Curly-Haired Irish Girls

The Irish girl appears at first glance to be naïve, flirty, and free-spirited.

She loves having a good time and will leap boundaries in search of adventure.

Adorned with the sparkle of smiling eyes and a mop of wayward curls,

She frequently calls upon wit and humor to diffuse the heavier moments of  life.

If you find yourself lucky enough to win and keep an Irish girl’s heart,

She won’t float off with the wind chasing rainbows for greener grass or pots o’gold.

Valuing true love above all other treasures of this world,

She believes it's never good for the heart, health, or fortune to say no to Love.
Upon discovering this love she will be inclined to hold onto and cherish it forever.

However, she will only accept rejection and defeat in it so many times,

Once her heart has been broken or love says no to her,
She eventually learns to reconcile, and that letting go will salvage herself.

She can and will love fearlessly across the divides of time and distance,

For she's been taught by the example of cherished kin that loving and living with all her heart,

Means accepting whatever comes her way with bowed grace and dignity.

She knows placing her bet against the odds in love is never scorned by the Irish, only deeply respected.
And finds there is vital necessity in the sweeping change that
Leaves waves of angst and regret behind while stopping the growth of stone over her heart.

The Irish girl learns to value the truth from trial and error, even when it's heartbreaking.

She discovers it will protect who you are while creating who she will become.

She’s tremblingly aware her heart is hanging out for the entire world to see.

Yet, is bolstered by knowing if she wins or looses, she will survive every round,

Because to be Irish is to be imbued with a cheeky disposition and smart humor

That allows her to firmly embrace trials while seeking joy around the next bend in every road.

She tends to pour herself cheerfully, but not naively into others without reservation

And her happiness spills out with curb-hopping and other fickle whimsies.

However beware! Her intensity is not limited to the realms of lighter moments.

For she lives her life similar to that of the wild horse infused with unbridled passion.

If you rouse her anger, she’s prone to hurling litanies of curse words faster than her prayers.

And splitting her heart will send rivers of tears flowing directly into your ocean.

She requires strength and loyalty to ground her floaty, free spiritedness,

But won't take kindly to having her intelligence diminished or passions smothered.

If you attempt to extinguish her life fire with perceived or intended cold cruelty,

She’ll warn you before sounding war against you with hot fires of raging fury,

Then she will pray that God will soften her heart and lure yours away from the fight,

For goodness grows by the fire with her and she's not inclined to be a martyr on all battlefields.

The Irish girl will not live without the passion she requires for her life fire to burn.

And she may warn you rather abruptly if the fire at home needs fuel or the well begins to run dry,

She will willingly burn what she has and doesn't have to give for you and herself if she must. 

Her dreams and heart were born amidst the storms of life and both hold true in heavy winds,

And will have no regrets tethering her dreams to yours if she sees you've lost your way.

She found she's rather good at holding hands and seeking lost treasures in all sorts of weather.

She is a strong believer of second chances,

And will be the first to wholeheartedly admit she’s needed them a time or two.

When you hold onto her heart with sincerity you’ll receive many of them freely.

Those who cause her unintentional hurt will be quickly forgiven,

But if you dare to take advantage of her vulnerability or loves without honor,

She’ll pray God mercifully turns your heart before your ankle so you'll not be seen limping forever.

The Irish Girl can and will draw lines in the sands of time.

She knows exactly who she is and will be sure you know who she is too.

Fighting for her family rises above all else in life, including herself.

Mama bear or an army of ghosts are no match for the secure faith of the Irish Mother.

For she comes to the fray donned with Patrick’s Breastplate and her grandmother’s rosary in hand.

She's prepared to perish in such battles because she's certain Jesus has already won The War.

The Irish girl is certain to be an emotional rollercoaster you encounter on the banister of life,

And you won't escape the experience of extreme highs and lows with her at your side.

Her compassion will always offer you a chance to jump off before the ride begins,
Because she recognizes dignity is the key to staying firmly planted upon one’s horse.

She won't be irresponsible with the exposure of your armored affections,

But will never hesitate to fiercely protect her own affections from your irresponsibility.

Despite all of her strength and loyalty in love,

Her greatest strength is always going to be her greatest weakness.

Her heart definitely has a mind of its own even though it's been wired to her own mind.

She's learned from repeated failure to kneel and toss out pride in the muck and mire,

Because that is where hearts learn to flow with grateful love for Jesus, failures, and forgiveness.

She's certain God sent confession as a gift to save the world from flaming hearts like hers.

The Irish girl knows how to belong to herself and accepts God will send her where she belongs.

She doesn't fear the hanging of laundry with friends or looking at it for more than a moment,

And may even call it pretty because dirt can be washed away without changing the weave of the fabric.

She knows it's important to own up to her flaws before she calls you out on yours,

And acknowledges that despite all of her graceful efforts to be dignified and queenly,

She's simply a wayward lass who longs to roam the countryside long after the dinner bell rings.

