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Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey
In this book, writer-poet Luci Shaw has given us a lifetime of exquisite reflections on nature, love, death, suffering, loss, faith, doubt, creativity, curiosity, lifelong learning―all of it drawn from the breadth of her own experience, harvested in penetrating and lyrical insights. Still active in her eighties, Luci now turns her attention to the season of edging toward the borders. Her spirit of adventure, her brave transparency, and her openness to all that life offers (as well as inflicts) makes her a captivating and hope-inspiring mentor. For most of us, growing older is a reality we put off as long as possible―until we realize with a shock that it is happening to us. We immediately look around to see how others on the path just ahead of us are dealing with it. So here is the intrepid Luci Shaw, taking readers on a virtual hike with her, with steps more deliberate and slow but also with surprising vistas that fill us with gratitude. In this book Luci serves as a fearless and eloquent scout. As she traverses new territory, she records her experiences lovingly, honestly, sorrowfully, joyfully―here's what it's like, and here's what to be ready for. These field notes will inform your own journey, no matter what your age.
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 3, 2014
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191 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
January 18, 2016
Four and a half stars.
Luci Shaw is a poet I have admired and have been following for a number of years. She is now in her mid-eighties and still living a rich life, which make her eminently qualified to write about life and aging. Interspersed with her thoughts on aging, sharing aspects of her own life, her doubts and her walk with God, are her poems. Some are delicate as the Queen Anne’s lace flowers she loves. Others are humorous and quirky.
While I could not agree with her passion for camping, knitting, white flowers and Venice, that didn’t lessen my enthusiasm for this lovely, thought provoking book. Yes, it may be about aging but it is written with honesty, grace and humour. It is not a book to zip through quickly, but one to slow down, savour and think about. An interesting sideline for me, was that it made me start writing poems of my own again. This is not a book to read once and cast aside. It is one I will return to again and again over the days and hopefully years ahead.
And I adore the cover of this book which sets the tone perfectly.
Luci Shaw is a poet I have admired and have been following for a number of years. She is now in her mid-eighties and still living a rich life, which make her eminently qualified to write about life and aging. Interspersed with her thoughts on aging, sharing aspects of her own life, her doubts and her walk with God, are her poems. Some are delicate as the Queen Anne’s lace flowers she loves. Others are humorous and quirky.
While I could not agree with her passion for camping, knitting, white flowers and Venice, that didn’t lessen my enthusiasm for this lovely, thought provoking book. Yes, it may be about aging but it is written with honesty, grace and humour. It is not a book to zip through quickly, but one to slow down, savour and think about. An interesting sideline for me, was that it made me start writing poems of my own again. This is not a book to read once and cast aside. It is one I will return to again and again over the days and hopefully years ahead.
And I adore the cover of this book which sets the tone perfectly.
August 7, 2020
I found this book lovely and wise. I'm sure I will return to it again as I get older. Interview at Off the Page forthcoming.
September 9, 2025
I ❤️ Luci. Nourishing thoughts on living well as we age- beautiful perspective.
January 4, 2018
”To get older is to watch the door close inch by inch
against my will so that the inflow of silky air
stops, and the creek’s subtleties of sound
in the small house of my ear I listen closely to
the message of blood, knowing others are deaf to it.”
I have read a few of Shaw’s poems. I know that Shaw was a close friend of Madeline L’Engle, who has been one of my heroes for some time. However, I really didn’t know much about Luci Shaw herself. Which meant I was intrigued by this title when I saw it in the library catalog.
Shaw is a brave woman. Beside the fact that she still tent camps at 84 and travels quite a bit, she is brave because she is honest. I am not a writer for many reasons, but one of them is that writers should be scrupulously true to themselves and their readers. I don’t think I could do that. However, Shaw does. She tells about her faith and her doubts, her questions and the possible answers that come to her. Shaw talks about her health and the changes in her life. She says at the beginning of this volume that she will share her life as she reaches the summit. For this reader, she does this in a very admirable and authentic way.
I am glad I took a flyer and checked this book out. I may go and find more books by Shaw. She is a fascinating woman.
Exit
When you go,
will you go with a sizzle –
a spiteful spitting on a
hot plate,
a jig of steam?
With a crystal sigh on a beach
to leave a bubble?
Or will your trickle
run, thin, silver,
to the open ocean?
against my will so that the inflow of silky air
stops, and the creek’s subtleties of sound
in the small house of my ear I listen closely to
the message of blood, knowing others are deaf to it.”
I have read a few of Shaw’s poems. I know that Shaw was a close friend of Madeline L’Engle, who has been one of my heroes for some time. However, I really didn’t know much about Luci Shaw herself. Which meant I was intrigued by this title when I saw it in the library catalog.
Shaw is a brave woman. Beside the fact that she still tent camps at 84 and travels quite a bit, she is brave because she is honest. I am not a writer for many reasons, but one of them is that writers should be scrupulously true to themselves and their readers. I don’t think I could do that. However, Shaw does. She tells about her faith and her doubts, her questions and the possible answers that come to her. Shaw talks about her health and the changes in her life. She says at the beginning of this volume that she will share her life as she reaches the summit. For this reader, she does this in a very admirable and authentic way.
