Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1594731144 ISBN 13: 9781594731143

Publisher: Skylight Paths Pub, 2006

Synopsis

A delightful collection reveals how nature celebrates rebirth and renewal, exploring the delicate balance between the new and the ancient and evoking the sense that springtime is a time of poignant renewal, youth merged with age, and giddy joy tempered by wisdom.

About this title

About the Author

Gary Schmidt, a Newbery Award winner, teaches literature at Calvin College. He is coeditor of Summer; Autumn; and Winter, volumes in the Spiritual Biography of the Season series (all SkyLight Paths). He is also author of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, a Newbery Honor book; Mara's Stories: Glimmers in the Darkness, a Fanfare 2002 Horn Book honor list book; Straw Into Gold and, with Lawrence Kushner, In God's Hands.

Susan M. Felch teaches literature at Calvin College. She is coeditor of Summer; Autumn; and Winter, volumes in the Spiritual Biography of the Season series. She also edited The Collected Works of Anne Vaughan Lock; Bakhtin and Religion: A Feeling for Faith and The Self: Beyond the Postmodern Crisis.

From the Inside Flap

This diverse collection of writings explores the many facets of spring, from the first breakup of ice on a river in Nova Scotia to the long March rains in Kenya--and invites us each to nurture the stirrings of new life continually emerging in our own souls.

Reviews

The author of Ecclesiastes once said, "To every thing there is a season." Now, thanks to Schmidt and Felch, to every season there is a fine spiritual portrait: this anthology concludes the exemplary seasonal series, ending on hope's high note. Sidestepping the obvious, the volume often opts for a more oblique reality. Sophisticated, accessible, and thoughtful, it understands that "the springtimes of our experience are not all robins and violets; they are grace crouched in need and pain." To wit, Donald Hall tells the truth about cursing beavers and black flies, but doesn't neglect the celebrations of a herd loosed on the new green of spring either. Organized into "Stirrings," "Awakenings," "Growth," "Pilgrimage" and "Dance," some of the finest musings are in the section introductions, alongside entries from Annie Dillard, Isak Dinesen, Barbara Kingsolver, Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Kenyon, Gerard Manley Hopkins and many more. If the volume has a flaw it is that the North American entries concentrate on the possibly spring-starved Northeast, but poems, essays and remembrances that portray China, Africa and England help fill this minor deficit. Through poetry, prose, hymns and essays, this collection joyfully celebrates the glories of the season. (Mar.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Skylight Paths Pub
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594731144
• ISBN 13: 9781594731143
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 326
• Editor: Schmidt Gary D., Felch Susan M., Azarian Mary