Tag: Story

Story: Remembering, Praying, Healing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the intrument as one goes on.” Samuel Butler from Chapter 10 “The Life of a Storyteller” from Annette Simmons “The Story Factor.”

She cuts hair and her words cut my heart.  And I listen to the story. Someone has released a colony of bees in my insides, the buzz and sting compete with the sweet honey making in one stirring moment.

I hear the happy. But I process the other.

There is a man who has walked this earth for close to a half of a century. He just connected with his birthmother. Worlds and emotions collide. And the telling is a beautiful mix of God and man and life and living.

In a flash of living a man with a mother now has two.

Hearts and life and souls and God are on a course moving foward and the lines of grace and redemption criss cross like the tracks of zipper teeth.

A forward moving narrative.

She cuts my hair. Her words cut my heart. Because I have a child with a birth mother. And so I release the possibilities of circumstance and discovery in his life. She cuts my hair and the story cuts deep my momma heart.

And the story is being written.

There are chapters and pages and lines with hurt, in my own. Wet smears the line of the ink still wet. Dries in a blur. But dries nonetheless. And the pages stay in. There is no ripping or removal. It all stays in.

The beautiful bound spine can contain both and.

Remember,  praying, while healing.

And the violin solo, played in public only gets more beautiful with each note, with grace like resin on the squeeky bow.  With grace like resin smoothing the out of tune and the parts that sound off key, seeming beautiful in the learning of the living. Seeming beautiful in the practice done on the life stage. There is no rehearsal.

And yesterday’s story and today’s story are bound in guilded gold, saved and savored, while remembering, praying and healing.

The same salt that enhances flavor and adds to, can rub in a wound, or help make an icy road passable. Or bring a non-believer toward a Jesus Follower questionning the beautiful, questionning the story, seeking to know more.

Or in excess make us thirsty, with a thirst that feels unquenchable in the longing for wet to hit the parched, the dry, the brittle.

Releasing the thoughts of my adoptive son seeking his birth mother in a one day page of his story, and hoping that when that chapter is written on our pages, we will pray, while remembering, pray while healing, and pray in our  forward living.

And God,  tosses mercy, like coins in the velvet-lined violin case of the sidewalk city  soloist. His gentle affirmation, His constant love. He listens in love. And finds the story of the soloist, beautiful. And sings the chorus of grace.

Amazing, how sweet, it saves.

Linking with Heather and Jen and Eileen and Jennifer, Duane, and Ann. As well as Courtney

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Why There Is Always A Back Story

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

“Say what you need to say,then leave.”

Seth Godin’s words today on his blog intigue me. A lot. His blog is wonderful. If you haven’t discovered it you should. Great insight, wisdom, and just plain good stuff there.

My heart crosses the concept of narrative and story often. I am reading “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons, the full title of which is “Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling.”

In it is a stirring quote from Jim Harrison, “The answer is always in the entire story, not a piece of it.”

Yesterday’s sermon focused on Isaiah 40:21-31, our story, our life’s narrative. And God, He plays a major role too. As He thankfully does. And did in the sermon. Its a good thing, right. (There is already a back story raising its not-so-ugly-head here. You may want to go to the archives of the blog to read of my love for Him and some of my Christian “story”.)

So much to gnaw on. And I love stories. I seem to learn well when story is used as a tool.

I seem to remember events when there is a story woven like silken threads through a snapshot of life. Is that what story is? Isn’t that what Jesus did when he told parables. Very brief. Very powerful. Very important.

But what of the back story? The parts thinly veiled or left untold. What of the living that lead up to the event?

Are we left to wonder, to guess, to write a narrative around the unknown parts.

“Say what you need to say, then leave.” I love the one, two bunch of the brief. The potency and power in the short. In the very  intense, undiluted telling. The concentrated strength of the brief.

Is this why I love the poetic.

Is this the beauty of poetry? Isn’t this the beauty of poetry?

Can the backstory show up in poetry in a way unique to the poetry format.

There is a beautiful backstory to these pictures, of my daughter, taken by The Patient One.

I want to tell you the story.

I think I’ll write a poem. But knowing my bent toward longer forms, maybe I’ll go write a proem, entitled “Salt” because that is why the beautiful winged-one lit on the beautiful girl-child.

It was all because of the salt.

Have I been salt to someone today?

