Rhythms of Grace

Garments of Praise Conference June 12-13, 2009

Isn't that cool? We'd love to see you! There's a writing contest too. http://wordpraize2009.eventbrite.com http://sistahfaith.eventbrite.com

Mom's the Word Blog Tour!

Hey peeps! I know it's been forever and a day since we turned the lights on over here, but I wanted to share with you about the upcoming blog tour for MOM'S THE WORD. I'm in Ohio right now after spending Mother's Day with my mom and delivering a message at her childhood church. I was great (even with her talking to me from the front pew, thanks Mom!) but am I'm happily exhausted but had to share the schedule for the upcoming tour.

It's been a while since we've done one of these so this should really be fun. Stacy Hawkins Adams already posted, so if you can stop by and give her some love. Big Thanks to TyWebbin Creations for hosting this tour. Have fun!

PS. I'm posting the book trailer too. My husband did it. Thanks honey!

VIRTUAL TOUR

Online Radio Schedule

Listen to Marilynn live on the following talk shows.

Monday, May 11 - Inspiration Station Online Radio Show (6:30 p.m. EST)

Monday, May 11 - Black Authors Network (8:00 -10:00 p.m. EST)

Wednesday, May 13 – Chocolate Pages Show (rebroadcast from May 7th)

Blog Tour Schedule

Stop by and leave your comments.

Sunday, May 10

• Marilynn Griffith’s Blog (Welcome)
• Stacy Hawkins Adams’s Blog

Monday, May 11

• Mom Unplugged
• APOOObooks.com

Tuesday, May 12

• Tia McCollors’ Blog
• Word for Women
• All The Buzz Reviews

Wednesday, May 13

• The Gospel Writer
• SORMAG Blog
• Angela Benson’s Blog

Thursday, May 14

• Victorious Cafe
• Urban Christian Fiction Today
• Black Pearl Magazine

Friday, May 15

• Cheryl Donavan’s Blog
• Claudia Mair Burney’s Blog

Saturday, May 16

What Readers Are Saying …

• FIRST Wild Card Tours
• A Peek at My Bookshelf
• Georgiana Daniels
• Book Splurge
• Patricia Woodside’s Blog
• S.A.G.A.
• Christy’s Book Blog
• Camy’s Loft
• Window to My World

Arise!

10 My lover spoke and said to me,
      "Arise, my darling,
      my beautiful one, and come with me.

 11 See! The winter is past;
      the rains are over and gone.
(Song of Solomon 2:10-11)

After brokeness and betrayal, a winter of the soul, the Lover, the Risen one gives birth to a new season.

A season of HOPE, HEALING and RESTORATION.

HE IS the Sharon rose, the valley lily, an apple tree with fruit sweet to the taste. He calls you to the banquet hall and his banner over you is LOVE.

Daughters of Jerusalem, sistahs of faith, winter is past. The rains are over and gone. Be resurrected today with the same power that rose Jesus from the dead.

Rejoice, a season of singing has come, a sweet savour of Mary's precious perfume. She was mocked and mistaken, bruised but not broken. Wash His feet today with tears of joy. Put a flower in your hair...

For He is risen.

Father,
You are my Beloved and I am yours. Though there has been cold in my soul, I receive your flowers and inhale the scent of your sacrifice. I will be a healer, a helper, a restorer of the breach. I am my sistah's keeper. I am yours.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

after all: a love poem

after all by marilynn griffith

after all these years
love poems make
me hungry and tired
hungry for some of that want
folks sing about

the O'Jays
the old days
the old ways

and tired of trying to be something
other than old. I make a bra
with my hands and pretend
it's 1983 and you still want me

the O'Jays
the old days
the old ways

I laugh like crazy but don't let go
until I feel your arms around my
waist, your lips on my face. In
the background, I hear

the O'Jays
the old days
the old ways

Maybe there's still a taste of
honey in the ease of my neck,
the crook of your elbows, on
the backs of my knees. Maybe
we're still a poem after all.

after all: a love poem

Sometimes when I'm up working a book, the book starts working on me. When it's real bad (and good) poems come. Tonight, there's been two. I liked this one and wanted to share, especially since it's Valentine's Day. Enjoy. Brian would like it think.

