Horse, of Course

October 29, 2012October 29, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 14 Comments

Days 26, 27, 28, 29. This writer’s creative license to catch up on the series. The collective may be found here. Or by clicking the 31 Days 2012 tab at the top of this home page.

Joining Amber and others for her abstract writing on a concrete word. She is here, at
The Run a Muck. Today is HORSE.

It is like a full head on train wreck of the senses.

Down in the deep it lays dormant but when it is given some air, water, fertilizer and freedom it bursts on the scene like a herd of wild horses.

There is power in a word. And we don’t always know how much.

Or we don’t know how much to give it, or allow it. Or release to it.

There is power in words and there is memory there too. You can let it out to graze and give it roaming privileges in the pasture, unharness the power, unleash it.

Let it rip, unbridled.

Loosen the girth. Loosen the grip.

I am young and leaning in the saddle, feeling the first passion of my youth. The challenges there in the ring, on the trail, in the stirrups, over the jumps.

Brushing the back and combing the mane, smelling the hay.

Learning to post and blistering up, bearing the pain on the boney knee, as a dancer on pointe feels it on the toes, and on balls, and in the ballet slipper. The pain of struggle. The passion mixed with pleasure.

The smells mingle in the air and they say that it is the longest memory or is it the strongest memory. The smells , they linger in the heart.

The smells of childhood and all the senses’ memories, mixed in a toxic remembering of joy and loss. Blended in a batch of story, the narrative of your living. Rooted in early youth. A launching pointing, a jumping off.

The dirt and dust and leather. The blends of animal and barn. The grasses and hays and helmet, black velvet hard a smell like no other with sweat of brow blended in and staying.

We take all the pieces of a life. Don’t we.

And ride off into the grasses greener, grasses leaner and carry them in the saddle with us. The horse that was an elusive dream. The one I never owned. A longing of my childhood. Spending hours at the barn. Longing for ownership. To name an animal, train it up. Call it mine.

And when my knight in shining armor rode in and swept me up, they came back again, the horses.

And later too, in a mid-stream season of intersecting with the hooved loves of my life.

And even just a few nights ago, they came racing back, trotting back in.

A blaze of happy memory. The wild ponies on the coast of my youth. The stories. A thread between the life of an old salty captain who crossed my path and smiled his toothless grin as he shared with me a co-mingling of memory. Captain Froggy, the Shrimp Boat Captain and I. And the horses.

captain froggy 2 — (*Captain Froggy and his guitar)*

The wild ponies of the banks were a piece of me and a piece of him.

And these threads that run through a life, they can keep running if you watch carefully.

This thread of memory, the horse, of course.

The earliest memory of passion for getting on the back and being free, happy, brave and scared all together. Of breathing smells and waving manes. Of feeling strong and feeling the hearts beating in tandem, human and horse. Horse and human. Rocking in the leather, galloping through at break neck speed, taking a jump.

The rocking in the saddle, like a baby in the sea of uterine waves. Rocking. Like the baby in the cradle lulled to sleep by the slow pitch to and fro.

The holding on, steering the bit, to the left to the right in the ring and beyond. Guiding in love. And it was always the eyes. The deep piercing orbs that pierce the heart and poke into the soul.

A word can wield a lot of power.

And we take all the parts and pieces and they are living metaphors. Or are they life itself. Following the thread, woven and weaved. Seeing the messy and the missed, the beauty and the treasure. In the all.

And the horse is not through with me yet.

Joining Laura for Play Dates at The Wellspring

Chains – Shake, Rattle and Roll

October 23, 2012October 24, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 13 Comments

Today I am joining Amber and a few others for a series on an abstraction on concrete words. Today is Day 23 in the Series. Cut yourself loose and go here to read the collective.. Today’s word is Chains.

The words line up like hungry children at Baskin Robbins taking a number and waiting their turn to indulge themselves. They hear there is a series here on words and they are ravenous mongrels eager to have their day.

They cry out in the night and creep in the dreams and state their case of why they are worthy for the time to shine, their day in the sun, their fifteen minutes.

I tell them there is no glory that’s not His and there is no fifteen minutes of fame and if anything its fifteen seconds.

But they shake rattle and roll around in my head and bring their resumes, these words all seem worthy. How do you pick. What’s a mother to do. We don’t play favorites or at least we always try to be even-steven around here.

