Ep. 74 – Luci Shaw – The Crime Of Cautious Living

Rachel Cram – Lucy thanks so much for giving us the time today. We’re so looking forward to getting to know you better.

Luci Shaw – I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.

Rachel Cram – Thank you. I’m going to start with a question and you just go any direction you want with it. Aristotle stated, “Give me a child until they’re seven and I will show you the adult.” Are there stories or experiences from your childhood that shaped the person that you are today, at 90, right?

Luci Shaw – Yes. My dad was a primary influence in my life. I was his first child and he was 60 when I was born. My brother came along two years later. But my dad was an enthusiastic adventurer, a hero in my life. He taught me to skate, to swim. He made me swim a mile across a lake when I was 10. I mean he made me do it but I wanted to do it too. He just infused us with all kinds of activities that went beyond the normal things.

He taught us to sail. He made a small sailboat and to make it safe, he put under the thwarts, he put some airtight containers so that it wouldn’t sink. And with that he would send us off and we would sail for days at a time. And swim. And it just brought me into touch with the natural world that has always been a starting point for my thinking and my enjoyment, the wonderful greenness and growth and beauty that’s inherent in creation. He just expected us to have the same interests and enthusiasms, which we did.

My mother was always a little worried that he was going to go too far and he was going to bring us into danger. But we survived.

Rachel Cram – Well what you’re describing, I think, is a life that’s almost a past era now. It’s not often that parents just send their young children, you’re saying you were 10, off into the lake on a sailboat.
I think that’s,

Luci Shaw – Do you think so?

Rachel Cram – I do.

Luci Shaw – know that there’s a greater concern about the safety of children abroad in our communities these days. But I don’t know. I would treat my own kids the same way.

Rachel Cram – And did you? As you were raising your own kids?

Luci Shaw – I think I did. Right. Yeah right.

Rachel Cram – What was your mom like? Can you tell me more about that?

Luci Shaw – Mother was a little younger than Dad. I was born when she was in her late 40s and my brother came along later. It was very hard for her because my dad traveled constantly all around the world. And it would leave her with responsibility for me and my brother. She was not an easy person to be around. She had such high expectations that I never was able to fulfill.

My Dad was a restless man and my Mother was very different. She was timid. She was very interested in appearances. So we had to be good. The two almost polar opposites in personality. I just actually wrote a poem about my family. I don’t know if you’d be interested.

Rachel Cram – I would love to hear it. I’m actually wondering if I’ve already read it?

Luci Shaw – No. It’s a new one.

Rachel Cram – Is it from, Eye Of The Beholder?

Luci Shaw – It’s a brand new one. It’s not in there.

Rachel Cram – Oh, wow! Want to find that?

Luci Shaw – Let’s see if I’ve got it. I’ll get it.

Rachel Cram – Yeah, do. No rush. Hot off the press. Love it.

Luci Shaw – OK. Ok

Rachel Cram – Thank you. This is a real honor to get to hear a brand new poem.

Luci Shaw – This poem is called, Family Of Origin.

Our parents keep circulating
in the rooms of our lives.
Mine are long gone, but if it would
satisfy them I would take my heart
out of its cage and gift-wrap it
for their anniversary.

I glimpse them often, Dad reading
a book over my shoulder,
now and again offering words
of advice that might have made
sense fifty years ago. The words
form clots in my memory, cells
bright as blood, a private language
unlike any other.

My mother demanded mountains
of me. I managed to supply foothills.
They were lovely foothills, but
failure would hang in the air. We still
seem to meet in the heart of an old
argument, words hanging unresolved,
glittering sparks in the dark air.

Sometimes, when I feel most wrong
about how to remember them, I am
most right, seeing them as they settled
into the grooves of my own memory.

I am my own narrative arc,
yet I arranged the candles and
flowers on my mantelpiece the way
my mother would have done it.
And for my father, I still write
small poems, like the ones he
carried in his briefcase to
show his friends when I
was very young.

