"Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety," and more Madelein L'Engle quotes (Part 2)

Madelein L’Engle (1918-2007) authored over 40 books, including A Wrinkle In Time and all of its sequels.  I still recall my 3^rd grade teacher reading those to us, and being mesmerized by the way they stimulated my imagination.  Her writing reflected her deep Christian faith, a love of science, and a curiosity to ask many questions. I was privileged to hear her give the Commencement Address to my graduating class at Wheaton College in 1977.  Here is Part 2 of my favorite quotes from her writings.  Let me know which ones resonate with you.

Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.

The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.

Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man's heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time.

The world of science lives fairly comfortably with paradox. We know that light is a wave, and also that light is a particle. The discoveries made in the infinitely small world of particle physics indicate randomness and chance, and I do not find it any more difficult to live with the paradox of a universe of randomness and chance and a universe of pattern and purpose than I do with light as a wave and light as a particle. Living with contradiction is nothing new to the human being.

Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.

And there's no getting around the fact that all life lives at the expense of another life.

You and I have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.

There is in God, some say, a deep but dazzling darkness.

It was the same way with silence. This was more than silence. A deaf person can feel vibrations. Here there was nothing to feel.

We have much to be judged on when he comes, slums and battlefields and insane asylums, but these are the symptoms of our illness and the result of our failures in love.

Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety.

One of the most pusillanimous things we of the female sex have done throughout the centuries is to have allowed the male sex to assume that mankind is masculine. It is not. It takes both male and female to make the image of God. The proper understanding of mankind is that it is only a poor, broken thing if either male or female is excluded.

The joys of love...last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.

My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.

God promised to make you free. He never promised to make you independent.

Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.

If you're too happy about anything, fate usually gives you a good sock in the jaw and knocks you down.

I am not some kind of computer. Only machines have glib answers for everything.

The peculiar idea that bigger is better has been around for at least as long as I have, and it's always bothered me. There is within it the implication that it is more difficult for God to care about a gnat than about a galaxy. Creation is just as visible in a grain of sand as in a skyful of stars. The church is not immune from the bigger-is-better heresy. One woman told of going to a meeting where only a handful of people turned out, and these faithful few were scolded by the visiting preacher for the sparseness of the congregation. And she said indignantly, 'Our Lord said *feed* my sheep, not count them!' I often feel that I'm being counted, rather than fed, and so I am hungry.

  

No! Alike and equal are not the same thing at all!”

If we don't pray according to the needs of the heart, we repress our deepest longings. Our prayers may not be rational, and we may be quite aware of that, but if we repress our needs, then those unsaid prayers will fester.

You're going to get hurt yourself, and badly, if you take everything so hard.

She began to feel the sense of wonderful elation that always came to her when beauty took hold of her and made her forget her fears.

Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do.

Two people whose opinion I respect told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. This certainly says something about the state of Christianity today. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is; I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities; I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thouness. Who today can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?”

It does not matter that we cannot fathom this mystery. The only real problem comes when we think that we have.

If we accept that we have at least an iota of free will, we cannot throw it back the moment things go wrong. Like a human parent, God will help us when we ask for help, but in a way that will make us more mature, more real, not in a way that will diminish us.

You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.

But grief still has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

Compassion is nothing one feels with the intellect alone. Compassion is particular; it is never general.

Life is not easy and comfortable, with nothing ever going wrong as long as you buy the right product. It's not true that if you have the right insurance everything is going to be fine. That's not what it's really like. Terrible things happen. And those are the things we learn from.

We human beings grow through our failures, not our virtues.

No wonder our youth is confused and in pain; they long for God, for the transcendent, and they are offered, far too often, either piosity or sociology, neither of which meets their needs, and they are introduced to churches which have become buildings that are a safe place to go to escape the awful demands of God.

Alas. What have we done to our good, bawdy, Anglo-Saxon four-letter words? ...We have blunted them so with overuse that they no longer have any real meaning for us. ...When will we be able to redeem our shock words? They have been turned to marshmallows. ...We no longer have anything to cry in time of crisis. 'Help!' we bleat. And no one hears us. 'Help' is another of those four-letter words that don't mean anything any more.

How do I make more than a fumbling attempt to explain that faith is not legislated, that it is not a small box which works twenty-four hours a day? If I 'believe' for two minutes once every month or so, I'm doing well.

Thoughts?

