Safe Above the Weather

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. ~Isaiah 40:31 KJV

I recently finished a book that I've been anxious to read since it's release date almost a year ago. I purchased it just before beginning several house projects that included drywall repair, a palm sander, and lots of paint. I'd decided that I'd use the book as a little after-project dessert. Unfortunately, I've never been all that conventional about meals and dessert, sometimes having dessert for dinner, especially if that dessert happened to be ice cream. Needless to say, I was halfway through the book before I got done with those projects, and finished the book the same day I completed the final task... putting the last coat of paint on the baseboard in my daughter's closet. 

Madeline L'Engle holds a special place in my heart. While I've only ever known her as the writer of a beloved trilogy that I read in sixth grade, that trilogy became a quintet somewhere along the way without my ever knowing it. A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet were books that I absolutely inhaled. My memory of the images those books conjured would not allow me to see the recently-released movie. I still cringe a bit when I accidentally happen upon a preview.  

What I love about this author is her obvious love for Christ and her vision for Him in history, science, art, psychology, and prose. Opening a book by Madeline L'Engle is like holding a kaleidoscope to your eye next to a brightly-lit window.  For a dorky kid with an interest in almost everything, escaping into her young adult fiction took me to another place completely; a place where I could feel as if I were on quest with the Murray kids; a fully-accepted, highly-valued member of the clan.

Recently, a sweet friend asked me to bring a devotion to another friend's baby shower. The effort to write that little devotion was more pronounced than I felt it should be. I explained to her that I wound up trudging through a lot of my own muck before I could arrive at anything worthwhile to share at the shower. In fact, I spent hours and hours on the thing, only formulating something mildly presentable a few hours before the actual event. The writing wasn't about me. I needed to get to a place beyond myself to truly honor my friend.

I didn't realize this before starting on this journey, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd had it worked out that truly gifted writing can by-pass all that muck. Too many "I's" in a finished product, well, that's got to be the work of an underdeveloped writer. However, I'm finding that this process is quite a turbulent one. To be authentically yourself, which I think most artists strive to be, you have to explore some of the hard stuff in that effort, and while that seems like an okay thing for a little blog with a narrow following, I don't believe any of that self-exploration should find it's way to a published work unless it's a person's aim to publish their own memoirs. Clearly, I am a very immature writer.

That's the problem I had with A Light So Lovely. I didn't purchase the book to read about Sarah Arthur. I purchased it to read a faithful account of Madeline L'Engle's life. Acknowledging the fact that it feels somewhat impossible to leave yourself out of your own writing, there are some more surreptitious ways of including yourself. At times it felt like the author was downright hostile toward her subject.

Despite this, Sarah Arthur seems to have a deep understanding of one of the authors that awakened my senses to a world that could include faith and science and utilize fiction as a vehicle to bring us to ultimate truth. Jesus' own storytelling takes universal truth and brings it to our human cognition via fictional stories... big ideas encapsulated in easily-digested parables. While slightly struggling with the author in her presentation of the subject, the biggest issue I had with this book was putting it down to finish the house projects. There's so much beauty here. 

"We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it." ~Madeleine L'Engle

Quite possibly my favorite part of the book centers on an idea I've been exploring myself for some time now. This section brought me to another book recommendation that found its origins in Madeleine's mentoring of budding authors. Several quotes stood out from the surrounding text in this particular chapter. 

"The artist, while creating, is in some kind of communion with the Maker who made us in his own image--who made us to make things--which has implications not only for individual artists but also for religious communities and their engagement with the arts." 

~Sarah Arthur 

"...my art was actually a vital expression of the gifts I had been given and therefore a responsibility." ~Aleah Marsden

"Art is not merely a task but also a kind of spiritual surrender." ~Sarah Arthur

Another striking aspect of this particular chapter was the stern admonition toward artists against projecting truth from culture, a practice we see in ever-widening use today.  And that is the place where I believe every artist struggles...seeing things through the lens of our own life experience, our own family culture, making it necessary to get above the turbulence of life in the now and life in our pasts. Writing through some of my own struggles in an effort to find a higher place, safe above the weather, has informed my own realization that what we experience as truth, living life in the same household day in and day out for eighteen years with other people, is not necessarily the same experiential truth our housemates cling to. Strong connection to our Source for ultimate Truth is our only solid lifeline. 

Next in line... Walking on Water... a book by Madeline L'Engle herself, and perhaps those last two books in the quintet that I missed on my high school foray into the world of Stephen Lawhead, another Christian author and contemporary of Madeline L'Engle that I can't wait to share with you. 😊