Luci Shaw – So that’s a little picture, it’s not a complete picture but yeah. Dad loved poetry and he loved my poetry and he was very proud of it. My mother always wanted me to stay humble so she didn’t like people to praise my work. She was afraid it would lead to pride, which was a cardinal sin in her Christian theology.

Rachel Cram – How old were you when you started writing?

Luci Shaw – Probably three or four, I was putting words together. And then in high school I began to do it more seriously and I had good teachers. And then in college, I was an English lit major at Wheaton, and I had the most wonderful mentors who just let me do whatever I want.

Rachel Cram – Well you have, as I read your history, you have had some amazing mentors in your life and friendships.

Luci Shaw – Yes.

Rachel Cram – People that you’ve walked alongside. Peers. Madeleine L’Engle.

Luci Shaw – Yes

Rachel Cram – Eugene Peterson.

Luci Shaw – Yes

Rachel Cram – Dr. Kilby

Luci Shaw – Clyde Kilby.

Rachel Cram – Yeah, Clyde Kilby, who I think is who brought C.S. Lewis kind of onto the North American stage, Right?

Luci Shaw – Yes, he did. He was the one who sort of enlarged the whole understanding of C.S. Lewis in North America. Yeah.

Rachel Cram – And he was who really encouraged you to write. I believe.

Luci Shaw – He was.

Rachel Cram – So you’ve had these incredible people to live life alongside,

Luci Shaw – Oh yes.

Rachel Cram – but to step into those relationships you already had your own sense of wonder and creativity

Luci Shaw – Oh yes.

Rachel Cram – and imagination growing inside of you. And you started that right from when you were three. So what pushed you along that journey? What fuels you?

Luci Shaw – Well my parents did read good books to me. We didn’t have children’s books but we would read good novels. We would enlarge our language powers just by becoming familiar with really good writing and the rhythms and the construction of writing, so that it was something almost in my blood right from the beginning.

Rachel Cram – Were your parents reading you adults books?

Luci Shaw – Yeah. Well I mean they were, they were not racy. But they were some of the great novels of Western literature.

Rachel Cram – The books that your parents read to you Lucy. Were there any in particular that stick in your mind.

Luci Shaw – Well Dickens of course. You know David Copperfield, the amazing characters that he drew in his fiction. Yeah, that’s the one that I remember most clearly.

Rachel Cram – Well I think often now as parents we think those books would be boring for children but obviously that’s not true.

Luci Shaw – Well of course language styles change. You know, literary styles evolve. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t gain so much richness from an older pattern of speech. English is such an amazingly rich language. I mean, it’s a difficult language because it doesn’t always follow the rules but the richness of it. The number of words we have at our disposal and then the images that they bring to us.

And of course I worked a lot with Madeleine L’Engle. She wrote sonnets. They just sort of flowed out of her. She and I worked, I mean she was she was my heart friend, my best friend for 35 years. And we spent an awful lot of time together. We traveled together. We visited back and forth. I drove her around the Canadian Rockies.

Rachel Cram – They’ve just done a movie of her book, A Wrinkle in Time.

Luci Shaw – a wrinkle.. it’s terrible. It’s terrible.

Rachel Cram – I kind of heard it didn’t get good,

Luci Shaw – It’s just, it’s not Madeleine at all.

Rachel Cram – So you saw it,

Luci Shaw – And they skipped all the really wonderful scriptural passages where she calls on the greatness of God. And they just cut all that out and you know made it just a fantasy. And I’ve spent some time with Madeleine’s granddaughters, Charlotte and Lena. I was with them at Calvin College last year. We had a wonderful public conversation, talking about our memories of Madeleine, which is a lot of fun.

Rachel Cram – Was she more a poet or more a prose writer?

Luci Shaw – Oh she was a fiction writer for sure but the poetry just came whether she wanted it to or not. And I published a couple of books of her poems, put them together and made them into books and they’re published, so yeah.