{Will you come back tomorrow to hear more on story, the beginning the middle and the glorious endings. It’s really our life narratives. And aren’t they beautiful?

My heart is about to burst wide open to tell a beautiful one of a man I know. Its his story. It is beautiful. And I will ask permission to tell it this week. What a glorious story he is having? How is your story going.}

Counting gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.

Today as I think of writing my “Salt” poem, being brief when I write (because your lives are busy and you may not have time to ready the longer posts), and as I dream of how to tell the story of my friend which my heart bends into because it is an adoption story. I have a particular fondness for adoption stories, did you know that?

….. I am counting gifts, quietly, because you may have places to go, people to see, and a story to live.

Go live it with an extra dash of “salt”. I hope I will see you tomorrow.

Linking with Laura at Laura Boggess dot com and Michele at Michelle DeRusha dot com

And L.L. Barkatfor In On And Around Mondays

If I Were An Olympic Judge

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 26 Comments

I see the tears and anguish and want to console each one. Walk through the big screen and give a long embrace.

I want to tell them you are not your shortcomings. You are not defined by your loss.

I watch them come up short of a medal, these Olympic athletics and I long to console them. Wipe their tears, dry their eyes.

After all the training and all the effort and the blood sweat and tears, they fail to win big on the world stage.

This outcome, this turn of events, these results are not their Plan A.

And it hurts, it stings and it feels like defeat.

You are so much more than this one competition, though often your life and certainly your training have built up to this, lead to this, I long to say to the losers. The ones who fail to win the medals.

Because in my eyes, they are winners.

They and their stories are gold medal winners. And I’d give them each a medal for their humanity. Their humaneness on display for the world to see. Those who struggled and trained and gave it their all, but fell short. Or made a costly mistake. Or stumbled. Or botched the routine. Or simply had an off day. Or who ran out of steam.

Those Olympians whose stories are ripe with over-coming hardship and difficulty. Those whose story wins the medal for its tender perserverance, its victory over life’s rocky places take up big spaces in my heart.

They are the all of us so often. So very often.

They are raw and human and hurting. They feel loss and disappointment. And they are humbled by their shortcomings.

They are you. They are me. They are everyman living and struggling before our eyes. Though they wear an Olympic uniform we have walked where they are.

We know that sting. We know that pain. We know that deep hurt.

If I were an Olympic judge, they would get the medal for being there. For practicing hard and showing up to compete. For being a human. For being human. For being.

Because they look like winners to me. They wear their ache like a medal of bravery for being man.

And I know that more often than not, they can turn their disappointment into good and for the good.

They can take the moment of defeat and tease lessons from the trials. Wrap it into a future Hope for tomorrow. Take the loss and build on it, learn from it.

And change because of it.

The lessons from loss and disappointment so often bring big victories in charachter. They layer lessons of life on us like new skin, tougher smarter wiser layers of humanity.

They give us a humility. And they teach in a way that out and out winning the gold simply does not.

Because the lessons from difficulty teach from an entirely different book. And the lessons from suffering and pain are the ones that make us more human, more tender and more able to help and serve a hurting world.

And we know that all things work together for the good of those who love God- those whom he has called… Romans 8:28.

But don’t we know how profoundly they are suffering when they stumble and fall and go home empty from these events. Don’t we know. Can’t we suffer alongside them, in our common humanity. In our shared state of being human and frail, vulnerable.

Don’t we feel deep in our bones and in our flesh and in our soul, the bruising and banging of the hurt. Of the falling just short, or very short, or way way off the mark entirely.

Don’t we long to change the story. Change their story. Edit, re-write the parts of hurt and suffering.

Don’t we long to re-wind the tape and turn the tide back for them. And let them start again afresh, anew. A second time. Don’t we want for them a do-over.

Don’t we want for them to win what they came for.

But their stories, when they stumble will be beautiful in loss.

And their stories will wear a crown of victory if they let them. And all the hurt and pain can be written into something beautiful in the end.

And the moments of hurt and pain can be redeemed. By Him who makes all things new.

If I were an Olympic judge I would give them gold for being a participant in the event. In this event of living this always wonderful always beautiful, sometimes difficult life.

And as they reach their hand for the medal I would say always remember” His mercies are new everyday.”

Now get back out there and finish your story. Your beautiful story that is your life.

Joining with Jennifer today at GDWJ.

