Morning in the Valley

Nestled in the crook of the mountainous arm

Quaint cottages and tiny bungalows

Stand resolutely.

The chimneys channel

The rising puffs of smoke

To an azure sky

As the ever rising sun

Sneaks above the horizon.

Ah! Beautiful morning!

A silent ushering of peace.

The awakening of the dawn

Occupants arise to 

The pleasures of the day

Choices

My past overclouds my future:

These choices I have made.

Though right or wrong, I don't know

But made just the same.

I cannot go undo them

Or change the past long spent.

I only have the future

To make my difference.

Uniquely me, one of a kind,

I am confident in who I am.

mb. w. 

Letters

There is something about letters grouped together side by side. They tell us where. They show us what. They give us so much information about things tangible and intangible. They can exalt the lowest servant or humble the prideful king. They travel over oceans and live in wooden homes. They cascade from human lips with lithe tunes of love. They can be small and short or large and tall. Transverse continents, cultures, and ages. Ever changing but always there. They are the ultimate symbols of life. We know these groups of letters as words.

Whom do you see?

Whom do you see

When you look at me.

The humble servant

Or a prideful master.

The one quick to listen

Or the one with an angry temper.

Do you see through me

The Son I represent?

Or do you see a man

Who's the lord if himself?

The glorious radiance 

Of the Son I should reflect.

But do you see me

Instead of him?

My selfish pride

Often stands in the way

Of reflecting his light

So that all can share

The warmth of his gaze

And the wealth of his love.

Whom do you see

When you look at me?

Do you see Him

Or do you see me?

I hope this is helpful to anyone who might read this. I got thinking about this when reading Colossians. I thought, "Am I reflecting Christ like I should?" I honestly couldn't answer that question to my liking so I wrote this as a reminder of what my goal is. Enjoy and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

You Hold Me Gently

O Lord you know my deepest longings

The secret dreams of my lonely heart.

You see the tears that keep silently falling

You ask me to give it all, not just a part. 

It terrifies me to let my dreams go

Wondering if they'll ever come true. 

A man I might not have, 

Yet you remind me that I have you.

You promise me you have it all in control

But still I have doubts. 

You call me to be holy and faithful

But I fail time and time again.

My dreams may be lost and hopeless

But no matter what will happen

You hold me gently in your arms. 

Aflame

Deep crimson, fiery red, burning orange, smoldering yellow

The forests are alight with fire.

They dance uncommon with frenzy 

Calling the world to join them.

"Come," says the weeping willow

"Join us," grunts a sugar maple.

Should I go? 

What is there to ponder, returns my conscience.

You know you want to.

A cacophony of mouse drifts across the field. 

The reverses entice me to join in. 

Yet still I hold back, my spirit depressed.

What have I to celebrate? 

In hope my ears perk up to listen. 

I feel a gentle breeze.

As an exhale through pale lips 

Life. 

A convincjng lie or reality?

I yearn to feel, to know real joy.

I do not know the result but I take the plunge.

Into the forests arms I wonder

Passions abound in a waves of light

Where trees are aflame with desire. 

It pulsates through my being 

I am soon enveloped in the forestry. 

A wreath of leaves, golden and divinely christened

Is placed upon my head.

Twirling trunks abd swirling leaves

Bend and fall around me.

Life burns throughout my being.

Floundering

This strength not of my own I find,

A resting place in life sublime.

Within,without I look around

To see, to quench my fear. 

It runs; it hides and fades into oblivion.

I now have doomed myself to fate. 

I work; I strive to find my end,

Yet stand perplexed, is this real?

Bereft, floundering I hide.

Quivers wrench my body.

I want to find again

This peace that evades me

And leaves me cowering.

This poem and picture is original work of Mary Beth Weaver and hereby copyrighted.

A Bella I May Be

A Bella I May Be

The psychological need to have every hair in place.

No stain on my blouse or zits on my face.