Musical Interlude #1

For highlighted quotes from this conversation with Luci, follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Find us at family360podcast. Or if you’re wanting a transcript, go to our website at family360podcast.com. It’s all there waiting for you.

Rachel Cram – One of the things that I find really amazing about poetry, as a busy working mother, is that you can take these little moments in your day, just five minutes to read something. You can just let that ruminate in the back of your head.

Luci Shaw – Exactly.

Rachel Cram – One of my favorite poems is one that you’ve written for your son John. You’ve written it about being a poet and your first line is, “To be a poet you must write more than you know, hoping it to be true.” I’m wondering, can you read your poem, Take These Words?

Luci Shaw – Yes

Rachel Cram – Because I feel you can even put the word ‘parent’ in there. To be a parent you must write more than you know, hoping it to be true. Can I hand you your book, for you to read it?

Luci Shaw – I’d love too. I’d love too. I love this poem.

Rachel Cram – I do too. It’s my favorite right now.

Luci Shaw – It’s ok to be in love with your own work.

Rachel Cram – I think you should be.

Luci Shaw – Take These Words from my son John on his birthday.

To be a poet you must write
more than you know, hoping it to be true,

that the words will have a life beyond the moment,
taking the shape of their meaning, like rain

filling a bowl – drops gathering into a formless
that is wholly fresh and drinkable. I remember

the urge, last week, to describe to the poet in you
(for your birthday) how a spear of fireweed

delivered her pale fluff to the wind.
And how bird songs tangled in the vine maples

and fell to the dry grass like lace. And the cricket,
faithful in his endless summer thrum,

sang simply what he was born to sing, knowing nothing
of the calm it brings us.

I’d wanted words to tell you how, as long shadows
took over the campground and sank into our bodies,

swifts and swallows, stitching the air, took
their fill of gnats while above them the stars circled,

beyond speech. But I, astonished and grateful,
pondering the ongoing script of your life,

find no heart words adequate to send. Take
these, then. Perhaps you can fill in the gaps.

I think what I always wanted my kids to have was an exercise of the imagination. Not just interested in facts and figures but to go beyond that. A lot of poems are just sort of guesses and hints. And I love the fact a hint gets you to start thinking on your own.

Rachel Cram – Well that’s a beautiful experience for children to have. What I’m hearing you saying is, just giving that open space for discovery and for surprise and things not being dualistic.

Luci Shaw – Exactly. Exactly

Rachel Cram – Things not being right or wrong.

Luci Shaw – And mystery.

Rachel Cram – Can you talk more about mystery. I love that.

Luci Shaw – Oh, well, mystery; you know it, it just means that there’s more. There’s more to be discovered. And of course there’s levels of experience. There’s the physical level. There’s the emotional level. There’s the spiritual level. And I think that mystery engages all those different levels in our humanity. And I think God created us to be creators. I’m created to create. And I love the word poem, ‘poema’, means something that is made. And that’s our task. And it’s a task to name things; the beauties of the world around us, to bring them into focus to reflect something that we have discovered, that we want someone else to discover, perhaps for the first time

Rachel Cram – When you were saying that God gave us the task, and you’ve used that I think, to launch your book The Crime Of Living Cautiously . Can you talk a little bit about that? You know what I’m talking about? That parable of,

Luci Shaw – the talents

Rachel Cram – the talents. Can you tell that parable and then carry on to give the understanding that you have of how we’re not called to live cautiously.

Luci Shaw – Well you know the parable is about three sons. Their father had to go away for a while and he left them with responsibilities and he gave them money to invest. One of them invested it and gained some interest. And that went well. And one of them just put the money in a safe place and let it sit. And it was not invested so it never brought back any royalties, any return for the money. And that’s a little bit like the way our lives are. We need to invest in the riches that are around us that are available to us, and not just sit and let things happen.