And with Duane at Unwrapping His Promises and also for the first time here as well……

 


When Joy Is Contagious

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

I am standing at the kitchen sink peeling eggs for my man-child who leaves the nest for good in days. He will have an insurance plan a house, a job and wings spread wide before July yields to August.

And I wonder.

How did we get to a birthday which is a speed limit designed to save gasoline. That’s the collective we. Today is The Patient One’s birthday and it screams out for attention in the repetition of fives like an umpire yells “OUT.” One leaving, one growing older while I think back to springtime as I peel back memories while I peel back bits of shell.

I think on all these days and all these years and wonder where they are. The years line up in my mind. And I remember a Spring breakfast with a friend at The Flying Biscuit diner. Where words flew and peels of laughter rang out loud and I bridged the gap of over 20 years.

We re-connect after all this living, after all these years of life.  An un-planned, unintentional pause in a friendship that was deep and wide with laughter and growing up. A friendship put on ice,  left untended to and malnourished for over two decades.

A breakfast can last for three hours. And laughter and can be so loud that other diners feel the joy. And you can feel the years of separation melt away like a pad of butter on a heap of hot grits.

Life has bumped her around. Her story is riddled with hurt and pain. I knew via email  and phone calls wet with tears big chunks  of her story. Before we pulled up our stools for grits and eggs, my heart had begun to prepare for the re-telling as I looked into her soul, into those chocolate brown eyes.

I went believing that I would cry with her and show kindness and comfort. In the upside down economy and inverted paradigm of life, she was comfort and joy to me.  She was wisdom. Her story and her battles became my balm.

Her struggles became my new insight. And stories of her journey which the young me didn’t quit know or understand are heard with a knowing anew. By the me who is a woman with wrinkles and graying hair. Because story as teacher shifts perspective of the heart. And story with flesh and bones looking you in your eyes wraps new understanding around how we learn from each other— about life and living, joy and hardship, laughter and tears.

I hear. I listen. I receive. And she teaches. And she explains.

Loud laughter is the trademark of our friendship. And heads turn from patrons in the diner wondering how love can laugh this loud. How a deep down longing to re-connect souls and lives can rumble up and come out as bellowing belly laughs. How friendships full of grace and love can touch strangers, and joy becomes contagious.

The young thirty somethings or twenty somethings, I cannot tell any more, turn and say how special this thing is that we have. And we laugh and we say, yes we  know. They tell us how unique it is for friendship to show up like this. And there is bitter sweet in every bite.

What did I lose by loosing touch? Why do they smile and remark at our Joy? Why did I let this friend stay so far from my heart for so long? What bumps in my road could she have helped me with when I was bruised and roughed up if she had only known, if I had only reached out, if friendship didn’t take a break.

And how beautiful contagious Joy is  when we are vulnerable, and loud happy, and free to show remarkable love, extravagant love. And to share our stories, our lives, our authentic selves.

My girlhood friend told stories that my memory hadn’t held. Of us. Of me. Each telling of a slice of story transported me back to happy times of our teens.

But the most valuable piece of the three-hour breakfast was my single, childless friend taught me about being a parent. She shifted my perspective and my lense. She gave me eyes to see. And a heart to listen.

Her story and the story of one of my own children, they share common threads. And  I have been blind and unknowing and in need of a teacher. A teacher to show me how to bend in to love with a changed heart.

I learn in the loud and messy friendship pulled up to the counter.I learn in The Flying Biscuit about patience and perserverance and loving uniquely. And of loving the differences with a heart that embraces the fact that each of us has a story.

My friend is the teacher, the one with no children to raise, and she is teaching me a few things about being a parent. And about love.

The vast separation between us is closed in three hours. We are 16 and giddy girls laughing with tears rolling down our wrinkled cheeks. Salty love serving up Grace and contagious Joy touching souls over breakfast.

And I know anew to look out for wisdom and kindness  in the simplest of places.

And to expect healing to come when we least expect it.

We will not let twenty years wedge between us again.

And I will listen hard and seek  the lessons of life being taught through the stories being spoken and lived around me.

Looking to listen with an open heart, a bent ear, and a spirit seeking and longing for those moments of contagious Joy served up with an extra helping of Grace.

Thank you my friend for telling me your story and listening to mine. And giving me a chance to be your friend, anew.

Linking up today with Jennifer and Duane.