But I am drawn like a bee on honey over here to this abstraction on chains and I drag my words with me. They aren’t heavy they are just full. They are ripe and ready to burst with their telling.

So I link them up like construction cut-outs glued with Elmer’s on the Christmas Tree in 1969. They are a chain but fragile. Made to lay on the branch, this tree, of life. And not weigh down.

There was a mighty trifecta brewing around like a meteorological nightmare on a Southern summer, hot, humid, and muggy. So they link-up, make a chain. Mercy, Forbearance and Long-suffering, with an extra link of patience.

They rumble around in the brain for days beating to get out and speak their mind. So I release them and let them breathe a bit on the white pages, release them out to have their day in court.

They are game-changers and mood-changers and life-changers. And they are worthy of being lifted up and they need more than a day they need a life-time.

The chains of picking up every single solitary offense is enough to wear a girl down. Learning to let them lie is freedom. The kind that you set off fire-works over. The kind that you stand outside the prison door and greet the captive set free from all those years in a dark cell. In when she could have been free. Languishing in the dark, when she could have been living in the light.

Mercifully released, finally, things are set right. The sunlight is bright, blindingly so.

She breathes deep the fresh air of freedom.

Mercifully mercy finds a place to settle in and settle down, patience works hard at being herself and brings peace and calm with her. And letting things roll off the back when things rolls off a tongue is delightfully different from picking up the offense and picking a fight.

Choosing to release the offense, not taking it up, letting it die on the vine. Letting it go.

Looking the other way, turning the other cheek, breaks chains that bind. And cuts the heavy metal links with the soft shears of His ways.

Chains get rusty when they get old, and clanking sounds grate on a life. Sometimes it doesn’t take a metal cutter to break them, but the soft and gentle trio of Trinity to bust it open and break it loose.

And isn’t it the truth that the more links you add to the chain, the stronger it becomes. You add Mercy linked with Forbearance and Long-suffering and your spirit and your soul gain strength in the beautiful chain of Patience.

Grace is the grease that oils the links and keeps them nimbly ebbing and flowing, bobbing and weaving. You can make a chain of the Good and the Gracious. And the chains keep the wheels rolling on the bike as you peddle down the Grace trail.

Dropping your chains of clover rather than wobbly chains of wrongs done, offenses picked up, hurts accumulated, accumulating dust and rust.

We’re just too busy being bound up in the chains that bind and bruise, hold us back and wrap us up in self and selfish.

They were right, this trio, to demand their day, to link hands and come play on the pages of this series. To bring their light and cheerful spirit with them.

Too long their counterparts have tried to rule greedy, hold emotions and circumstances up, hold us hostage, rule with the iron hand and lay claim to each transgression, offense, small and large. To feel the wound of every word and deed that delt the blow, broke the heart, intentional or not.

Pride and self-righteous indignation, the rule of the day. Elbowing their way into their place of power and authority. Staking a claim while staking the chain to the ground. Burying the life on a short chain of void and empty.

I click the leash and walk the dog, tethered briefly for a moment outside in the air. I can breathe. Ocean rumbles mighty in the dark morning air. I can breathe. I hear the roar and know the power of salt, the strength of water. It reminds me the soul can be refreshed, the chains can be broken, and the life does feel less heavy when we breathe deep the freedom.

I can pick up the promises of His, a chain of linked words and chapters, verses, the beautiful bound Book. Chain it to my heart. Chain it to my soul.

And I hear Aretha singing to my spirit, Chain of Fools, a tribute, an anthem to the old way of living.

And Amazing Grace drops down in the jukebox of my heart and I sing along to a new anthem of my life, a song of Unchained Melody. The sound of freedom.

The words do a victory march across the page, linking hands, making a chain of friendship.

Mercy, Forbearance and Patience.

A new chain, tying me soft and loose to Freedom.

And angels of Mercy and her friends guard my heart, stand at the door to my soul, keeping watch, breaking the chains before they bind again.

Amens and amens and amens.

