This collection of incarnational poetry from the author of A Telling Place, The One Loaf and Making Peace in Practice and Poetry explores a spirituality that engages with people, things, and the joys and sorrows of daily life.
Where are the altars? In the churches and great cathedrals?
Or out in the world and in the everyday?
Joy Mead writes:
I find myself bombarded with annunciations: sunlight on dead leaves, the patterns of tree bark, daisies and dandelion seeds, bread, flowers, butterflies, the smile of a child, a baby’’s hands, an old woman’’s lined face, pictures of the Sri Lankan children going back to school after the tsunami … the tears of a stranger. Things, events, people – bathed in a special light – amazing me with their wonder, mystery and value, part of a world more extraordinary than I can take in. Isn’’t this what a visit from an angel is?
Joy Mead is a poet of great sensitivity and subtlety. She is a deeply religious poet, without being a Religious Poet, if you know what I mean. Genuine spirituality is located in the material, in the embodied: that seems to be how our God works. Joy Mead’s spirituality is grounded in the depths of so-called ‘ordinary’ life – the extraordinary life. That’s why she is one of my favourite poets.
Ron Ferguson, author and award-winning journalist