Mobile post sent by sistahfaith using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

after all: a love poem

Sometimes when I'm up working a book, the book starts working on me. When it's real bad (and good) poems come. Tonight, there's been two. I liked this one and wanted to share, especially since it's Valentine's Day. Enjoy. Brian would like it think.

Mobile post sent by sistahfaith using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

Short Story: A Love to Believe

Hey everybody! I wrote this for the WrittenVoicesBlog.com Taste of Romance story roundup. I did an audio too, which I think posted already (or not!). It was kind of long though, so here's the text.

--mg

A Love to Believe by Marilynn Griffith

 

I don’t believe in love.

Never did. Never will. Henry tells me different, says there was a time when somebody loved me, when I was a baby and somebody sang to me. Them’s his own memories, his mama’s songs, but I let him make ‘em mine. He needs to. I don’t know why.

He says it’s because he loves me.

I don’t believe in love, but I believe in Henry. So when he says things like that, I close my eyes real tight and try to believe in him, in this love he keeps trying to give me. Sometimes I wish I had some too, just a little, to give back to him, but when I try and think about love, it’s like the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. All make believe. I would say it’s like God too, but I won’t say that because that’s the only think that will make Henry mad—bad-talking God. He says I just ain’t had a chance to see the God he knows, but I figure whichever One I seen ain’t ever helped me, so I don’t have much use for Him.

I would say that except that He sent me Henry. Today, when he took me to lunch like every Tuesday, Henry said the same words, “Lord, let Tammy know that You love her just like I do but more.” Usually he says amen then, knowing that it’s hard on me all that praying and love talk. But today, he kept going. “Let her know that You made me just for her and gave me enough love for both of us.”

There was a rose on the table between us, red and long this time. He gets them in all colors, cut fresh from somewhere he won’t tell me about. Says he has permission though, that the lady knows true love when she sees it. Until today, I’d never seen it, not with the roses, the restaurants, the music… Not until I thought about God growing Henry like a beautiful rose, lips full and brown, heart wide open. Growing him up and plucking him from the hands of some “suitable” girl as his mama calls her and dropping him into my lap.

Just then, when he pulled loose his big, gentle hands from praying, hands that ain’t never hurt me, never hit me, never pushed in places they didn’t belong—just then, as he brushed that rose across my lips, I believed in love, in Henry, even in God. Just then, I held his laughter, golden and fading between my hands, knowing I’d pull it out later in my dreams. I held it in my heart like all the other times, but let it travel down my arms, into my elbows, all the way to my fingertips…

I didn’t think. I just reached for his face, with both my hands. I didn’t even pause to turn them so the burns wouldn’t show. He leaned in close, like he’d been expecting it. The rose crumpled in my hands. I didn’t mean to, but the kiss was so good, so soft, so true, so different from all the other kisses. This one was given. The others were taken. I guess that was the difference.

That and the love.

After we’d kissed so long my lips went numb, I eased back into my chair. I went slow, afraid that Henry would be angry with me for stopping. I didn’t want to stop, but I had to. He tasted of chocolate and peppermints, the gifts he’d brought this time, the gifts I so often refused. He tasted too good, too beautiful, too romantic. I wanted to go home and draw the curtains. This was too much for one day.

I got up and started for the door.

Like always, Henry let me go. This time though, he cleared his throat, but his love was big enough to keep him in the chair. I’d known that the first time I saw him, looking right at me while so many others stared or looked away. I’d gotten used to that a long time ago, people not seeing me. Until I met Henry. Now though, my heart couldn’t take him looking at me like that, talking about weddings and roses. Forever was too big for me to hold, but I’d held his face, kissed his fingers.

“I thought you didn’t believe in love, Miss Lady,” he called to me in a voice that was loud without being rude. Careless and beautiful like the rest of him.

“I don’t, Mr. Man. Not really. I just wanted me a taste of that candy after all.”

“Changed your mind, huh?”

“Maybe.” He had me. No way out of it. His smile as I looked back said as much. He’d never give up now. Or I at least I hoped not.

He got up slow, but I didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. I had every inch of him memorized, even the parts I might never see. I rested against the door and listened to his chair scrape back, heard the rustle of pages that meant he was thumbing through his Bible for a verse to send me off with.

 "You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you."

For once, I don’t flinch when he says it. He didn’t need to say the chapter or verse. Like all the others, it comes from the Song of Songs, the story of a king and his bride. At first, I thought he was trying to be funny, but he wasn’t.