Rachel Cram – You are saying that he took the money and he was safe with it.

Luci Shaw – He was safe.

Rachel Cram – And I feel in your books, in your writings, you’re not really big on safe.

Luci Shaw – I’m not good on safe.Yeah.

Rachel Cram – What’s the problem with safe?

Luci Shaw – It’s, it’s so, what’s the problem was safe? It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s dull and it’s dead. It leads, it leads to death.

Of course we want our kids to be safe but we don’t want to hem them in to such a degree that they never want to reach out and have an adventure or try something new or

Rachel Cram – Define hemmed in Lucy. What do you mean by that?

Luci Shaw – Well if you live like a horse in a meadow. A nice meadow but it’s got fences all around it so it can’t get out. And yet there’s that amazing world of hills and valleys that the horse wants to enjoy. And I think that’s true for human beings. We want to keep people from danger and pride all the seven deadly sins. And we hem them in so much that there’s such fear of moving out of that and experimentation and adventure, that our lives just become stilted and stale. There’s such a fear of causing negative comment or judgment.

Rachel Cram – Back to what your mom used to rail against.

Luci Shaw – Yeah

Rachel Cram – Keeping up appearances.

Luci Shaw – Yes. Keeping up appearances – very much.

Rachel Cram – So how do you move against that? How do you get up in the morning and choose to live life differently? For you Lucy Shaw. What do you do?

Luci Shaw – I don’t know. What do I do? It just happens so automatically that I don’t even have to think about that. But it’s, it’s, opening up my mind to culture, to spirituality, to the wide world that’s available to us as human beings. And we’ve got these little brains and we’ve got these little minds and bodies but they can expand into a powerful thing that can affect the people around us and we hope the generations that follow us. We hope.

Musical interlude #2

Thanks for listening to family360 and our conversation with Luci Shaw. There is more to come.

For our next episode, we’re back for a second interview with Dr. Tina Payne Bryson. We’re talking about her newest book, The Bottom Line For Baby. It’s a wide-ranging conversation from the overwhelm of welcoming a new child into a home, to the value of having pets, to why we don’t feel like sex after kids, to what our kids need most. Tina is a renowned psychotherapist, a New York Times Best Selling author and a warm and wonderful source of parental empathy and wisdom. Join us!

And now, back to the conclusion to our first conversation with Luci and then into our recent second conversation as we asked her to augment her comment on courage.

Rachel Cram – That concept of opening up your minds. I read this quote by you. I’m just going to find it. Here it is. “My job as a poet is to be listening; sending up a lightning rod so that the lightning can touch and electrify me.” So what does listening mean for you?

Luci Shaw – Well listening isn’t just hearing. You know, you can hear something, you can hear a bird and just notice it. But then, if you’re really listening, you focus on that and you’re allowed to speak to you. So listening has a different feel than just merely hearing. The messages of nature are so powerful. Nearly all my poetry has to do with some aspect of nature or some experience that I have in the natural world. I love some of the discoveries of science and how the human mind is just always hungry for information, for learning more about how life works.

Rachel Cram – Well not all human minds are like that. I think that’s something that has to be nurtured.

Luci Shaw – Yes.

Rachel Cram – That curiosity.

Luci Shaw – Yes.

Rachel Cram – That desire to know. You know you’ve made reference to nurturing creativity, mystery and listening. When you are with your children Lucy, how do you attempt to nurture that in them?

Luci Shaw – I think that the way to do that is to give examples of something that has been powerful in your own thinking in life. As far as children goes, I think I was just too busy doing the laundry, making the meals and you know making sure they got enough sleep and enough vitamins, that I was working too hard to nurture the imagination in them.

Rachel Cram – That takes off a lot of pressure. To hear you say that. So no formulas.