The perfect shoes to match my clothes

I feel like I already need repose.

What if my heel breaks or I loose a nail?

I cannot let my performance fail.

To be on display for everyone to see

Is weary situation for me to be.

Yet I rise again, day by day

To put myself upon display.

The real me who cares not for perfection or dress 

Is all but extinguished in this mess.

A bella I may be in form, so sweet. 

The expectations I cannot meet.

So still and sleek, a sculpture I stand

Your perception of me is a shifting as sand.

All text hereby claimed and copyrighted by license of Mary Beth Weaver.

Invisible

Invisible

My shape is indistinct

Up against the wall 

Unnoticed and dejected.

I feel so lonely.

My skin crawls with longing

To feel a gentle touch.

I want to know that feeling

Of being special and loved

To someone.

I want to shine so brightly

So someone will pick me out

Above all the rest

 And truly notice me.

Yet I fade into the background

Same old clothes as yesterday.

No one says a word to me.

I feel as if I've become

A part of this wall.

Fear wells up within me;

I am invisible.

Invisible is hereby copyrighted by Mary Beth Weaver who claims sole ownership and license to this text above.

My Alternate Self

                             My Alternate Self

I move in rote action

Across the barren sidewalk

Raindrops hit my cheek

My muscles, tight and weak,

Quiver.

I almost drop my books

Tucked underneath my arm.

I feel the judgmental looks

From warm glazed windows

Forbidden.

Why do I try to fit in?

Or change myself for acceptance?

To have the

Right actions

Right thoughts

Right beliefs.

I fear so much;

I cannot be myself.

The weight of turned backs

Is too much to bear.

I shrink away. 

Submitted.

Inside my soul cries out

Struggling against the norm.

I want to know myself

To let my spirit free. 

Free to be who I am

Without judgment

Without guilt

Without remorse.

I am who I am.

I am free.

Yet al that is seen

Is my alternate self. 

Defeat overwhelms me.

I am stuck in bondage.

A little voice cries weakly.

Free me. 

Mary Beth Weaver

All text "Mhy Alternate Self" is hereby copyrighted by Mary Beth Weaver

Blessing and contentment

I realized today just how blessed I am. I have a loving God who wants me to love him. Friends who care about me and share intimately with me. Sisters and parents who invest and sacrifice for me. A church family who  commune with me and worship God with me. I could go on and on relaying the different ways God has blessed me and yet I am still not content. 

There is one thing that my heart longs for more than anything else. I experience the love of a man. One who chose me above all the rest who desires me and cherishes me. 

Yet today in chapel the speaker challenged me to really think about whether I am following God with my heart not just in actions. This is hard because I feel like I have to give up my dream to be able to follow him with my whole heart and give him everything. Still I know that this is what I am commanded to do. To trust God with my future and follow him in the meantime. 

So I challenge you to come along with me and start living in awareness of God and what he wants in your life. I am hoing to focus on the blessings I already have before being unsatisfied with what God has given me.

Divergent: different doesn't mean bad

I have recently read the first book of the Divergent series. I thoroughly enjoyed the story plot and the characters. Tris and Four come alive in ways I never would have imagined. They are brave when I secretly wish I could be, defiant when they need to be, selfless when they desire anything but selflessness. They are divergent. In a world that puts people in factions and doesn't want those who think for themselves this is not good. But it is a reminder to me and can be for you my readers that being different isn't always bad. Tris puts her life on the line to save others. Four faces his greatest fear trying to give people a chance to save themselves. Being divergent is not rebellion against authority alone or a defiant self-pleasing act: it is recognizing one'a human nature and controlling it. It's truly living.

Power of prayer

Today I got to go to a prayer group on campus. It was student led and all us girls shared from our hearts. I could be real there. I found that my problems really did mean something to them and that I can share and bear their burdens too. 