He isn’t.

I don’t know why or how, but Henry Stuart Thompson loves me. And though I don’t believe in it, I think I love him too.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Henry. Goodbye.” The bell rang over my head as I pushed the door open.

“Tomorrow?”

“No.” I mean it, but if he doesn’t come, I wonder what might happen to me. I’ve given him some power over me, something I haven’t done since—

“I’ll be there.”

I pray that he will.

 

A Love to Believe by Marilynn Griffith

My short story for the WrittenVoicesBlog.com Taste of Romance celebration. Enjoy!

http://www.marilynngriffith.com/

Mobile post sent by sistahfaith using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

His Eye is on the Sparrow

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? (Matthew 6:25-27, KJV)

It's hard not to worry.

Money is one thing, true enough, but there are other things, sacred things, things we give up everything for, things that must be true lest we cease to exist. And those things, they make us worry. They make me worry.

And then, I remember the birds, above my head, soaring with no judge or jury, no education or instruction, save the whisper of the God of the universe, saying simply,"FLY."  I remember the splendor of the flowers, soon to rise up and start their reign on so many ill-managed lawns and forsaken plots of ground. Though they have not received their due care or concern, they cannot, will not disregard the simple command of the One who breathed life into all the earth, "GROW."

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6: 28-30, KJV)

And so I say to you today, to myself...

FLY.

GROW.

BELIEVE.

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:31-34, KJV)

Though it is tempting to savour the taste of tomorrow, impending and spicy on the tips of our tongues, we must not, for today brings it's own mean, it's own triumph, it's own trouble. And so we must tack ourselves down with both hands and one heart to the place called here, seeking above all else the kingdom of GOD and HIS righteousness. Tomorrow rests, gathering strength, waiting its turn. Today may we war on bended knee, work with strength of purpose and give with open hands, focused on what we can change, working with what's in our hands, remembering that God is never surprised...not even by us.

Today's Grace: O God you are my God and I will ever praise you. Give us clarity to see you in tight spaces and low lighting. Help us to remember that You never sleep or slumber, that You are everywhere at all times, looking for someone to show Yourself strong to. May we see You at work today, Lord, in us and in others. Forgive us our trespasses and give us the grace to forgive those who trespass against us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Today's Rhythm: His Eye is on the Sparrow, Lauryn Hill

Rocky Road

No songs today. This one will be purely personal, stupid and devoid of anything particularly uplifting. Still here? Well, I warned you.

I went to schedule my math test today.

Confused? I know. It sounds like a medical exam, right? Well, not so many years ago, I used to work at the Math Lab at Tallahassee Community College. It was pretty cool (especially since math keeps me freakishly happy most of the time) but when I had kid #4, the day care bit was getting crazy and I felt God calling me home, so off I went.

Well...I'm going back. Or at least I'm trying (among other things). The one thing I hadn't counted on was that I'd have to take a math test!  Here I've been tutoring people all these years for their tests and now I have to take one. I've dusted off my TI-85 (well, a friend from church gave me hers. I met her in the lab back the day). I've got to go and get some C batteries for it and pull out my Calc 2 book from the garage. Just to dust up and all, right?

Anyway, I'm sitting there waiting to make the appointment for my test (it's next Wednesday by the way so pray for me, it's Wal Mart after that!) and I pick up the campus literary magazine. My English teacher had asked me to put a piece in it years ago. I never did. Put I sat there and read it and it was awesome. It's called The Eyrie. There's art in there now too. There was even a semi-nude self portrait which suprised me because they used to be really uptight about stuff like that. It was all really great, artsty stuff that made me sigh and dream and feel all poetical.

As I walked back to my van (Blue Bartholomew) with rocks in my shoes a poem wrote itself to me. I smiled. I hope you do. Later.

Rocky Road

Even now, so long later, I feel you
underfoot, undividing the road I'm
trying to travel.

Eyes closed but I don't stumble, for
the beat of you pressed down
guides to hungry dreams.

There wil be blood maybe
thinner than before, cleaned
well, wrapped like an unwanted
baby.

It hurts but we've gone this way
before. I know that sometimes
love walks rocky roads,
shifting kisses from
foot to foot.

I don't worry because
at the edge of me,
hope shines brilliant,
sante fe blue.