Luci Shaw – Each of my five kids has taken a very different path in life and showed different kinds of gifts. I mean, they’re all wonderful people but you cannot project into the future. You have to be open with children. Be prepared for whatever it is that you can take or ignore or celebrate or explore. I mean, life is so full of richness in so many directions. And yet it all takes creativity and imagination to bring these things into being. And to see the potential. To see what is there to be explored and expanded.

Rachel Cram – If you were to give, from your life experience, one thought for people to ponder,

Luci Shaw – That’s scary.

Rachel Cram – I’ll make it more specific then. One thought to ponder about raising children with an openness to that list of wonderful qualities that you gave; things that you’re going to ignore, things that you’re going to pay attention to.

Luci Shaw -I love the word Jesus used. “Behold.” Here’s something interesting. Look at it. Follow it. I love the idea that you can say to your child, “Look in this direction. Look this way.” Or, “Look that way. There is something fresh to enter into your life, to enrich it” and not just to follow the well-worn ruts of civilization.

All the great scientists and poets had these aha moments, when suddenly things fall into place and they can move ahead with something fresh. And when you think of all the stimuli and the insights we receive on a daily basis; the knowledge we acquire, the wisdom we hear from other people, it can all be put together in our own lives in a way that’s creative and wholesome and loving. So that’s why it’s so important to expose our children to good literature, to good poetry, to good music. To music that’s going to make them stretch a bit. That’s not just simplistic but it has depth of meaning it has a thickness to it.

Rachel Cram – Do you think we tend to lean towards being too simplistic in what we give to children.

Luci Shaw – It’s easier. You know, we don’t have to think very hard about it. You know we just do the next thing physically; what’s necessary, while neglecting the other parts of the human being which are the mind, the soul and the hidden gifts that are waiting there to be woken.

So we took our children camping. That’s where you’re immersed in the natural world in a way that no words can fully describe. You have to experience it. Experience is what brings wonder.

Rachel Cram – I wish I could remember the exact, quote is not the right word but, I’ve actually heard that reading and camping are two of the key predictors of how a child goes on to do in life.

Luci Shaw – Wow.

Rachel Cram – Yeah.

Luci Shaw – I didn’t know that. Oh Good!

Rachel Cram – Well apparently if a child’s read five books a day while they’re young, and they don’t have to be long books. The way that enhances their vocabulary, their understanding of language, their understanding of the flow of language; That’s very significant. But then they also went on to say that families that camp together, even if just for one week a summer, what that does for a child’s brain, a family experience of being in the outdoors, is akin to that reading experience.

Luci Shaw – Oh I would absolutely affirm both of those things. Yes! absolutely! You know, experiences like that. You go down to the stream to get your drinking water and fill your canister and you see a bear in the undergrowth and, “hey, there’s a bear kids. Did you see?” things that happened without your planning them. Something fresh or new that expands our whole soul.

Rachel Cram – You’ve used the word soul a few times. It’s a word that I think is coming back more for us to consider and engage with. What does the word soul mean to you?

Luci Shaw – I think it’s the elemental part of us that makes us individuals. And it’s capable of being enriched and expanded. It’s a living thing. It’s not static. It’s hungry for richness and for information and for experience.

So I mean, that’s, that’s an essential part of the human being, is to have this capacity to move beyond ourselves to.

Rachel Cram – Move beyond ourselves. Can you say a little bit more about that?

Luci Shaw – I think it takes courage to be a human being. It would be easy to protect yourself, easy just to sort of guard yourself and surround yourself with safe things. But that’s a very dry and uninteresting way to live. You have to take risks. I think you have to allow your kids to take risks, otherwise they’re never going to experience the excitement of taking a risk and having it work out to be something wonderful.

Rachel Cram – Lucy is there anything else that you want to see before we close off?

Luci Shaw – I’m sure I’ll think of about a dozen things I want to say after you’ve gone.

Rachel Cram – Well I thank you so much. It has been so wonderful to be able to sit and talk with you and probe into your mind and,

Luci Shaw – Oh, well it’s a privilege to talk to someone who ask the right questions. You know. You really do. I just wish I were a little bit more fluent in my answers.

