Luci Shaw – författare

Think of your local church. Without art--music, song, dance, etc.--it would be a much poorer place. But if protestants have any vision for the arts, it tends to be a thin one. This unique book is an attempt to contribute to a robust, expansive vision for the church and the arts. Its specific aim is to show how the many parts of the landscape of church and art hold together. You can think of it as a kind of helicopter flyover, but one with expert pilots. The guides include the likes of Eugene Peterson, Lauren Winner, Jeremy Begbie, Andy Crouch, and John Witvliet, helping to inspire readers and empower pastor-leaders with a vision of the church and the arts that is compelling, far-seeing, and profoundly transformative.

“The double question we must always ask is,‘How does faith inform art?’ and ‘How can art animate faith?’”Imagination, appreciation of beauty, creativity: all of these qualities have been given to us by God. For the Christian artist, the drive to create something wonderful is also a means to glorify and better understand our Lord. Using excerpts from her own works as well as those of writers who have gone before her—Emily Dickinson, Annie Dillard, C.S. Lewis, and others—poet and writer Luci Shaw proves that symbolism and metaphor provide ways for humans to experience God in new and powerful ways.Shaw offers a rich and thought-provoking exploration of art, creativity, and faith. Believing that art emanates from God, she shows how imagination and spirituality “work in tandem, each feeding on and nourishing the other.” Faith informs art and art enhances faith. They both, for each other, are “breath for the bones.”Provocative, enlightening, and above all, inspiring, Breath for the Bones will help readers discover the artist within, and bring them further along the path to God Himself.Include s Discussion Questions and Writing Exercises

Food – how it’s grown, how it’s shared – makes us who we are. This issue traces the connections between farm and food, between humus and human. According to the first book of the Bible, tending the earth was humankind’s first task: “The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Gen. 2:8). The desire to get one’s hands dirty raising one’s own food, then, doesn’t just come from modern romanticism, but is built into human nature.The title, “The Welcome Table,” comes from a spiritual first sung by enslaved African-Americans. The song refers to the Bible’s closing scene, the wedding feast of the Lamb described in the Book of Revelation, to which every race, tribe, and tongue are invited – a divine pledge of a day of freedom and freely shared plenty, of earth renewed and humanity restored. In the case of food, the symbol is the substance. Every meal, if shared generously and with radical hospitality, is already now a taste of the feast to come.Also in this issue: poetry by Luci Shaw; reviews of books by Julia Child, Robert Farrar Capon, Peter Mayle, Albert Woodfox, and Maria von Trapp; and art by Michael Naples, Sieger Köder, Carl Juste, André Chung, Ángel Bracho, Winslow Homer, Raymond Logan, Sybil Andrews, Cameron Davidson, and Jason Landsel.Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.