Tag: Story

Once Upon A Time

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

 

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Dear Ones:

There is a sacredness and intimacy about this art of letter writing. A beautiful tenderness of one me speaking to one you—though the you is multiplied. Perhaps that is why I have saved so many letters over the years. A hunter green metal foot locker hides under the bed in my office—a repository of memory and mystery. In it rest decades upon decades of letters. I have saved them—like a memory hoarder, sometimes not even knowing why. As if one day there might be a grand revealing of important plots and sub-plots. As if the aged smell of paper and stamp and glue would give up clues to my past. As if one line might contain a piece of my bigger story that longs to be heard, one that needs remembering and re-telling. If I would only pull the thread.

Click the link to read the subscriber based letter in its entirety, as well as receive access to the archives of The Notebook: These Pages of Mine.

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What Am I Missing?

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

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What Am I Missing?

If you asked me if I was on a mission,
Had a mantra, a rallying cry
(I might hesitate in feigned humility and feigned surprise)
And then I might say, well yes
It covers the world and the world is covered by it

If you must know
Even if you don’t
Care to ask
Don’t care to listen
Didn’t even ever wonder
That’s okay, ’cause I am still talking
One day I woke up to the wondering of this
And the next day I woke up again to the intense unsettling of this
Days went by and I heard a trembling in my veins and in my sinew and bone
And my insides and my outsides and in time
All the parts of me were singing in unison
And the choir of me was loud
When I listened closely from the outside in and the inside out
It was like the milkyway was an orchestra, each star an instrument
And they played loudly in me, all horns and strings and keyboards, in sweet harmony
I heard a song like a psalm though the Pslams are already written
I heard praise and shouts of blessed remembering
And hymns to no more forgetting to abide awhile in Him and in my days
The verses sang a halelluia chorus of “right now is glory”
Holy is humming in the sacred now
And you are a fool, though a loved fool, to refuse to see
To listen
To behold
To dance in the music of these days
And even though the lasso was ’round the stories of now
And we were tethered, we two
Together at last
And though the harp and the electric guitar played a duet,
A hymn of holy matrimony’s first dance
Paired, partners in listening out for the songs from the milky way chorus of wonder
I with my bucket for catching it all
Slipped and fell
And the stories came shooting out, as if the heavens released the stars like rockets headed toward Earth
So I must go gathering again
And dream some more
Of the places and people I forgot to remember, but first to go see

and go behold

And go love

Because in all the joy I thought I had
My neighbor I had forgotten

Love Listens ( My GraceTable February Post)

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Join me at GraceTable. I saved a seat for you at the table.

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When I was a small child, my mother made certain I called my godmother to thank her for the gifts she gave me. Aunt Francis always gave me a piece of my silver pattern, her generous gifts a bit lost on me at the time. My stomach tightened up like a rubber band ball as I picked up the phone to call her each and every July, after the birthday gift arrived. I stalled and delayed, until Mother prompted me one final time to make that call.

Aunt Francis had a severe speech impediment. It manifested itself with long periods of silence between words. (Join me at GraceTable for the rest of my post.)

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Living Out The Prequel

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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Living Out The Prequel

If I am a story
Or a story is me
And we are turning pages
There is this unfolding
My breath is held and
I may forget to breathe

But living does not rest on whether
I remember
Or I forget

It is the mystery of baited breath
God grants me this until the end
And did God feel this way
On the days, one and two
Knowing what he knew of all that lay ahead
Knowing all he knew
About the peonies in shades of flesh and rose and the oyster with its hidden pearl
The sound of rain and rainy drops
Slowly tickling the backs
Of a parched and desert dry cracked earth

Do I know I know not what is to come

But breathing deep and breathing fast
Swallowed up by the fog of a heaviness
Expectant in the coming next
I know as any mother knows
To hold the baby to her breast and sit back
Long and languid, rest in waiting
Love

I know as the salt marsh tide knows
When to ebb and
When to flow
And in its knower
Knows that it will never stop

I know that I am walking
Through the days of prequel joy
Pregnant in expectancy
Of splitting hairs of heavy wait
Of counting stars and counting dreams
Of wondering how much joy a soul can hold

All the while entangled
In a mystery of how will it all end
And when
In the days left in the waning
Of the remaining

Until healing comes to all

Again

And the prequel gives way
To what He has in store

So I will turn the page
Savoring every word
That was
And will to come

Be still
And hear

the prequel

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