"Time exists so that everything doesn't happen at once," and other Madelein L'Engle quotes (Part 1)

Madelein L’Engle (1918-2007) authored over 40 books, including A Wrinkle In Time and all of its sequels.  I still recall my 3^rd grade teacher reading those to us, and being mesmerized by the way they stimulated my imagination.  Her writing reflected her deep Christian faith, a love of science, and a curiosity to ask many questions. I was privileged to hear her give the Commencement Address to my graduating class at Wheaton College in 1977.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from her writings.  Let me know which ones resonate with you.

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.

A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

Time exists so that everything doesn't happen at once.

The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.

A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.

If it can be verified, we don't need faith... Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys.

Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.

When we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe.

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.

The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly

Just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist.

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.

Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.

Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of the universe - these are what build a marriage. And it is never to be taken for granted.

Believing takes practice.

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.

I love, therefore I am vulnerable.

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.

The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.

Instead of rejoicing in this glorious "impossible" which gives meaning and dignity to our lives, we try to domesticate God, to make his mighty actions comprehensible to our finite minds.

Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it.

Death is contagious; it is contracted the moment we are conceived.

I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their own validity no matter what.

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes.

We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually.

Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.

Creative scientists and saints expect revelation and do not fear it. Neither do children. But as we grow up and we are hurt, we learned not to trust.

We do learn and develop when we are exposed to those who are greater than we are. Perhaps this is the chief way we mature.

Basically there can be no categories such as 'religious' art and 'secular' art, because all true art is incarnational, and therefore 'religious.

But there is something about Time. The sun rises and sets. The stars swing slowly across the sky and fade. Clouds fill with rain and snow, empty themselves, and fill again. The moon is born, and dies, and is reborn. Around millions of clocks swing hour hands, and minute hands, and second hands. Around goes the continual circle of the notes of the scale. Around goes the circle of night and day, the circle of weeks forever revolving, and of months, and of years.

God understands that part of us which is more than what we think we are.

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.

We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are.

Darkness was and darkness was good. As with light. Light and Darkness dancing together, born together, born of each other, neither preceding, neither following, both fully being, in joyful rhythm.

I do not think that I will ever reach a stage when I will say, "This is what I believe. Finished." What I believe is alive ... and open to growth.

Love is the one surprise.

She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.

It is possible to suffer and despair an entire lifetime and still not give up the art of laughter.

When I have something to say that I think will be too difficult for adults, I write it in a book for children. Children are excited by new ideas; they have not yet closed the doors and windows of their imaginations. Provided the story is good... nothing is too difficult for children.

Truth is eternal. Knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them.

To be continued…

Let me know which of these speak to you.

"Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be." Part 2 of Henri Nouwen Quotes

Some more of my favorite quotes from Henri Nouwen. Let me know which ones resonate with you.

The real "work" of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me. To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing-- that demands real effort.

Emit gratitude as though it was done.

We fail to see the place of suffering in the broader scheme of things. We fail to see that suffering is an inevitable dimension of life. Because we have lost perspective, we fail to see that unless one is willing to accept suffering properly, he or she is really refusing to continue in the quest for maturity. To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.

Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you often hope: 'May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.

Praying is no easy matter. It demands a relationship in which you allow someone other than yourself to enter into the very center of your person, to see there what you would rather leave in darkness, and to touch there what you would rather leave untouched.

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

Peace is first of all the art of being.

Praying demands that you take to the road again and again, leaving your house and looking forward to a new land for yourself and your [fellow human]. This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you always begin afresh.

Somehwere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.

God, who is the Creator of the Universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness.

Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.

As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.

It is tragic to see how the religious sentiment of the West has become so individualized that concepts such as "a contrite heart," have come to refer only to the personal experiences of guilt and willingness to do penance for it. The awareness of our impurity in thoughts, words and deeds can indeed put us in a remorseful mood and create in us the hope for a forgiving gesture. But if the catastrophical events of our days, the wars, mass murders, unbridled violence, crowded prisons, torture chambers, the hunger and the illness of millions of people and he unnamable misery of a major part of the human race is safely kept outside the solitude of our hearts, our contrition remains no more than a pious emotion.

Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.

True hospitality is receiving the stranger on his terms, and asserts that it can be offered only by those who have found the center of their lives in their own hearts.

Waiting is a dry desert between where we are and where we want to be.

For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair. Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.

Dear God,

I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!

Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?

Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?

Please help me to gradually open my hands

and to discover that I am not what I own,

but what you want to give me.

And what you want to give me is love,

unconditional, everlasting love.

Amen.

Thoughts on any of these?