I am glad I took a flyer and checked this book out. I may go and find more books by Shaw. She is a fascinating woman.
Exit
When you go,
will you go with a sizzle –
a spiteful spitting on a
hot plate,
a jig of steam?
With a crystal sigh on a beach
to leave a bubble?
Or will your trickle
run, thin, silver,
to the open ocean?
December 29, 2019
On a muggy June day, I ducked into a cool, dark library and was surprised to find a used-book sale in progress. I was even more surprised to find a book by Wallace Stegner for only a dollar. The voice of crusty Joseph Allston served at the perfect foil for my reading of Adventure of Ascent. "I am concerned with gloomier matters: the condition of being flesh, susceptible to pain, infected with consciousness and the consciousness of consciousness, doomed to death and the awareness of death. My life stains the air around me. I am a tea bag left too long in the cup, and my steepings grow darker and bitterer."
What a refreshing contrast to drink deeply of Luci Shaw's rich cup of life, not "darker and bitterer" for its long steeping, but pungent with wisdom, redolent because of a God-infused view of her own journey, bracing for the steep trail ahead of all of us. Even her vocabulary challenges me as she pulls in images of terrain ("seracs and erratics"), foreign terms (Schadenfreude), and words I can't find on my Kindle dictionary ("amortality").
There is a brave, positive, and God-struck voice emanating from these pages. I have enjoyed her poetry for two decades, but God in the Dark and this continued memoir are books that I will return to for inspiration.
What a refreshing contrast to drink deeply of Luci Shaw's rich cup of life, not "darker and bitterer" for its long steeping, but pungent with wisdom, redolent because of a God-infused view of her own journey, bracing for the steep trail ahead of all of us. Even her vocabulary challenges me as she pulls in images of terrain ("seracs and erratics"), foreign terms (Schadenfreude), and words I can't find on my Kindle dictionary ("amortality").
There is a brave, positive, and God-struck voice emanating from these pages. I have enjoyed her poetry for two decades, but God in the Dark and this continued memoir are books that I will return to for inspiration.
February 22, 2015
Delightful book. Which, since its subject matter is about aging and death, is remarkable. A breath of fresh air to this 40 yr old and I hope helpful to others as they contemplate their older years and the transitions required.
April 15, 2014
Personal essay/observation interspersed with the author's poems; reflections on the experience and losses of aging. Good production too, handsome design from InterVarsity Press.
April 12, 2016
I read this book on the wrong day. I read almost all of it yesterday, the day after I had cleaned out my dad's house after his sudden death. Reading Luci Shaw's work always prompts introspection and mental hiking off the usual trails. Having just spent too much time thinking about death, and my dad's death specifically, I found this hike a bit too taxing at times. Nonetheless, I did find many treasures along the way, and in fact, found solid footing in an unexpected place, as expressed in this musing that I wrote while reading:
And though we all age and die, which Luci Shaw makes quite clear, we do have reminders all around us that God creates and nurtures and sustains life in a variety of ways. From that vantage point, I can look back on this hike and say that it was worth the effort.
Highlights:
• Emerson who said: “People do not grow old. When they cease to grow they become old.” So there’s a goal I’m aiming for. To keep growing, even as the number of years add up, and up.
• Bilbo Baggins: “‘Go back?’ he thought. ‘No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!’”
• I want to cut to the bone about this business of being old and getting older. So you’ll know and understand. So you’ll know and not fear.
• My guess is that what lies ahead is indescribable in human terms; that descriptions of heaven (or hell), as in Dante or Milton, are metaphorical attempts to translate a vision that came and went.
• Long distances are my joy—from Bellingham to California and back, camping along the way, relishing the sense that the hills and the green valleys and the lion-colored deserts of the continent are unrolling beneath my wheels hour after hour.
• Christian Wiman writes about “feasting on distances, gazing / dead into the sun.” That sounds absolutely right—to look ahead to a far horizon with confidence, without flinching or fear; to let myself be gloriously blinded with possibility. I would like to infect my contemporaries, both young and old, with an openness that frees us to talk about unknowns, muscled by faith, with joy as fluid in me as the blood in my veins. Feasting on distances. Yes.
• Somehow the idea of being a landmark for a hard-working life should seem more appealing. The idea of “aging gracefully” sounds like a positive but feels like a capitulation.
• My lifelong commitment, reached again and again in this repeated quandary, is to not give up on believing.
• I find myself returning again and again to a center sought in God, making a decision of will: to seek to renew my faith and put doubts aside. To allow some of my existential questions to remain unanswered. I will believe until my will to believe takes hold, unmakes me, my unbelief swallowing itself the way a dimming sun swallows a shadow.
• I’m guilty of flip-floppery and hobby-horsery. I’d like to clone myself and start over, 100 percent fresh and willing, a blank slate for God to write on. But he seems to have had other plans! He knows my heart, my longing for truth.
