I'm speechless and humbled at having finished Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water." Well, apparently not entirely speechless because here I sit writing...anyway.
Law school has begun again and so I have taken advantage of Labor Day weekend to finish the books that I'd started this summer (and to get a head start on the many readings for my Law in Lit class). Walking on Water has been waiting for me for a couple of weeks.
Madeleine L'Engle is a renowned, prize-winning author that I remember reading and adoring as a child. I read all her A Wrinkle in Time series for they enraptured me when I was young...and now I could not for the life of me tell anyone what the stories were about. Although I do know the word "mitochondria" because of her. I had no idea about her faith.
I was shocked to find that this volume had been written before I was born. I felt as if Madeleine was inside my head, especially when she was talking about service to art. And then when she talked about the relationship that prayer shares with the creative process...I wish I could have had coffee with this woman:
"In prayer, in the creative process, these two parts of ourselves, the mind and the heart, the intellect and the intuition, the conscious and the subconscious mind, stop fighting and collaborate. Theophan the Recluse advised those who came to him for counsel to "pray with the mind in the heart," and surely this is how the artist works. When the mind and the heart work together they know each other as two people woth love each other know' and as the love to the two people is a gift, a totally unmerited, incomprehensible gift. so is the union of the mind and heart."
True art is a prayer, a form of communication with God. I have felt and lived this. I love this soul put on paper and I can only hope that my art and pursuit of it will lead my soul to become as beautifully humble as hers.
Thank you, Madeleine, for your example. Someday, let's talk.
(Day 19)
Law school has begun again and so I have taken advantage of Labor Day weekend to finish the books that I'd started this summer (and to get a head start on the many readings for my Law in Lit class). Walking on Water has been waiting for me for a couple of weeks.
Madeleine L'Engle is a renowned, prize-winning author that I remember reading and adoring as a child. I read all her A Wrinkle in Time series for they enraptured me when I was young...and now I could not for the life of me tell anyone what the stories were about. Although I do know the word "mitochondria" because of her. I had no idea about her faith.
I was shocked to find that this volume had been written before I was born. I felt as if Madeleine was inside my head, especially when she was talking about service to art. And then when she talked about the relationship that prayer shares with the creative process...I wish I could have had coffee with this woman:
"In prayer, in the creative process, these two parts of ourselves, the mind and the heart, the intellect and the intuition, the conscious and the subconscious mind, stop fighting and collaborate. Theophan the Recluse advised those who came to him for counsel to "pray with the mind in the heart," and surely this is how the artist works. When the mind and the heart work together they know each other as two people woth love each other know' and as the love to the two people is a gift, a totally unmerited, incomprehensible gift. so is the union of the mind and heart."
True art is a prayer, a form of communication with God. I have felt and lived this. I love this soul put on paper and I can only hope that my art and pursuit of it will lead my soul to become as beautifully humble as hers.
Thank you, Madeleine, for your example. Someday, let's talk.
(Day 19)
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