Rachel Cram – Oh you’ve been beautifully fluid. Thank you so much.

Music #3 –

And now, our newest 2022 conversation with Luci, recorded when the covid shutdown finally lifted, on her fitting statement, “It takes courage to be a human being.”

Rachel Cram – Oh Luci, it’s so good to be with you again. Thank you so much for giving us your time and wisdom for this… well, I guess it’s almost like a postscript to your first interview. I know you’re pulling back from public speaking, so we don’t take this for granted at all!

Luci Shaw – Oh, well, it’s fun. You guys are a lot of fun.

RC – Well, that’s kind of you. The first time I interviewed you, it was, maybe the fifth or sixth interview we’d done for family360. I was so nervous coming in to see you because of your reputation. And I just didn’t want to seem foolish in front of you, and you were just so gracious to us.

LS – I’m glad to hear that. That’s good news for me, to know that was a good interaction.

RC – You were wonderful. Okay. Well, let’s talk to you about courage. In our previous conversation together, you ended with a line that has stuck with me ever since. You said, “It takes courage to be a human being.”

And that line has come to me so many times in these last years. With the pandemic, but also just the daily challenges of being a human being. And so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about that before we re-release that episode.

LS – Okay.

RC – So here’s where your words have been coming to my mind. Let me try this out on you. Through the lens of family, and life together in relationship with one another, arguably times of transition are often when we’re tempted toward what you call, the crime of living cautiously, because change is disorienting and we want to hold onto what we had.

So, thinking of you Luci, stepping into a very public career as a writer and professor when women weren’t doing much of that,or you becoming a Mom 5 times, or losing your first husband, and then those early days of learning to live as a widow. Those were, I’m sure, huge transitions.

For me, I think my most recent transitions are usually when I’m stretched into a new stage; a new way that I need to show up for other people or even show up for myself. Do you know what I mean? Like, kids leaving home. Menopause.

LS – Passages.

RC – Yeah. Exactly. Passages. And for me, there can be a temptation to live into that passage with caution instead of courage because I’m not really sure what courage would look like at that moment. So, I’d love to ask you, what do you mean by courage? Can you define courage?

LS – Well, it comes from the word heart, ‘coeur’ in French, the heart. So it has something to do with the central part of us that responds to life. And to make life worthwhile and meaningful, you have to summon up something from within you that’s going to meet that challenge.

Particularly recently during the pandemic, life has had so many challenges and people are really tired. I think we’re coming out of that now, and I think we’ve learned a lot in that time but it’s an ongoing process.

RC – When you say, “to make life worthwhile, you have to summon, summon up something”, what do you mean by that? How do you summon, because that sounds like a lot of power and effort that many of us might not feel we have. How do you summon worth and meaning into life?

LS – Yeah, we’re sort of struggling right now. And I think every day we need a new drink of courage or a new understanding that, “Okay, we’ve got this day, we’re going to do something with it. And this day, I’ve got Roy and Rachel here with me, so, it doesn’t take a lot of courage to be with you but I think we seek courage together, the three of us. We feel safe, but then we go out into the world in an hour or so and then we have to find courage for the highway, for every little human activity. We may not be aware of our need for courage, but if we have a personality that likes to respond positively to the world, that takes courage.

RC – I love how you drop these lines. It’s the poet in you. “If we want to respond positively to the world” Like, who would want to say ‘no’ to that? Of course I want to respond positively. But I wonder if sometimes there are other qualities that we mistake for courage that could actually hinder our positivity in the world? I’m thinking of other words that would be synonymous with courage, but maybe different as well. A word like boldness, like what would the difference between boldness and courage be?

LS – Boldness sounds confrontive to me, it’s like, okay, I’m meeting a challenge head on and I have to have that inner strength to meet it. And that’s what boldness feels like to me.

Rachel Cram – Yeah, courage to me seems to have more of a softness to it?