• While I sometimes lament the artificiality that seems to creep in with technological innovation, I am grateful for the attention that is being paid today to the possibilities of digitizing our reading materials, of increasing the speed of our interhuman communication. We can hear words through the empty air; we can almost see ideas as they are translated into images on the screen. But I’m especially captured by what Tina Brown, in Newsweek,1 calls “the interpretive pleasure of the printed page.” Again and again I’m flabbergasted by the power of language, of words—those little dark scribbles on a paper page, or hieroglyphics on a clay tablet or on parchment, or the tanned skin of an animal, and now on tablets that miraculously download stored writings—their power to carry a thought through thousands of years and into our minds in the present, presenting a contemporary correlative to an ancient question or complexity or issue in human life. It’s as if the ancient bardic oracles and songs and oral histories and warrior shouts needed more than the air to carry the messages. The thoughts held enough power to need some permanence, some transmitting wire, some way of getting through to other human beings no matter how far into the future, some way of informing us, “This idea is burning in my own mind. Here, let me light a wick in you.” Because of this the words of God didn’t get lost. Like stones thrown into a pond, their ripples keep washing our shores today. I read and read and read, and my mind is full of the old and repeated cries of the ancients, which haven’t changed that much, except for the speed at which they can be conveyed. Did Dante, Shakespeare or Milton suspect this? Did Socrates, Plato, Euripides and other ancient philosophers have a clue that their ideas would still live, and be read and learned from and endlessly discussed in our century? Did Aquinas and Origen and Polycarp and Irenaeus have any idea how powerfully they would influence theology centuries later?
• I find I vacillate between two extremes. One is a sense of personal inadequacy, the conviction that any success I’ve had in public life is an accident; that I am utterly undeserving. That all my efforts amount to wood, straw, hay, stubble, and what a blazing bonfire that will make when it is consumed! I expect very little gold or silver to be refined out from that purifying flame. My other recognition is that I have gifts given me without my asking that have brought me and others a modicum of satisfaction as I employ them.
• This mystery of words is also present when I write poetry. The phrases and images come from God knows where, quite literally. I have learned to trust that process, which is part of the art of writing—the listening, the catching a word or phrase midflight, of recording it right away so that it doesn’t vanish. Of seeing an image for the words to clothe. Of attaching it to other words to paint a picture for others to see and use their own creative imaginations to bring into reality. For me this is an affirmation that the Spirit is at work in our own human spirits to verify the truth of our experience and share it beyond ourselves.
• “You’ve tried so hard to feel my presence and invite me into your life, but all you have to do is ‘come in’ to my love.” Like entering my warm home after a walk in the windy, penetrating cold. This felt immensely comforting and right. I am repeating it to myself like a mantra whenever I feel lonely or depressed. “Come in.” Yes.
• What utter bliss it is, at the end of a long, busy day, to climb into bed, head sinking into my down pillow, under my down comforter, body deliciously horizontal on the foam mattress covered by silky sheets. Now, if only I could put my mind to sleep.
• Every year, every month, every day I am a spy for sightings of the stunning, the unusual.
• “Make a joyful noise” indeed. My voice may crack and my bones ache, but song is the voice of the Holy Spirit in me, as well as words and writing. They lift me beyond myself.
• attention is to notice the houses I pass, driving along Lakeway into town probably twice a day. It means I’m seeing homes I’ve never distinguished before as individual, just themselves. I take note of the paint color on the front doors, the sidings, the roof angles, the landscaping. I wonder about the family that lives in each. Are they happy? What relational drama might their home contain? I try to direct this intentional look at the people on the sidewalk as well—taking nothing for granted. Why is he slouching? Is she in pain? How extraordinary it must feel to have that pink and purple hair! Why do I struggle to find meaning in everything I see, and everything that happens? I’m wishing I could learn to simply attend to what is there, and then to open myself to being seen and enlightened by God. Might this become the place of balance and peacefulness?
• Annie Dillard on being a witness to existence: “We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed and Creation need not play to an empty house.”
• Thunder and then Thunder and then the rain comes and the prairie that has been baked dry and the shriveled grass and the ground that has thirsted all summer open like mouths as the wet arrives at first in whispers and then in sheets of silver arrows that tear the air and join like the clapping of hands to a downfall that makes splashes in the dirt and grows to pools that shine in the silver light and the dry creeks with their stones begin to thank God for sending water for their need so that there is praise in the rushing streams and the trees also raise praise with their leaves flashing and now wind like a fist takes hold of the house and shakes it and us and it seems that all the world is drowning in the delight of deluge.1
• Paul wrote to his young colleague Timothy, “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6).
• I’m becoming conscious that when I invite God into every task, seek his wisdom, trust him for help when I get stuck, the work itself becomes a sacrament. The imminent and the transcendent join hands, as in the life of Brother Lawrence, who made a practice of noticing and affirming God’s presence in his most menial tasks, such as washing pots and pans and peeling potatoes. My prayer today and into the future is this: O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. . . . Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:1-4, 23-24)
• So, discernment. What do I really need? What is worthy of being held on to? Where does my heart reside? What is my basis for value?