Grateful to be joining these wonderful writers today too at their place: Jen, Heather,and Eileen. And to Jennifer,Joy, Ann and Emily

Encouragement – A Letter To A Friend

October 22, 2012October 22, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 20 Comments

Today is Day 22. Today’s word is Encouragement. To read the collective sashay sway shimmy swish and swirl over here. To read others in the Series go here, to The Nester’s place.

Dear Encouraging You,

Today is your Birsday. Can I tell Webster that he has a new word for his book?

Have I told you lately that I love you. I bet I have. But I am telling you again. Beautiful you are Day 22. You are laughing that you have a day in my series.

Because you are the reason there was ever a Day One, in this writing life. And you would say it was God and I would too, but you helped Him. And we would both say He doesn’t need my help.

But you were an encourager. And you have been. The accountability partner I lean into. What richness my life has with your flesh and bones, hands and feet, lungs and laughter, heart and soul, and words and words and more words, and love rooted in my own.

You have given birth to hope and held a sister’s hand right smack in the middle of the yuck. Sweet you have had a word, a prayer, a dream and a strong arm of encouragement to grasp hold of a sinking drowning spirit.

The day I said I was done with writing. Or was it writing was done with me. Or was it I give up or was it I am through with this. You may be my memory here, but I know your words were brave and strong.

And you spoke into burying and putting under rocks things the Lord gifts.

Friends don’t let friends give up.

Encouragent reaches the long limb of grace into a life and drags it back like a mother cat moving her kittens into safety, out of a ditch.

You have shown that encouragement knows in her knower, deep in her inside places, when to speak and when to listen and when to love.

Tough and tender co-exist in the life of an encourager, the life of the precious you.

And when desperation despair dysfunction depression, an army of d’s show up, we put on the armour and together we battle, and together we stand, and together we fight.

For our lives, our children, our husbands, our families, our God. And His glory.

And there is always the beautiful. There is your lense, your eye behind the camera sharing the beautiful, calling it out, like a Southern Debutante at her coming out. Here she is, Beauty, give her her Day, present her for all to see.

When we swim upstream in a river of tears, like salmon seeking a place to spawn or float our boats down the outgoing tide of tears of joy, you encourage.

We’ve known death and life and you’ve said “though He slay me” more than once.

We’ve know some prodigal stories lived out and built trust and hope as tall as the Empire State building. We’ve cried to the Heavens and screamed to them too.

We’ve pounded the pavements and pounded our fists. And we have celebrated, because that heart of yours links up with mine and we say we have today, we have today, we have today.

There has been building homes, and nests. Designing and decorating .Hanging art and hanging out, journeying far and near. We have Glamped,we have Aqua-glamped and we have stood against the Great Recession, sticking out our tongues, saying nay nay nay you can’t get me.

There have been literal Hurricanes and the other kind too. We have stood.

But never alone. Always with Him, three strands of a cord. Encouragement weaves that way.

And courage sits firmly in the middle and holds her ground.

Happy 60th bursday, H. Thank you for inspiring and encouraging this sister. For walking out, talking out, and praying out this wonderful glorious life we have this side of heaven.

If you go first I will never forgive you. But if you do save a place for me. And yes I know it doesn’t work like that.

We have a lot of rocking left to do on the porch. A lot of sorting out and figuring out.

My heart needs more encouragement from you.

Thank you for showing the world how to live a life as an encourager.

Happy Birthday sweet friend. Your life is a work of art.

And thank you for encouraging me to pick up the pen and always live the highest and best, with joy and a spirit of celebration.

There are no words. And that may be the first time.(You know I know your thoughts).

Beginning your 61st year with laughter and love,

elizabeth

Counting Gifts because of Ann –of hope for a child, joy in family, praise in worship and worship in praise yesterday in church, time with family, conversations with a child restoring possibilities, expectant hearts for a birthday celebration, new writing friends friendships strengthened, new encouragers in my life, hearing my daughter’s praise music on her radio instead of the other station, watching her worship our Lord in church, hearing my son sing soft and low during worship yesterday, cold air, tough love, smiling face of my sweet friend Monica, a visit from the young man and his girl who has already flown the coop (tomorrow can’t come soon enough), their future and God’s plan, the flowers from The Patient One which still warm my spirit with their autumnal colors, life.

Joining Ann, Michelle, Laura, and L.L. Barkat

Thank you for traveling with me through this series. To subscribe click hereand we will keep journeying together.