If you have the good fortune of being cherished in the golden heart of an Irish Girl, 

She’ll consider you and yours as close as kin and always back you up with prayer.

If she calls you A Chara, she will be the truest of that tender endearment.

Her only price is honesty, respect, fair warnings, and the ownership of your mistakes.

She’ll never require life with you to be a delicate bed of thorn-free, hybrid flowers.

She happens to have a strong preference for the wild variety she may prick her finger upon.

In loving memory of my grandmother, Mary Jane Noon Hurne and great-grandmother, Mable Flanagan Noon.
The Irish Women who will always be cherished in our hearts.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Distant Connections

     There is a faded blue barn board cabinet standing in our dining room that holds a sentimental collection of odds and ends.  The only value it has is the graceful significance that we've attached to it as symbolic reminders of the loves in our lives we've lost tangible connections with.  The door is cleverly constructed from an old single-paned window that I like to think of as a transparent shield keeping its glassy inhabitants safe from swinging labrador tails and inquisitive young explorers.  It also strikes me as a crude looking glass that lets light shine across memories, obstacles in love we've overcome, and life lessons from people we learned to be grateful for because, in one way our another, they solidified our connections with each other and God.  Together we've felt our share of splinters wedged into our hearts and have also removed a fair share of them from curious fingers roaming across the rough surface of that cabinet. 
     
     Connections.  We need them.  We seek to protect and maintain our relationships with each other. Who we are is woven into a relational pattern with others before we are born .

 ~For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. ~

Psalm 139:13
 

     God weaves us together as a connected group of people to hem us in, keep us from flying away in stormy winds, and provide shelter for us.  He does not intend for us to make it on our own and He understands our relational human hearts are vulnerable.  He also knows they can start to unravel or come apart at the seams when our connections are severed.  Have you ever felt that way?  I have.  I've felt the splinters of loss wedge themselves so deep into the vulnerable softness of my heart that I desperately cried out against it.  There have been moments I struggled and wrestled with the age old question of "WHY?" through hot stormy tears.  Some of the painful disconnections I had to accept left me feeling like the knitting of myself was unraveling in multiple directions all at once.  Recently I had a season of life that asked me to cross over the territory of some scarred over wounds I did not want to look at again.  However when I stopped arguing with God about it and paused long enough to listen, I could hear Him whispering to my heart, "Let me be your connection."  I am also certain because He knew me, He planned ahead for it by blessing me with some strong comforting allies who knew how to hold onto me when I was sitting in the middle of an emotional wipe-out.  On the other side of that storm, I've been able to reflect upon what I was being asked to learn.

     When we find ourselves stranded in hopeless moments brought on by the loss of our tangible connections with loved ones, He hurts for us and with us.  He wants us to let Him get close enough to remove splinters, wipe tears, and breath in new life.  All He needs us to do is ASK for help.  When the ax of time and distance expertly tries to sever our connections, His promise of eternal life stands the test of time and holds us together.  He reminds us that everything and everyone we have to let go of and commit to His care for a season will be kept safe.

~For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruler, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.~

Romans 8:38

 
    I wrote Distant Connections as a sort of love song and reminder that no matter how many connects or disconnects I am asked to endure, God alone is the true source of everything I need.  It was a cry and a prayer asking Him to be there for me through it all no matter who comes in and out of my life.  I felt it expressed the needs and empty places we feel inside ourselves and how we all want to be loved.   I needed to reconnect with the fact that even though human connections are an essential part of God's design for my life, He is the center cord holding it all together.  He patiently reminded me that no one can or should take the place of my relationship with Him.  I also was reminded that He alone is able to weave all of our frayed, unraveled, and severed connections back together for us even if those connections feel hopelessly distant.  There is peace in the knowledge that there is still beauty on the other side of what we cannot see through the looking glass.  God will keep our fragile connections safe even when we can't seem to get beyond the splintery roughness of life.

 Distant Connections

When joyful

Flaming hearts dance

Leaping from grounded shells

Soaring above thinning clouds,

Release them.

When sorrowful

Streaming eyes drain

Flowing from compressed hearts

Coursing into oceanic spaces,

Open floodgates.

When grateful

Teeming cells overflow

Washing through every channel

Rippling blessings outward,

Return them.

When seeking
fevered dreams venture

Resounding against inner shadows

Widening reduced perspectives,

Join the hunt.

When productive

Thirsting hands weave

Connecting loosened fibers

Yielding abundant harvests,

Create more. 

When weary

Wavering souls fight

Pressing into dreary minds

Claiming space to dwell,

Fight for them. 

When silent

Torrential words cease

Calming turbulent cores

Delivering tranquil times,

Recharge again.

When afraid

Wayward feet slip

Unsettling precarious beams

Teetering on fragile lines,

Hold fast.

When broken

Heaving chests cave

Starving life from burdened lungs

Smothering raging fires,

Breathe in. 

When triumphant

Ringing voices clear

Freeing prisoned ears

Harmonizing predestined tunes,

Sing with them.