• “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, emphasis added). In this series, loving God with all one’s strength flows from loving him with all one’s heart and one’s soul and mind, springing from each previous surge of love for God. So in the process of discernment, our decisions should all flow from the ultimate source, our strong heart love for the living God. And that shines a different light on everything!
• How much of life was created as a balancing act. We breathe in oxygen to revitalize our circulatory system and in turn vent carbon dioxide to refresh the green things on the earth’s surface. Male complements female, winter wakes into spring, daylight balances nightly darkness, moon alternates with sun, activity is balanced by rest, community is enriched by times of solitude. The via negativa of asceticism in single-minded service to God is balanced by the via affirmativa of jubilation and gusto. Gravity and levity achieve a kind of complementarity, as do lethargy and energy. The prolonged silences of monastic meditative prayer are countered by contemporary praise songs and the rhythms and foot-tapping that accompany trumpets, guitars, drums, cymbals, and joyful noises and “all kinds of music” as called for in the book of Daniel. Contrast is a vital tool in reaching an understanding of our being. Ours is a chiaroscuro existence in which light shows up the shadows and vice versa, and it takes all varieties of human being to provide the perfect mix.
• I need tempering, like glass. I need to accept more, amend more gently, listen rather than assert. Especially when it is God who speaks.
• With any gradual warmth comes the springing up of not only the plants we invite and cultivate but also the wild, rapacious ones that we try to eliminate, that raise our ire
• And yet these excursions seem so limited, so brief in terms of life spans. What do they mean more than momentary relief? Do they do more than simply add to a series of similar moments that may gleam briefly in a safe but limited life? And ultimately, to what end are these short-lived experiences? In other words, what is the significance of the present moment when the rest of life looks so drastically limited?
• Even in the dimness of our garage where, until it’s safe to plant outside, we store our tomato planter bin all winter with last year’s soil, I notice an anonymous green shoot (not a tomato) poking up. It has a minimum of dampness to grow from, but there it is in that gray sterile environment. I also have an old photo of a tulip blooming out of a slit in the side of a compost bin. New life and growth will not be foiled.
• All of us continue to be painted on by the brush of God. This kind of unexpected beauty is salvific.
• The house we left faced east towards the sunrise. The new house faces west, the direction of sunsets. I’m pondering the significance of this; a kind of melancholy attaches to this metaphor. And I’m doing some serious grieving for what I’m leaving behind.
• Transition. This means that no matter how established or permanent our lives seem to be, we cannot settle in too comfortably in this new shelter, this bivouac on the mountainside. The upper reaches still wait for us to conquer them. We pray for courage and vigor for the next level.
• Like God, who has sometimes, often, seemed invisible, like the sun once it has set, he has shown me the benefit of waiting, of being ready for change. I have glimpsed him in unexpected ways, and I have responded to this life I have been given with some misgivings but also real satisfaction, true hope.
• I’m guessing about future possibilities, yet right now I am feeling gratitude for all that I’ve been given: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name” (Psalm 103:1)
"I inherited a clock. It chimes every 15 minutes — a deep, melodic tone marking time. A bittersweet sound signifying passage and longing and remembering. I inherited a clock. I hear it chime every 15 minutes — its presence marking time. A consoling sound, rich in its reminder of love and life continuing."
And though we all age and die, which Luci Shaw makes quite clear, we do have reminders all around us that God creates and nurtures and sustains life in a variety of ways. From that vantage point, I can look back on this hike and say that it was worth the effort.
Highlights:
• Emerson who said: “People do not grow old. When they cease to grow they become old.” So there’s a goal I’m aiming for. To keep growing, even as the number of years add up, and up.
• Bilbo Baggins: “‘Go back?’ he thought. ‘No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!’”
• I want to cut to the bone about this business of being old and getting older. So you’ll know and understand. So you’ll know and not fear.
• My guess is that what lies ahead is indescribable in human terms; that descriptions of heaven (or hell), as in Dante or Milton, are metaphorical attempts to translate a vision that came and went.
• Long distances are my joy—from Bellingham to California and back, camping along the way, relishing the sense that the hills and the green valleys and the lion-colored deserts of the continent are unrolling beneath my wheels hour after hour.
• Christian Wiman writes about “feasting on distances, gazing / dead into the sun.” That sounds absolutely right—to look ahead to a far horizon with confidence, without flinching or fear; to let myself be gloriously blinded with possibility. I would like to infect my contemporaries, both young and old, with an openness that frees us to talk about unknowns, muscled by faith, with joy as fluid in me as the blood in my veins. Feasting on distances. Yes.
• Somehow the idea of being a landmark for a hard-working life should seem more appealing. The idea of “aging gracefully” sounds like a positive but feels like a capitulation.
• My lifelong commitment, reached again and again in this repeated quandary, is to not give up on believing.
• I find myself returning again and again to a center sought in God, making a decision of will: to seek to renew my faith and put doubts aside. To allow some of my existential questions to remain unanswered. I will believe until my will to believe takes hold, unmakes me, my unbelief swallowing itself the way a dimming sun swallows a shadow.