Robert Frost's "The Demiurge's Laugh"

"It was far in the sameness of the wood; I was running with joy on the Demon's trail, Though I knew what I hunted was no true god. It was just as the light was beginning to fail That I suddenly heard-all I needed to hear: it has lasted meant and many a year. The sound was behind me instead of before, A sleepy sound, but mocking half, As of one who utterly couldn't care. The Demon arose from his wallow laugh, Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went; And well I knew what the Demon meant. I shall not forget how his laugh rang out. I felt as a fool to have been so caught, And checked my steps to make pretense It was something among the leaves I sought (Though doubtful whether he stayed to see). Thereafter I sat me against a tree."                  This poem portrays a man who realizes that he has spent so much of his life following a lie. This Demon convinces this man that he is a god but the man finds the true nature of him. Now he knows not where he should turn. He questions everything. Who can he trust?

Thoughts in the morning

I wake up tired, barely keeping my eyes open. Thoughts go straight to the sleep I don't have. I go through my morning routine like a robot. Where is my joy this morning? My love of life? I should be cherishing this day that I've been given to live. The birds singing, the fresh fruit, surrounded by people who love me and a God who died for me. I must capture and make the most of this opportunity I have to influence life. 

Bar Mitzvah-- A Short-short story

Bar Mitzvah

It started in the north and south at the same time. Generals von Rundstedt and von Bock led the fourth and eighth divisions of the German army to capture Poland in the blitzkrieg that surprised all of Europe. None of the residents of Koszalin, Poland expected the German invasion by sea and air of northern Poland. Rumors spread through the town of a possible German invasion but Josef Solanski didn’t pay much attention to the news floating around Koszalin. His thirteenth birthday was coming up on September 7 and along with that his bar mitzvah.

The fire crackled next to Josef as he sat listening to his mother and grandmother discussed his bar mitzvah and ensuing celebration. He felt a funny feeling every time he thought of his bar mitzvah. He had been taught all his life about YHWH and each year his Jewish family faithfully kept all the traditions of the Jews, but he had started to wonder if all of that was true. Ekaterina always talked about Jesus and how he was the Messiah that his religion taught about.  If Ekaterina was right that Jesus could heal her so that she could walk better, then maybe he was worth believing in. Josef looked into fire next to him. Still how would he tell his parents of his shifting beliefs? Did he even want his bar mitzvah? These feelings had been welling inside him and Josef thought he would burst if he didn’t let them out soon.

“Ruth, the boy doesn’t need all that,” spoke his father.

“But Reuben it’s his bar mitzvah. We need to celebrate properly.”

Josef blurted out it out before he even thought. “I don’t want my bar mitzvah.”

Shock registered on all of the faces in the room. Before anyone had time to respond, Josef explained himself. “I think Jesus might really be the Messiah. Ekaterina keeps telling me all about the miracles he did. What she says makes sense.”

“Ekaterina told you this?” spoke his father with a stern and startled voice. “You shall see her no more and you will have your bar mitzvah. What she says is not true.”

With that said his father stood up and walked out of the room effectively ending the discussion. Josef got up and headed to bed without having to be told. Maybe that wasn’t the right time but he didn’t know of any good time really. He just wanted to know the truth and if Jesus would heal his beloved Ekaterina then he would pray. He would do anything for his best friend.

Morning dawned early but silence engulfed Koszalin. Josef walked quietly through the outskirts of the city, being careful to not pass the bank where his father worked. He didn’t want his father to know he was going to meet Ekaterina. She was supposed to meet him in the apple orchard west of town. Pushing a branch aside, Josef walked farther into the orchard. Silence caught him off guard. No birds chirped, no squirrels scampered on the ground. Slowing down his step even though he was late, Josef guardedly approached a clearing. The horrifying scene that greeted him left his stomach hurling. Ekaterina lay on the ground her legs lay twisted and broken. Blood enveloped her body and face and bruises covered her arms and body. Her lifeless eyes stared up at him.