LS – Yes. Or a wholeness to it. Where as boldness seems to rise to the top in a place of struggle or conflict. And you really have to to conquer it.

RC – I like the word wholeness as a parameter for courage. I can use that. What about you Luci? What takes courage in your life right now?

LS – Well, a couple of things. Physically at 93, it takes courage just to get out of bed and face the day. And as you may know, I have a really bad ankle. I have to wear an ankle brace. I’m in a lot of pain. As soon as I stand up, I have to deal with the pain. And as you get older sometimes physical strength as well as the spiritual, mental strength sometimes is sort of shriveled up inside you. You just want to be quiet. You want people to be nice to you and take care of you and not have to be the one that takes the initiative.

And as your strength and your energy diminish with age, you still have to gather yourself together. I think the scriptural phrase is, ‘gird your loins’ to take that initiative to continue going.

RC – Can I just interrupt you for a moment? You have a fabulous poem about your ankle, and I’d love to read it because I think it speaks to how you summon courage in aging with such respect and kindness to your body for doing all it’s done over its years carrying you around this planet. I hope to be like you in this. You’ve inspired me. Can I read it to you Luci?

LS – Yes absolutely.

RC – I just have to find it here. It’s in your newest book, Angels Everywhere. I put in a post it note. Here it is. This is so you in how you seem to gather and gear yourself up for courage.

So it’s called, In Praise of My Left Ankle

Oh, you who have held my
foot secure for every one of my
ninety-three years,

You who in my youth braved diving boards,
whose strong spring took me up until
gravity pulled me back down,

You who have worked so well
connecting my toes to
my shin,

How are you doing
now, now that the ground beneath you
seems like a series of stumbling
blocks placed deliberately
to challenge your locomotion?

I honor you, old joint, braced now
with a clever device for which I paid
far too much, but for which
I now offer my meager thanks.

I love that Luci.

LC – Thank you. The thing I don’t have to gear myself up for is writing. And I do a lot of reading, but I do believe that I get messages from the beyond, if you want to say the spirit of God. Yes, that helps me to engage with the world and not be afraid.

RC – And you’ve been practicing that for your whole lifetime. Your dear friend Madeleine L’Engle, she has a quote. I think it’s something along the lines of “I’m all the ages that I’ve ever been.”

LS – Yes. Yes.

RC – Do you remember the exact quote?

LS – Yes, that’s right.

RC – Oh! Roy’s just looking it up. Thanks.

Roy Salmond – You’re welcome.

RC – She said, “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

LS – Yes. And I know exactly what she means by that. And I would say the same thing.

RC – Can you reflect back on some of the ages that you’ve been? Where have you needed courage as you’ve navigated passages, and the tricky transitions of being a parent, a poet, a professor, a publisher? A lot of ‘p’ words. Can you reflect back on choices of courage that have accumulated into the person that you are today at 93?

LS – Yes. As a young mother with five children, when we started the publishing house, that took an enormous amount of courage. But we did it. And then, of course, when Harold had cancer and died, I had to have the courage to keep going without him. I had wonderful helpers and supporters, but that was a big challenge. And then I met John, and I had to figure out courage for a new relationship. And, you know, that was fairly easy. John’s not a difficult person to be with. But anyway, so the courage I need now is just every day to get up and do what needs to be done.

RC – Were there any particular mantras or mindsets you recited to yourself to get you through those challenging times?

LS – I’m not sure that I philosophized about it. I think I just had to do it every day. Life. Life called me. Responsibilities had to be dealt with. You can’t just opt out of life.

If you’re in a relationship with friends, with family, there’s a requirement for responsibility for responding in a loving way or in a helpful way to what their needs are. And if I have something financially or physically that I can do to help, that brings joy. And, you know, I have a wonderful group of friends. We just share the needs in our lives. My brother died, so I’m sure that they will be acting as supporters and lovers in this time when I’m trying to come to terms with what it’s like to be the only one from my family that still exists. So, you know, it’s just a daily thing. And I have resources, thank goodness.

