From ImageUpdate (the biweekly e-mail newsletter from Image): Light Upon Light:…

From ImageUpdate (the biweekly e-mail newsletter from Image): Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany by Sarah Arthur

#quot;You’re invited to a feast this Christmas. Sarah Arthur, editor of the collection At the Still Point: A Literary Guide to Ordinary Time, has published another volume with Paraclete Press, Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. If you’ve prepared for past Christmas seasons with the help of God With Us, Image’s own book of meditations from some of our favorite spiritual writers, you’ll find Light Upon Light to be another rich tapestry of poetry, fiction, and scripture. A mix of the venerable and the fresh, pieces from Eliot, Chesterton, and Rosetti are paired with contemporary writers like Amit Majmudar (read Arthur##039;s recent interview with Majmudar on Good Letters here), Susanna Childress, and Tania Runyan (all Image contributors). Arthur##039;s curation is sensitive and inviting to epiphany: for the narrative of Christ##039;s birth, she pairs Li-Young Lee’s #quot;The Eternal Son,#quot; a poem aching with the necessary abandonment of growing up (#quot;and if she’s weeping / it##039;s because she’s misplaced / both our childhoods#quot;), bookended by an excerpt from Gary D. Schmidt##039;s The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh-grade protagonist witnesses the tarnishing of a childhood hero. Not every piece is Christmas-themed; pieces from the canon (Dickens##039; The Christmas Carol, Andersen##039;s fairy tale #quot;The Snow Queen,#quot; classic poems by Donne and Tennyson) are laid side by side with Jeanne Murray Walker##039;s #quot;Staying Power#quot; (epigraph: #quot;In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929#quot;) and an excerpt from Dostoevsky##039;s Notes from the Underground. You##039;ll find food for nostalgia as well as delightful new voices, including Arthur##039;s own. In short: both spiritual succor and pure pleasure.#quot;

Light up your season with this gem of a collection: buy your copy here. http://www.paracletepress.com/light-upon-light.html

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