Bitter tears sprang from Josef’s eyes as he knelt by her side. “Ekaterina?”

Silence greeted him. His best friend was dead. Who could have done this? Ekaterina didn’t deserve this cruelty. She was the sweetest girl and her love for Jesus glowed from her. Is this how God repaid her devotion and love?

Josef’s eye caught a red cloth tucked inside her hand in the pocket of her dress. He pulled it out. A square red patch with a German swastika showed on the cloth. The Germans had done this! His father had warned him to be careful because of the ever closer approach of German troops. At last they’d come and left something beautiful yet horrible in their wake. Hatred rose up in his heart for the German soldiers that had killed his best friend. Josef picked up the paper that she also had and read what it said. He realized it was a verse from her bible that she said she was going to show him.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

If this was love, Josef didn’t want it. All Ekaterina had told him about Jesus had made sense but now he didn’t know what to believe. How could there be a God when this happened? Grabbing the paper from Ekaterina, Josef tucked it in his pocket and dejectedly walked out of the orchard and away from Koszalin. Leaving all he loved behind. The bar mitzvah didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing to celebrate.

Bar Mitzvah is the original work of Mary Beth Weaver and hereby she claims the copyright for the work written above. ©

All scripture is taken from the New King James Version. Rom. 8.35-37.

the need to be liked

What drives the human person to desire to be liked? It's a driving force that makes a woman change her dress or a man say silly jokes in front of friends. We want others to accept us and reassure we are liked. Even with my family I find myself thinking. Do they like this about me? What if I do this? Or if it was a man and a woman in a relationship work so hard to make the other like him or her.
Is it really worth all the effort we are putting forth? I don't think so. It doesn't matter what others think about us. It's how God views us. He wants us to be his children and love him. Getting liked by others isn't what life is supposed to be all about. There's a greater purpose out there than being popular or accepted. You are the only you that will ever exist. Make sure everyone knows that you won't make yourself as others think you should be but who you are. Anything less is robbery to yourself and the world.
Lucie Inspired

In pop culture sometimes I wonder if it is even worth fighting for correct grammar and word usage. I get discouraged when I see words with numbers in them and people who don't even know what a verb is. But then I think if I don't fight for it meaningful communication will be lost. Grammar and words our one of the things that puts us above animals. It has the power to draw us together or tear us apart. But without it we are no more than blubbering fools who cannot form educated and complete thoughts.
I love grammar, words, and communication and I hope that everyone will see the importance of being able to appreciate the colorful and descriptive adjectives of a moonlit night or the taste of cheesecake. Without words all of this would be impossible. It would be like a mute world full of humans unable to relate to each other or enjoy the fruits of this earth to the fullest measure. How sad that would be.
Lucie Inspired

my new poem

Here is my new poem. Look at the screen shot. It's called Evensong and Turtledoves.

Up the Downward Staircase

Up the Downward Staircase

Up the downward staircase

Trudging, I ascend.   

Rising up slowly,

My baggage weighing me down

Deceit and discouragement beat me.

My effort begins to wane.

Striving ceases to bring me

Contentment, peace, and blessing.

Up the downward staircase

Still, I climb.

Hope gives way to sorrow

Though each step I rise higher

All my work is nothing

Emptiness is all I’ve found

Each step seems that much higher.

Success I’ll never reach.

The staircase ever winding

Into stormy clouds

Defeated but ever climbing

I walk up the downward staircase.

This is my favorite poem that I wrote. It speaks of struggle against yourself. Hoping for something that is better yet being defeated by your own striving. It so often happens in life and we keep on without realizing it. But it doesn't have to be that way. That is the metaphor of walking up a staircase that goes always downward.

