Between Mirage and Miracle

Description: In this volume Shepherd selects from these and from other unpublished works to shape a series of poems that seek to portray and even illuminate to some extent the life of the spirit. They begin by tracing the progress of a typical year--January through December--but also by noting and celebrating at times the high points of The Christian Year Lent-Easter Pentecost Thanksgiving Advent-Christmas and Epiphany. Other more generally themed less calendar-related poems follow including poems that reflect on the September 11 2001 attack on the World Trade Center--an attack in which several of the authors parishioners and friends were killed. This is a book to be dipped into rather than read right through. It should provide fertile soil for the practice of daily prayer and meditation. Endorsements: Barrie Shepherds accessible poems invite belief and assent as with bright and beckoning uncertainty he explores the task of noticing / whatever has been there from the beginning . . . While admitting that we had not known that dark could be so deep he is ever available to all the holiness that hides in daily things. These poems extend and transcend Barrie Shepherds revelations of reality. In their honesty range and clarity they offer pleasures as well as truths. --Daniel Hoffman author of Brotherly Love and Poet Laureate of the United States 1973-1974 If the Christian faith needs a fresh vocabulary and new images to recapture that initial astonishment to express its radical world-shattering impact then Between Mirage and Miracle is a good place to begin to fill that need from the seemingly endless hints of holy connections perspectives and even revelations . . . This one you will find to be a good friend with whom you will want to have frequent enriching conversations. --James Forbes Union Theological Seminary Barrie Shepherd counsels us not to read these poems from beginning to end. I could not honor his advice. They are like the dark bright blackberries that grow near his Maine island cottage--sweet tart and deliciously ripe. For forty years this poet has been gathering clusters of wonder in the brambly terrain of daily life. His practiced eye helps us see in the illusion-filled and miracle-starved landscape of ordinary circumstances extraordinary things concealed in plain sight. --John S. Mogabgab founding editor of Weavings Journal Youll laugh and youll cry. Ours is not a poetry magazine but when Barrie Shepherd submits his poems they often find their way into print. Theology with verve. Pictures painted in words. Pithy sayings and extended dramas. All these and more await you as you ponder page after page of this collection of poems. --Jack Haberer editor of The Presbyterian Outlook About the Contributor(s): J. Barrie Shepherd Minister Emeritus of The First Presbyterian Church in New York City has preached and lectured extensively across the United States and Canada the United Kingdom Europe and Africa. He was named William Belden Noble lecturer at Harvard in 1995 and Lyman Beecher Lecturer at Yale in 2002. Author of fourteen books including Faces By the Wayside (Cascade Books 2012) Shepherds poetry appears frequently in such magazines as Weavings The Christian Century and The New Republic.