried things off in a current of cleansing

As the wind blew through, cutting a jet black night

But oh the morning it brings the new

A cleansing of a dark and broken soul

And rolls back all black

And saves the tears for some

Other day

And shines the light of Joy on all dark

As the sun shines radiant through the trees

The wind blows fresh through the cheeks puffed full

Of Hope through the land where the unknowns live

So she mends her sails, or did He mend them for her

And re-rigs her boat, or did He repair that too

Her working parts and pieces

Sending her off on a journey new

On a sea of redemptive swells

Where the pitch and toss

And the windswept new bring Hope to a journey, new

Fueled by the breeze so gentle and soft

Of a kind and whispering wind

Touching tender the cheeks of the smiling face

Of the land where the unknowns live.

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The Land Where The Unknowns Live

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