Luci Shaw’s 7 Words of Wisdom for Artists of Faith

Luci Shaw, proudly sporting her bungee jump shirt, at Hope Chapel, in Austin, Texas, September 2004.

I first met Luci Shaw at a Cèilidh.

A first-year seminary student at Regent College, in the fall of 1996, I’d joined the entire school at a camp just south of the Canadian border for a weekend retreat. The highpoint of the retreat was a Scottish folk dance that took place on Saturday night.

Like many of my generation, I’d been a huge fan of the English-born Luci’s poetry and fanboyed over her presence at the retreat. She’d been friends with Madeleine L’Engle, she’d served as a charter member of the Chrysostom Society, she’d bungee-jumped in her seventies: What was not to love about this woman?

I plucked up the courage and asked her if she’d pair up with me for one of the dances that had us whirling around the room, sweating and laughing. Despite her age and her obvious limp, she danced with a child’s heart. It made me love her even more.

Years later, as a pastor in Austin, I invited her to fly down from her hometown of Bellingham, Washington, in order to lead a seminar for poets and writers, to give a public reading of her poetry, and to partner with me in my sermon for that particular Sunday in the fall of 2004.

I’d also asked her to contribute to a book that I had hoped to edit that would have included a series of reflections by senior members of the art and faith movement at the time. Each person would be asked the same question:

“What wisdom might you offer to the next generation of artists of faith?”

My hope with the book is that it would encourage younger artists who faced their own unique challenges and opportunities in the early twenty-first century. The project never got off the ground, regrettably, but there was one artist who did answer my query: Luci Shaw, blessed be her name, who in 2020 who published her fourteenth volume of poetry, The Generosity, at the tender age of 92.

Perhaps the book will one day see the light of day. Perhaps it may show up in the book that I’m currently writing on the vocation of artists as a follow up to the material that I explore in my books on the body and the liturgical arts.

Until then, I leave you here with Luci’s words of wisdom and trust that they might encourage you in your own journey with Jesus and with art.