• I’m guilty of flip-floppery and hobby-horsery. I’d like to clone myself and start over, 100 percent fresh and willing, a blank slate for God to write on. But he seems to have had other plans! He knows my heart, my longing for truth.
• While I sometimes lament the artificiality that seems to creep in with technological innovation, I am grateful for the attention that is being paid today to the possibilities of digitizing our reading materials, of increasing the speed of our interhuman communication. We can hear words through the empty air; we can almost see ideas as they are translated into images on the screen. But I’m especially captured by what Tina Brown, in Newsweek,1 calls “the interpretive pleasure of the printed page.” Again and again I’m flabbergasted by the power of language, of words—those little dark scribbles on a paper page, or hieroglyphics on a clay tablet or on parchment, or the tanned skin of an animal, and now on tablets that miraculously download stored writings—their power to carry a thought through thousands of years and into our minds in the present, presenting a contemporary correlative to an ancient question or complexity or issue in human life. It’s as if the ancient bardic oracles and songs and oral histories and warrior shouts needed more than the air to carry the messages. The thoughts held enough power to need some permanence, some transmitting wire, some way of getting through to other human beings no matter how far into the future, some way of informing us, “This idea is burning in my own mind. Here, let me light a wick in you.” Because of this the words of God didn’t get lost. Like stones thrown into a pond, their ripples keep washing our shores today. I read and read and read, and my mind is full of the old and repeated cries of the ancients, which haven’t changed that much, except for the speed at which they can be conveyed. Did Dante, Shakespeare or Milton suspect this? Did Socrates, Plato, Euripides and other ancient philosophers have a clue that their ideas would still live, and be read and learned from and endlessly discussed in our century? Did Aquinas and Origen and Polycarp and Irenaeus have any idea how powerfully they would influence theology centuries later?
• I find I vacillate between two extremes. One is a sense of personal inadequacy, the conviction that any success I’ve had in public life is an accident; that I am utterly undeserving. That all my efforts amount to wood, straw, hay, stubble, and what a blazing bonfire that will make when it is consumed! I expect very little gold or silver to be refined out from that purifying flame. My other recognition is that I have gifts given me without my asking that have brought me and others a modicum of satisfaction as I employ them.
• This mystery of words is also present when I write poetry. The phrases and images come from God knows where, quite literally. I have learned to trust that process, which is part of the art of writing—the listening, the catching a word or phrase midflight, of recording it right away so that it doesn’t vanish. Of seeing an image for the words to clothe. Of attaching it to other words to paint a picture for others to see and use their own creative imaginations to bring into reality. For me this is an affirmation that the Spirit is at work in our own human spirits to verify the truth of our experience and share it beyond ourselves.
• “You’ve tried so hard to feel my presence and invite me into your life, but all you have to do is ‘come in’ to my love.” Like entering my warm home after a walk in the windy, penetrating cold. This felt immensely comforting and right. I am repeating it to myself like a mantra whenever I feel lonely or depressed. “Come in.” Yes.
• What utter bliss it is, at the end of a long, busy day, to climb into bed, head sinking into my down pillow, under my down comforter, body deliciously horizontal on the foam mattress covered by silky sheets. Now, if only I could put my mind to sleep.
• Every year, every month, every day I am a spy for sightings of the stunning, the unusual.
• “Make a joyful noise” indeed. My voice may crack and my bones ache, but song is the voice of the Holy Spirit in me, as well as words and writing. They lift me beyond myself.
• attention is to notice the houses I pass, driving along Lakeway into town probably twice a day. It means I’m seeing homes I’ve never distinguished before as individual, just themselves. I take note of the paint color on the front doors, the sidings, the roof angles, the landscaping. I wonder about the family that lives in each. Are they happy? What relational drama might their home contain? I try to direct this intentional look at the people on the sidewalk as well—taking nothing for granted. Why is he slouching? Is she in pain? How extraordinary it must feel to have that pink and purple hair! Why do I struggle to find meaning in everything I see, and everything that happens? I’m wishing I could learn to simply attend to what is there, and then to open myself to being seen and enlightened by God. Might this become the place of balance and peacefulness?
• Annie Dillard on being a witness to existence: “We are here to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed and Creation need not play to an empty house.”
• Thunder and then Thunder and then the rain comes and the prairie that has been baked dry and the shriveled grass and the ground that has thirsted all summer open like mouths as the wet arrives at first in whispers and then in sheets of silver arrows that tear the air and join like the clapping of hands to a downfall that makes splashes in the dirt and grows to pools that shine in the silver light and the dry creeks with their stones begin to thank God for sending water for their need so that there is praise in the rushing streams and the trees also raise praise with their leaves flashing and now wind like a fist takes hold of the house and shakes it and us and it seems that all the world is drowning in the delight of deluge.1
• Paul wrote to his young colleague Timothy, “Rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6).
• I’m becoming conscious that when I invite God into every task, seek his wisdom, trust him for help when I get stuck, the work itself becomes a sacrament. The imminent and the transcendent join hands, as in the life of Brother Lawrence, who made a practice of noticing and affirming God’s presence in his most menial tasks, such as washing pots and pans and peeling potatoes. My prayer today and into the future is this: O LORD, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely. . . . Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:1-4, 23-24)
• So, discernment. What do I really need? What is worthy of being held on to? Where does my heart reside? What is my basis for value?