Lord of the Rings

I've been reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy and it's been fascinating. JRR Tolkien is a true genius in fantasy. As I'm writing my book, I've been thinking about how to write developed and true characters. I've heard that writers leave little bits of themselves in their characters. I think that's true. Yet I also struggle to not make all the characters like me. I want to portray them as unique. For in real life that's the way it is.
Tolkien was great at describing each characters hopes, feelings, and goals. Aragorn has different motives than Merry. Gandalf may know more than Pippan but they are all weaved to create a beautiful story.
Another thing I noticed about Tolkien's writing is that throughout the trilogy he ties in this every croaching shadow that is bringing doom to the characters. It relates a struggle or conflict with man and time to finish their task before the shadow conquers. It is a metaphor for life. As humans we struggle against circumstance to succeed and fulfill our life purpose before the shadow of death falls on us. We can carry on like Frodo and Sam knowing that what we are striving for will help others in the end, especially if we are Christians.
Lucie

punctuation: what are you?

I have a facination for grammar and punctuation. But I understand that the common person doesn't. So let's have some fun and I'll teach you some things. (I apologize if you already know some of this.)
The two most frustrating misuses of punctuation.
1. The apostrophe in words that are not possessive.
ex."I have a lot of book's."
In this sentence books is just a plural noun and is informing us that I have a lot of books. Now if I were to say this it would be the correct usage of the apostrophe.
ex."Mary Beth's books are well taken cared of." Here it's telling whose books they are. Mine.
2. The semicolin in sentences that should not be joined. Now I know every writer avoids semicolins like the Black Plague but really it's quite simple to use if you just remember two simple rules.
      1. Semicolins can't be used to join two sentences that do not have similar messages and that cannot stand alone as a sentence.
ex."When I read a book; it gives me great pleasure."
When you're trying to communicate you wouldn't leave off your sentence with " when I read a book."  It leaves the listener hanging to find out the answer. What happens when you read a book?
Now here's an example of a proper way bonuses a semicolin.
ex." I love to read; I love to write."
Here these two sentences make sense and don't leave the reader hanging if they were separate but they also have similar structures. It tells what I love.
       2. The second rule to using semicolins that if you have a huge list with a lot if commas already a semicolin is used ti separate the different items being listed.
I hope this little bit information has enlightened you and helped cousin becoming a better writer. Punctuation is needed to help effectively communicate, but if not used correct it actually does the opposite.

Time where did you go?

Time seems to evade me.I have such a hard time finding time to post on here or even keep writing. I write poems occasionally but I haven't written in a while. I'm sure that you have had a hard time with this before. Our schedules get so busy and we stop going to our desks to write.
I was recently inspired to write a page a day. With all my school work I haven't started this yet. I hope to though because I have some stories in my head. I encourage you to join me in this if you have a hard time writing or don't have time.
I am doing well on my word of the day. I have missed one yet. I am learning a lot of words.

The Dweller

When thinking about pain and suffering I thought of this. It expresses the despair shared by dwellers all around the world but also offers hope.

The Dweller
Cold stone houses and empty rooms,
Red blood cuts and open wounds.
The Dweller wanders about
In deep thought
On suffering, the symptom of a life.
It reverberates with pain
And heartache throughout.
It wasn't how it should've been.
The dark shadows all consuming with fear
Wraught in the deepest foundation
Yet...hope lifts up and revives this heart
Bringing light to the darkened room.
Gone is the weight if despair and emptiness.
Though suffering and pain still remain,
The Dweller knows the truth.
Freedom is gained in love.
Lucie Inspired

Behind the scenes

Have you ever read a book or watched a movie and wondered what goes on behind the scenes? I certainly have. I want to know just how they decide what word to use or who chose that specific actor. But more importantly I want to discover the meaning or purpose of the book or movie.  Why did the author portray the protagonist that way? What was the reason for that scene? What message is trying to be taught?
I encourage you the next time you go read a book or watch a movie that you really stop to think what message it is sending you. What the purpose is behind the scenes.
Lucie Inspired

Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

"Thou wouldst be loved?--then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being every thing which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So wire the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise
And love--a simple duty.
To F---S S. O---D