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1 " I think of these desert years of mine, not of my choosing. Maybe if it were all smooth and comfortable, if my pride and professionalism were defining life for me, God's steel-quiet, penetrating word would have been lost in the babble and sheen of success. "
― Luci Shaw
2 " Paul gives us an astonishing understanding of waiting in the New Testament book of Romans, as rendered by Eugene Peterson, 'Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.' With such motivation, we can wait as we sense God is indeed with us, and at work within us, as he was with Mary as the child within her grew. "
3 " Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled - perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into a wilderness of spiritual barrenness and thirst. For him, and for many other Old Testament seers, the vacuum of dry indifference into which he spoke was not yet a place of fulfillment. Yet the promise of God through this human mouthpiece (and the word "promise" always holds a kind of certainty) was verdant with hope, a kind of greenness and glory. A softening of hard-heartedness, a lively expectation, would herald the coming of Messiah. And once again, in this season of Advent, the same promise for the same Anointed One is coming closer. "
4 " Mary's SongBlue homespun and the bend of my breastkeep warm this small hot naked starfallen to my arms. (Rest...you who have had so farto come.) Now nearness satisfiesthe body of God sweetly. Quiet he lieswhose vigor hurleda universe. He sleepswhose eyelids have not closed before.His breath (so slight it seemsno breath at all) once ruffled the dark deepsto sprout a world.Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,he dreams,hearing no music from his other spheres.Breath, mouth, ears, eyeshe is curtailedwho overflowed all skies,all years.Older than eternity, now heis new. Now native to earth as I am, nailedto my poor planet, caught that I might be free,blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,brought to this birthfor me to be new-born,and for him to see me mendedI must seen him torn. "
― Luci Shaw , Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation
5 " Risk should not reflect a celebration of foolishness but a freedom from fear. "
6 " Too Much to AskIt seemed too much to ask of one small virgin that she should stake shame against the will of God. All she had to hold to, later, were those soft, inward flutterings and the remembered surprise of a brief encounter - spirit with flesh. Who would think it more than a dream wish? An implausible, laughable defense.And "
7 " It seemed too much to ask of one small virgin that she should stake shame against the will of God. All she had to hold to, later, were those soft, inward flutterings and the remembered surprise of a brief encounter - spirit with flesh. Who would think it more than a dream wish? An implausible, laughable defense.And "
8 " I pray my soul will welcome always that small seed. That I will hail it when it enters me.I don't mind being grit, soil, dirt, mud-brown, laced with the rot of old leaves, if only the seedcan "
9 " There is nothing in the universe about which art cannot be created. "
― Luci Shaw , Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith
10 " I find that as soon as I put words and ideas onto paper in my notebook, or type them into my computer, they begin to gather to themselves more images, more words and ideas. As I write I have the sensation of being at the center of a small vortex of enlarging connections, as in the poem above, and my pen or my fingers on the keyboard move faster and faster to keep pace with them. "