• “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, emphasis added). In this series, loving God with all one’s strength flows from loving him with all one’s heart and one’s soul and mind, springing from each previous surge of love for God. So in the process of discernment, our decisions should all flow from the ultimate source, our strong heart love for the living God. And that shines a different light on everything!
• How much of life was created as a balancing act. We breathe in oxygen to revitalize our circulatory system and in turn vent carbon dioxide to refresh the green things on the earth’s surface. Male complements female, winter wakes into spring, daylight balances nightly darkness, moon alternates with sun, activity is balanced by rest, community is enriched by times of solitude. The via negativa of asceticism in single-minded service to God is balanced by the via affirmativa of jubilation and gusto. Gravity and levity achieve a kind of complementarity, as do lethargy and energy. The prolonged silences of monastic meditative prayer are countered by contemporary praise songs and the rhythms and foot-tapping that accompany trumpets, guitars, drums, cymbals, and joyful noises and “all kinds of music” as called for in the book of Daniel. Contrast is a vital tool in reaching an understanding of our being. Ours is a chiaroscuro existence in which light shows up the shadows and vice versa, and it takes all varieties of human being to provide the perfect mix.
• I need tempering, like glass. I need to accept more, amend more gently, listen rather than assert. Especially when it is God who speaks.
• With any gradual warmth comes the springing up of not only the plants we invite and cultivate but also the wild, rapacious ones that we try to eliminate, that raise our ire
• And yet these excursions seem so limited, so brief in terms of life spans. What do they mean more than momentary relief? Do they do more than simply add to a series of similar moments that may gleam briefly in a safe but limited life? And ultimately, to what end are these short-lived experiences? In other words, what is the significance of the present moment when the rest of life looks so drastically limited?
• Even in the dimness of our garage where, until it’s safe to plant outside, we store our tomato planter bin all winter with last year’s soil, I notice an anonymous green shoot (not a tomato) poking up. It has a minimum of dampness to grow from, but there it is in that gray sterile environment. I also have an old photo of a tulip blooming out of a slit in the side of a compost bin. New life and growth will not be foiled.
• All of us continue to be painted on by the brush of God. This kind of unexpected beauty is salvific.
• The house we left faced east towards the sunrise. The new house faces west, the direction of sunsets. I’m pondering the significance of this; a kind of melancholy attaches to this metaphor. And I’m doing some serious grieving for what I’m leaving behind.
• Transition. This means that no matter how established or permanent our lives seem to be, we cannot settle in too comfortably in this new shelter, this bivouac on the mountainside. The upper reaches still wait for us to conquer them. We pray for courage and vigor for the next level.
• Like God, who has sometimes, often, seemed invisible, like the sun once it has set, he has shown me the benefit of waiting, of being ready for change. I have glimpsed him in unexpected ways, and I have responded to this life I have been given with some misgivings but also real satisfaction, true hope.
• I’m guessing about future possibilities, yet right now I am feeling gratitude for all that I’ve been given: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name” (Psalm 103:1)
June 15, 2019
I've always loved Luci Shaw's writing and this one is just as good as the others I've read. More than twenty years ago, I was able to hear her at a writing conference and even had a brief correspondence with her. She was kind to a young woman who had a desire to write and to learn how to do it well.
This book is candid, honest and entirely enjoyable if you are in the second half of your life. I love her perspective that we are not declining but we are ascending - which if the reader is a believer then this is very true. Shaw's spiritually embraces the mysteries of the Christian life and she says as much in the text. This is most of the reason why her writing is, to me, delicious!
This book is candid, honest and entirely enjoyable if you are in the second half of your life. I love her perspective that we are not declining but we are ascending - which if the reader is a believer then this is very true. Shaw's spiritually embraces the mysteries of the Christian life and she says as much in the text. This is most of the reason why her writing is, to me, delicious!
March 1, 2021
Adventures of Ascent is a collection of treasures. Shaw shares her thoughts of life and meaning. As she faces the changes of aging and yet embraces life even as she knows simply with years death approaches, “Why? is the cry of young children getting acquainted with the enigmas of the world. It is also the cry of the elderly. Why is my life moving to an end? Why did God put me here in the first place? And have I fulfilled his purpose for my life?”
Shaw is now 92 years old and I pray she is still willing to share her experiences, guiding us to reflect on God’s purpose for our own lives.
Shaw is now 92 years old and I pray she is still willing to share her experiences, guiding us to reflect on God’s purpose for our own lives.
November 8, 2017
I have discovered a new author!
I read this book because it was one of my book club selections. I am so glad it was chosen. Luci Shaw has a wonderful writing style. In this book she addresses aging, taking us on a journey that is not all sunshine and lollipops. It took me longer to read this book than it normally would because I kept stopping to look up her poetry. I don’t know how I missed her in all the years of reading, but I’m glad I have found her now.
