Tag: Photography

Really, One Word? From Me? Yes !

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

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I thought of a million reasons why I wouldn’t choose one word.

Actually, that’s not true.

I didn’t give it much thought at all.

But then… the idea sung to me sweetly and the word screamed loud and strong and wouldn’t stop.

Well yes I danced for awhile around the words that I want to shape me and shape my living this year. If I tell you my heart I bare my soul. If I bare my soul you see a seeking, wanting, hungry me.

If you see me there, that is where the real and the vulnerable are and didn’t I always want to live there, really?

I want to Praise more and Love more. I want to embrace possibility and potential. I want to be healed and whole. I want to enter in, not stay on the fringe in fear. I want to be brave and make new friends and serve God. In everything.

Simply, I want an abundant life. Serving and loving and living out of a place of extravagant possibility.

I long for poetry, lots of poetry. And I want to dare to sharpen the eyes of my soul to see beauty, all beauty. The beautiful in everything.

And the word was set on repeat, washing away in the inner chambers. Though I really had no plans or desire to wrap a year of living around a word.

But it focuses my soul. And I fell in love. And it felt like a calling. So I opened the door, well cracked it really. And in came the rush and excitement of  art.

The colors, the sounds, the whimsy, the creativity, the nuance and the wonder.

And when I framed the desires and callings on my spirit it looked and felt and sounded like this, to my soul.

I want to know the art of worship and the art of praise, anew.

My soul longs to experience the art of loving and serving those in my world, my family and community. The friends I have not even met.

I want to seek and find the art of seeing  beauty around me, catching the moment at just the right time, when the light hits just so and the smile turns up on a face in that oh so subtle  way.

I am longing to see with my camera, the art of capturing life and living and creation, anew.

With art as my frame of living, my frame of reference, my hope is that I will be challenged to live fully and abundantly in all that I do. Without fear, without anxiety, without settling for just so.

Wrapping a year of days with art as the rudder, my hope is to encounter all not half. Full not empty. Strong, not weak. Brave not timid.

Embracing the art of abundant living through reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and embracing this one life.

Will you join me as I eat my words and choose one word?

Will you walk through a year of poetry and prose, photography and faith, with me. Looking to the Ultimate Creative, Artist God, all the while.

You make the art of my life so much richer.

Off to the land of artful living; dancing, singing, all the way there. Won’t you come along? Shaking the dust off as we go. Cleansing and washing our days in new.

These words of Pablo Picasso sing it all so sweet and true:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life

art one

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facebook art

Linking with the one word community.

Women At The Farm

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 15 Comments

In the sharing of this place

We gather by reflective pond.

And share the past, the hurt and pain.

While cobb webs break by hand with broom,

Not knowing what tomorrow brings.

We curl beside the waters edge

And wrestle with a gentle breath,

The unknown places yet to come.

Smoke fills the air from grill and burn pile

And all the while

Grief shared is grief diminished

On the lips, of the women at the farm.

No ride of whimsy on the road

With men in search of folly in the wood.

A vigil held by weathered chair

As if the words can heal a soul.

The weathered chair bears  burdens well

Of words flung through crisp fall air.

Words of women woven on the porch,

A tapestry of trials.

Worn grease coat feels but  feather like

When compared

To the heaviness of the words,

That fall as jet-propelled autumn acorns on tin roof,

Like heart bombs dropping from azure blue

Heavens.

And won’t His Words heal our souls?

Proclaim the women at the farm.

This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.

John 15:11-15

I am joining my friends Sandra, Deidra and L.L. Barkat.

Have you discovered the beauty of wordcandy.me? Its delicious. Courtesy of the folks at Tweetspeak Poetry.

A Grateful Hand

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

May we walk together,
linked
all together as a bold one
into a land
of extravagant generosity…
of
time &
talent
words &
love
prayer &
kindness
where
we unfurl from the white-knuckled grip of the insatiable I and me.

Linking in community today with the folks at Still Saturday. Thank you Sandy.

Opening the door for you my friends, may we always open the door for one another in a community of His love.

And holding it open for a long while, as you walk into the wonderful wonders of your week’s end.

When Writing Feels Like Breathing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 20 Comments

I thought I wouldn’t write today.

But it felt like I was holding my breath.

And then my writer me wanted to pop my holding my breath me like I was a big balloon.

So I stuck the sharp pin in and let out all the air. It felt like there was something there that needed to be released. And it came gushing out, like the whoopie cushions we used in grammar school.

Like walking without seeing the all along the way, was moving through the day without breathing — that writing part of me.

The words became little oxygen holders, like place the mask on yourself before you help your children, or the passenger seated beside you. Like miniature oxygen tanks on wheels for the sick.

Like an asthmatic needs an inhaler the words became vital, life-giving.

Maybe when He lights the passion He doesn’t intend for you to hold your breath. Maybe if you were meant to encourage and give and serve and love, that if you stopped you might pop too. Or feel like you’d explode.

Maybe you get your breath back when you are obedient. The steady breathing resumes and the heart finds a peaceful rhythm when the artist gets on with making art or the servant gets back to serving. Or the doctor keeps on healing.

If doing the passion thing He gave gives life,then stopping may diminish it in some way.

Like the film went from color to black and white silent in a flash.

I thought I wouldn’t write today. I worry readers tire of the black marching words like ants at a picnic. They tread where they’re not wanted.

But then I recall the One for whom I write. And the one who called me to.

And I trust that He both steadies the hand and the heart. And the one lone traveller on the journey would stumble here if they were meant to come. And He could say you popped, you breathed, you are no longer blue from holding it in.

That the details rest with Him and the marching words bring back to Him a worship from an uncertain hand. The writer.

Who found that writing felt like breathing. And that not was not an option.

Just for today.

Until we cross back into tomorrow and He leads me back–to the page. And breathes words and thoughts and the what to write. To honor Him.

Or until He says, stop, wait, rest, no.

Joining Kris at Always Alleluia dot com