Shaunda M. Eck 

Snow Globes & Plastic Bubbles: Why I Write

     Do you remember those red vending machines that used to be at the front of every grocery store, drug store, and restaurant?  The ones brimming full of those plastic bubble encapsulated treasures we used to covet as kids?  In went our hoarded pennies, nickels, and dimes, and out popped a handful of kaleidoscopic sugar or some prize we would carry around with us for a day until it was broken or lost in the haste of running off on a new adventure.  The plastic bubbles were dropped, accidentally stepped on, or tossed in the trash by our mothers when they were cleaning house.

     Our lives are full of plastic bubble moments that fade quickly or get left behind in the chaos of running forward.  While we speed forward through one season of life into another, tackling school, jobs, marriage, and family, we travel across a land strewn with plastic bubbles.  In plastic bubble land, moments, people, and words get tossed out, casually overused, and cheapened.  So why do we write at all or bother with putting our two-cents into the massive ever growing word machine in e-space?  Possibly we are still holding onto more than plastic bubbles with child-like hope and praying that every once in a blue moon some breath taking beauty will take shape and pop out instead.  Something more like a snow globe.

     You see, our lives also contain definitive sparkly moments we cherish just like one of those snow globes our mothers would pull out of boxes before Christmas and then place upon a shelf or windowsill where it could be kept safely away from inquisitive chubby hands.  My mother had one she kept in her bedroom.  I relished the feel of stealing away from chaos and chores into the forbidden territory on tip-toe so I could sit on her tidy bed in the tranquil coolness, twist the knob underneath, and listen to a dreamy tune while I breathlessly watched sparkly bits float and drift around the scene illuminated by the starry, stranded lights outside her snowy window.  It not only gave me a moment to breathe, but the time also connected me with my hopes and dreams for the future with the eyes of a child.  We all have moments in time, people, and places we cherish in our hearts like this.  Every now and again we need to unpack our memories, brush the dust off, and shake them around so we can keep in touch with ourselves and listen to the tune of an older season gone by.

Where do I begin?

     However, as we mature, we realize we will have to navigate and negotiate through a vast ocean of memories and moments.  Precious time slips through our hands like sand slipping through an hourglass and sometimes we find it necessary to choose what we will hold onto and what we will let go of as we are swept forward.  Knowledge comes at us in short bursts and long painful climbs.  Along the way our collection multiplies, tucked away for safe keeping in the hallowed halls of our hearts and memorial chambers of our mind.   We will more than likely come across places in time that we discover we must pause and clean house to make room for growth and lighten our load.  A daunting task, we can struggle with knowing where to begin sorting through it all.  Somewhere in the middle of our messes God patiently shows us what to let go of and what to hold onto.  We eventually learn to see the difference between cheap plastic bubbles and cherished snow globes.

Ingenious artwork by Camryn Forrest Designs

 

      I've been writing ever since I was a little girl.  As an adult my childhood love has become more than a hobby.  It is a link to Jesus, the cornerstone of my life, as well as a personal touchstone.  Most of the time I write to vent out whatever gets trapped inside the spaces within so it doesn't stay bottled up, bobbing up and down uselessly inside of some restless ocean in my heart.  Other moments I write for the delight of holding onto lovely snow globes in my own life.  It challenges me to cough up my two-cents while it gives me a chance to steal away for those slower moments in a usually hectic life, much like I used to do as a child.  Writing has given me a way to reflect upon lessons of the past and who God is calling me to become.  My life, as yours, has been littered and blessed with collected moments I have needed to clear out or have another look at.  I pray you are able to enjoy all of the moments of your life and whatever they have in store for you.  I hope that here you may find a word or two that helps you navigate through your own world of plastic bubbles and cherished snow globes.

~Shaunda M. Eck~

Out of Exile: Breathing New Life Into Old Words

     I pulled the scrappy draft of this poem out of exile recently.  It was tucked away in an old photo album from a lifetime ago.  Our children helped me take and choose some photos of different antiques around our home to add to my poetry.  They have been having as much fun with photography as I am having breathing life back into old words.

     Antiques remind me of people.  Both have acquired their share of battle scars along the way.  Some are beaten in roughly from neglect or abuse, while other marks leave tactile etchings of life and the seasoned maturity we define as character.   Their flaws and grooves ask you to cherish and love them smoother with patience.  Much like seasoned hearts, they reach out for a new safe harbor,  a place they are once again at home in. 



OUT OF EXILE

How did it become so floydian,
Desperately scratching surfaces
Of antique, hollow spaces
Housed within safety-wired shells?

What began the narrow defining
Of weary travellers and trains
Bouncing off collected scraps
Of impenetrable armor?

When will the viewing of
Scarlet trails be made clear
Through shards of salty glass
Relinquished fearfully into steel vices?

Why spark the embarkation
From the confines of squared matrixes
Only to drag affectionate fraility
Around silent bulwarks of a labyrinth?

~Shaunda Eck~