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    The Generosity
    The Generosity
    The Generosity
    Ebook132 pages1 hour

    The Generosity

    By Luci Shaw

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    About this ebook

    “Rejoice, readers, as you receive the generosity of Luci Shaw's 76 new grace-infused parable poems. Autobiography once more merges with theology as these poems illuminate in splendored natural detail how the seasons of creation parallel and explain the seasons of her life as a poet. Again and again, these poems shower us with glorious epiphanies from the natural world as it reflects God's generosity at work such as “spring's impossible news of green.” These poems confirm that in poetry as in faith “ripeness is all.” Like Wordsworth, Luci is celebrated for being a highly gifted landscape poet whose works are rich in imagery from the physical world—meadows filled with seeds, flowers, and also poems which are like "shoots" in Luci's writing life. Animals, too, great and small (beetles, cricket, and voles to bears and whales) play a major role in Luci's poetics of creation; God is likened to a great bear who leaves paw tracks for us to follow. In their deep faith and vibrant colors and designs, the poems in Generosity might be considered Luci's Book of Kells. We need to be like Luci's father who carried her poems in his briefcase to show his friends.” —Philip C. Kolin, Author, Reaching Forever: Poems; Distinguished Professor of English (Emeritus), University of Southern Mississippi
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherParaclete Press
    Release dateAug 18, 2020
    ISBN9781640605121
    The Generosity
    Author

    Luci Shaw

    Luci Shaw was born in London, England, in 1928. A poet and essayist whose writing has appeared in numerous literary and religious journals, in 2013 she received the tenth annual Denise Levertov Award for Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. The author of over thirty-five books of poetry and creative non-fiction, since 1986 she has been Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver. She lives with her husband, John Hoyte, in Bellingham, WA.

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      Book preview

      The Generosity - Luci Shaw

      INTRODUCTION

      One Christmas my husband and I sent out an original Christmas card, as we have done for as many years as I can remember. Someone had posted on Facebook an image of an ancient, weathered stump, in a forest, from which a fresh green leaf had shot up, like a mixed metaphor. It reminded us both of an image the prophet Isaiah had presented in Isaiah 1:11: "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a branch will bear fruit. (see Prophecy," p. 109).

      As usual, I wrote a poem about this happy surprise and John illustrated it. Often, I feel as old as the stump, and I’m as shocked as anyone that poems keep surfacing, arriving without strenuous labor on my part. I’m not claiming to be the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy, or that I’m that burgeoning shoot of green, simply that I’m attempting something improbable at the age of 91, and that I feel enlivened as fresh shoots of words jump off pages at me, demanding my attention (see "While Reading The New Yorker" p. 28). This is but one of many examples of the sort of thing that keeps happening, sometimes at inconvenient intersections in my life.

      The title of this collection, The Generosity, is a reminder of the prodigal green that flourishes everywhere in nature, despite our human depredations. And of the generosity of the Creator who planned the green of the world in a regenerative process that replenishes itself in cycles of seed and sprout—I’m still thinking of my Christmas card image—and growth and leaf and flower and fruit. This generosity gives us the means to celebrate not only our bountiful natural world, but our humanity with possibilities for displaying love and sharing and forgiveness.

      I seem to write no matter the prevailing conditions. The Spirit has me tethered. I write out of enthusiasm rather than discipline. A snowstorm. A bad cold. Visitors. Grocery shopping. Needing a nap. Driving in the country. Cooking dinner. Making our bed (or feeling the guilt of leaving it unmade). Immediacy is my mistress, so what I am doing at my age makes me seem like a rebellious teen let loose on the world. It’s a bit of a stimulant in that I feel high when the words are charging into my mind, demanding

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