I would like to read you a poem, though. About getting older.

RC – I would love that.

LS – Is that okay now?

RC – Yeah.

Getting older.

The idea hunts me like a predatory animal,

Rapacious, ravenous, toothed, with sharp intricacies.

There is blood on the ground.
I feel it. Wet, sticky, seeping between my toes.

Unhealed the wounds, scars, hide in the pleats of skin. Failures, regrets, leave ragged blemishes and a trail of crimson drops across the room. And in the thick night, a confusion of dreams.

How good it would be if the anxiety of aging, bulky and useless, could be a piece of furniture. I’d move it out of the living room and store it somewhere dark out of sight, in the basement perhaps, locking it behind the cellar door.

Then I’d climb back up to the kitchen, a space clean and predictable enough to allay dread, quench doubt.

Prepare a meal.

Pray my thanks.

So that’s one way of trying to deal with this thing called aging. It’s not…you both experience this. It’s nothing new. You’re getting older, too.

RC – Well, it sounds very difficult. We all need this information. How do we age with thanks to our aging joints and ankles? And wrinkling skin. That’s my thing.

LS – I think it’s vitality. That’s what is needed, is vitality. And the root of that, of course, is vital. Life, still springing up, it hasn’t diminished. It’s still in there. The body sort of doesn’t keep pace with it. But it’s renewed day by day,

And of course, we have to eat to keep that going. We have to sleep to keep that going. So it’s just part of the human condition.

RC – It seems to me like you’re describing courage almost as a habit that we have to cultivate?

LS – It is a habit. It’s a habitual response to challenge. If you take a difficult situation, you have the courage to deal with it in whatever way, and the result is healing, there’s a great reward. If you’re engaging in something difficult with courage and you’re doing it well, it brings a great sense of fullness and satisfaction, I believe.

RC – I wonder if often, the times we regret most are the times we don’t show up with vitality and with courage, and we hold back out of fear of making a mistake, or looking foolish, or letting our guard down, and then we miss out on the learning and the experience that comes with courage.

And the delight. Courage and delight, sometimes work together.

RC – Well, I don’t know if this is a question that will intrigue you or not Luci but I’m going to give it a try, so here’s my question. When you pass on into the next life, whatever that entails, if was an option to come back as a human being again, knowing all you now know about the courage that’s required, do you think you’d want to take it?

LS – Yeah, I think so. I think there’s a lot of joy to be had in this life. And, you know, a lot of it has to do with the spiritual life and whether I would feel I had learned some spiritual lessons so that if I return to life again, I’d be able to deal with it with greater wisdom and greater enjoyment and greater participation. Yeah. I don’t have too many regrets. Right now, I’m in great relationship with all five of my children. I tell you that that is a wonderful thing. And it takes work.

I made a lot of mistakes and I had one daughter in her teens who caused a lot of heartache. But, you know, you stick with it. You keep loving and you keep building. And at this point, that child is the most supportive and loving of all of my family. So there’s risk, and then there’s reward. And I think those two go together in the life of a person who has goodwill towards the world.

RC – Goodwill will towards the world. Can you say more about that?

LS – There’s a promise that you make to the rest of the world when you act as a human being. It’s the heart responding in the smallest things. It’s part of the rhythm of life. I think that’s what I feel. I have a lot of goodwill towards this world.

RC – Oh, you certainly do! And thank you so much for extending your good will towards Roy and I for this second interview. I love how you’ve shared your thoughts with such freshness and such vitality. You Luci Shaw, the full meal deal on courage!

LS – Well, I’ve never been this old before.

RC – Well, you’re nailing it.

LS – Thank you. Thank you. It’s fun to be with you. It’s not scary.

RC – I’m glad. That’s our goal.

Roy – It didn’t take too much courage?

RC – Lucy, thank you.