Madelein L’Engle (1918-2007) authored over 40 books, including A
Wrinkle In Time and all of its
sequels. I still recall my 3rd
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.