I read this book because it was one of my book club selections. I am so glad it was chosen. Luci Shaw has a wonderful writing style. In this book she addresses aging, taking us on a journey that is not all sunshine and lollipops. It took me longer to read this book than it normally would because I kept stopping to look up her poetry. I don’t know how I missed her in all the years of reading, but I’m glad I have found her now.
November 19, 2020
A very wise book from a acclaimed poet, and Christian writer. She is now in her eighties and lives in Bellingham Wa.. It kind of reminded me of Gift of the sea, As she moved through life she documented it with pose, good humor and sage advice. One young friend told me she would return to this small book in years to come. No major tragedies just life told in her poetry and fine writing. O enjoyed very much.
November 12, 2021
This book was written by a poet, who is also a Christian, and the prose involved here is a stream of consciousness narrative.
One of the topics is moving from a house she has lived in for 15 years, downsizing, moving to a newly built house that is smaller and closer
Other topics include aging, discovery of threatened health issues, and her poems scattered throughout.
This was a 2017 Spiritual Growth pick for the UMW Reading Program.
One of the topics is moving from a house she has lived in for 15 years, downsizing, moving to a newly built house that is smaller and closer
Other topics include aging, discovery of threatened health issues, and her poems scattered throughout.
This was a 2017 Spiritual Growth pick for the UMW Reading Program.
July 1, 2022
Read as part of a Christian Reading Program, it was very insightful and thought provoking. I took my time on this book as there was a lot to digest and reflect on. Some of her experiences and thoughts were needed at just the right time or a moment when it was most useful. I was laughing at her take on 'weeds' as now is the time they tend to consume my front flower beds!!! Chapter 9 "Learning to Breathe" was wonderful!! I wasn't sure what to expect from this book but am very glad I read it!
January 16, 2018
Luci is candid about her journey and taught me some new vocabulary. She hints at a lot of fascinating experiences that I wanted to know more about. Most intriguing to me was the publishing company she ran with her late husband.
April 22, 2019
I used this book as a study book for the United Methodist Women's group. It is one woman's journey to aging gracefully. We could relate with a lot of the day to day challenges as we age. A fun book for discussion.
February 1, 2020
Fantastic little book of wisdom. I adored it and will come back to it again. Looking forward to more of her writing.
March 9, 2020
Not my cup of tea.
September 29, 2021
Thoughtful, easy to read. Reminded me of A Circle of Quiet and Gift from the Sea.
May 7, 2024
Really good book about ageing and dying, written from a Christian viewpoint. It is a hopeful, contemplative book.
September 4, 2024
Golly, I love this woman. Reading her work is like sitting down for a cozy chat with a treasured friend.
January 13, 2015
In her endorsement blurb on the back cover of Adventure of Ascent: Field Notes from a Lifelong Journey, the novelist and spiritual writer Paula Huston writes that Luci Shaw, an octogenarian poet who on this occasion has tried her hand at autobiographical prose, “embodies what it means to be a fully flourishing human being.” That puts it exactly right.
In her new memoir, Shaw writes poetically, to be sure, but she’s also legitimately funny and, it seems to me, a bit mischievous. Because this is a book about aging—and at least peripherally about the inevitability of death—you could say Shaw’s winsomeness is the sugar that makes the medicine go down.
“In this book,” she writes in the early pages, “I hope to act as a scout moving into new territory and reporting back to the coming generation so that you may know what it’s like, and what to be ready for.”
Despite the book’s subtitle, I found this assortment of brief anecdotes and reflections to be not so much a summary of what she’s learned over the years (though there’s a fair amount of memory here too), but primarily what she’s learning now, today, in this stage of life—at funerals, doctor’s appointments, and conversations with grandchildren. She’s a lifelong learner, after all—an unceasing observer of the world and its quotidian mysteries, to borrow that useful term.
But here’s the thing: I don’t know how to review a book like this. There’s no clear thesis that I can perceive. There aren’t really any contestable arguments or cheap shots at the expense of others. The book is likewise devoid of Five Simple Steps for Aging with Excellence.
So rather than review it, I decided I’d simply share a selection of my seven favorite quotes. Some are lighthearted, some are more serious. But they’re all, in my estimation, quite good.
“The trouble with aging is that there’s really no remedy. In the end, no one survives it.”
“So much is wrong with the world, but so much of it is right, particularly the parts that seem to have spilled directly from the Creator’s hand!”
“If I sometimes sound cynical, bear with me. I’m fighting an existential battle against annihilation.”
“I guess we could live in a barren barn or a sparsely furnished apartment, but beauty and art feed our spirits and reflect something of Grace in our lives.”
“I’m finding that remembering God’s patience with me and my foibles assists my focus on patience with others. I expect things to be done logically and efficiently, and when they aren’t, my self-denial has to come to the fore and remember that the fact that things aren’t done my way doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done badly or wrongly or with flawed intention.”
“The forward movement of living is unstoppable, untraceable. Better make sure your decisions and actions are for the best.”
“I have glimpsed [God] in unexpected ways, and I have responded to this life I have been given with some misgivings but also real satisfaction, true hope.”
- See more at: http://timhoiland.com/2014/05/luci-sh...
In her new memoir, Shaw writes poetically, to be sure, but she’s also legitimately funny and, it seems to me, a bit mischievous. Because this is a book about aging—and at least peripherally about the inevitability of death—you could say Shaw’s winsomeness is the sugar that makes the medicine go down.
“In this book,” she writes in the early pages, “I hope to act as a scout moving into new territory and reporting back to the coming generation so that you may know what it’s like, and what to be ready for.”
Despite the book’s subtitle, I found this assortment of brief anecdotes and reflections to be not so much a summary of what she’s learned over the years (though there’s a fair amount of memory here too), but primarily what she’s learning now, today, in this stage of life—at funerals, doctor’s appointments, and conversations with grandchildren. She’s a lifelong learner, after all—an unceasing observer of the world and its quotidian mysteries, to borrow that useful term.
But here’s the thing: I don’t know how to review a book like this. There’s no clear thesis that I can perceive. There aren’t really any contestable arguments or cheap shots at the expense of others. The book is likewise devoid of Five Simple Steps for Aging with Excellence.
So rather than review it, I decided I’d simply share a selection of my seven favorite quotes. Some are lighthearted, some are more serious. But they’re all, in my estimation, quite good.
“The trouble with aging is that there’s really no remedy. In the end, no one survives it.”
“So much is wrong with the world, but so much of it is right, particularly the parts that seem to have spilled directly from the Creator’s hand!”
“If I sometimes sound cynical, bear with me. I’m fighting an existential battle against annihilation.”
“I guess we could live in a barren barn or a sparsely furnished apartment, but beauty and art feed our spirits and reflect something of Grace in our lives.”
“I’m finding that remembering God’s patience with me and my foibles assists my focus on patience with others. I expect things to be done logically and efficiently, and when they aren’t, my self-denial has to come to the fore and remember that the fact that things aren’t done my way doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done badly or wrongly or with flawed intention.”
“The forward movement of living is unstoppable, untraceable. Better make sure your decisions and actions are for the best.”
“I have glimpsed [God] in unexpected ways, and I have responded to this life I have been given with some misgivings but also real satisfaction, true hope.”
- See more at: http://timhoiland.com/2014/05/luci-sh...
August 4, 2014
There are some good thoughts in here on aging, and other worthwhile notes about holiness, but overall this seems a bit of a thin book. I'd like to have seen some of the issues discussed in some more depth.
The chronology is also a bit difficult to work out. The notes, which start off seeming to be in a kind of diary form, have apparently been reshuffled into topical sections, so that it's hard to gauge when things are happening in her life.
Nevertheless, I also made notes about a number of the things Shaw mentions, and will use these for further reflection.
The chronology is also a bit difficult to work out. The notes, which start off seeming to be in a kind of diary form, have apparently been reshuffled into topical sections, so that it's hard to gauge when things are happening in her life.
Nevertheless, I also made notes about a number of the things Shaw mentions, and will use these for further reflection.
February 4, 2016
A warming Saturday morning read that, at times, felt more like a front-porch conversation with a woman in my grandmother's generation. Luci Shaw is one of the writers I hope to emulate -- not in word only, but also in deed. I'm glad she wrote this honest, yet hope-full, reflection on the act of aging toward inevitable death -- her adventure of ascent.
Read a couple of my favorite excerpts here: http://blog.thissacramentallife.com/2...
Read a couple of my favorite excerpts here: http://blog.thissacramentallife.com/2...
March 23, 2014
This is a lovely book, honest and wise. Luci is a scout and a guide. Her's is a voice I will always listen to and her life is one I love to know about. She inspires me to a way of aging that is engaged and active, living vibrantly as she does into the callings of her life in her mid-eighties. At the same time she is honest about the losses of aging and tells it true. Thank you, Luci!
December 1, 2015
I love Luci Shaw's poetry but, as poetic as these "field notes" are, I was disappointed.The field notes are quite disjointed, somewhat whiny in tone, and not as reflective as I expected. However, I enjoyed the many mentions of bones, recalling her lovely volume, Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit.
December 23, 2022
Lovely, honest, wise, thoughtful reflections on life. That Shaw includes her poetry adds depth to her commentary on life. Her adventure relates to all parts of the life journey. The collection reminds me of Mary Pipher's A Life in Light: Meditations on Impermanence. Beautifully written.
I'll read and read again.
I'll read and read again.
May 2, 2016
Great book, full of Luci Shaw's wisdom. Plan to read this slowly, in small bits at a time. There were plenty of opportunities to stop and ponder along the way, as well as taking time to appreciated her crafting of words.
October 22, 2014
I enjoyed observing an octogenerian being very socially engaged, productive and in possession of very high verbal skills. She's published Christian poetry for years, and here she shares journal entries / meditations / poetry about the view of life from the vantage point of late life.
January 1, 2017
A mix of poetry and notes from the author's journal. She shares her trials and struggles as she manages a very active life. Her energy and attention are still strong at 84. Thanks for sharing this insight into a author and poet's life.
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