10 Responses to “In Memory of Madeleine L’Engle”

1. cassidy on September 10th, 2007 4:23 pm

   If I have any heroes, Madeleine L’Engle is undoubtedly among them. In her words I found the beautiful harmonies of Story, Truth, and God — and that they might all be the same. She had courage to look to the heavens and to ask questions, to believe the unbelievable. She gave me a holy understanding of relativity and eternity.

   I am sorry that she will write no more, but I believe she has given us the courage to continue serving the story that we’ve been given.

   cassidy

   “Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to pain or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.” -Madeleine L’Engle

2. Natalie on September 10th, 2007 4:58 pm

   I was around twelve years old, curled up in my bed, when I read the opening sentence of Wrinkle: “It was a dark and stormy night.” Ironcially, it really was. Whether it was the outside connection, or something much deeper, I was engulfed in A Wrinkle in Time in no time at all. Soon I discovered precocious Meg Murray, a girl like me, unsure of herself and generally insecure, a bonafide fringe dweller who felt incapable of a real adventure. Like any good writer, Madeline made me feel like I was traveling with Calvin and the Murray kids. More importantly, she taught me it was okay to look at the world with my own eyes, form my own conclusions, and dare to imagine the unseen.

   Like Narnia, the body of Madeline’s work took on a new (or at least another) meaning when I realized she was a Christian. Sometimes I feel like the church itself is okay with imagination as long as it has its defined limits. Authors like Lewis and L’Engle ended up on banned book lists (in very good company) because they dared to push beyond that boundary. Ten years removed from a dreamy girl who loved fairy tales, my faith is still this mysterious world I keep journeying through, fighting all this unseen darkness, pressing on toward a Heaven too hard for my mind to really even understand. Real life is way more like fantasy literature than we realize. Somehow though, I think writers like those folks did understand. At least a little bit.

   In college, I began reading her poetry. Her prose really is an entity unto itself. While the poem “David” is my favorite, a line from a different poem that often gets stuck in my head is: “My sins, I fear, dear Lord, lack glamour”

   I believe the last quote in the NY Times speaks volumes of her life and serves as a powerful reminder to the rest of us coffee slinging artists with ink stains on our hands (and a deeply imbedded calling to create). The art we make, the life we live, even the worlds spinning through our imaginations have a unique potential to glorify God (and somehow draw us closer to him in the process). As she so aptly siad, words make a profound difference. Everytime I kick and scream about coming down out of the safety of my own hill, I rememer Meg Murry. She dared me to do great things. And I remember Madeline L’Engle. She dared me to translate great things into great art, into words that mattered. I imagine Heaven will blow all our preconcieved notions out of the water. For people like Madeline L’Engle, CS Lewis, and JRR Tolkein … I can only imagine how sweet the day was when they realized even THEIR imaginations had barely scraped the surface.

   Thanks for a great write up about her on this blog! Her writing has been such an inspiration to me. I’m so grateful for her work and her life.

   “I see death’s shadow stretch its barren trees
   showing structure and surprising beauty,
   promising that the journey does not end.”
   - From “80″ by M. L’Engle

3. Jean on September 13th, 2007 9:37 am

   What must “heaven” be like on this day of her arrival? I imagine her joy must be as great as our sorrow at her passing.

4. Reba on September 14th, 2007 8:22 am

   Madeline’s book ‘Walking on water’ forever changed and shaped how I viewed my own life as a Christian and artist. It is one of my most loved books. Highlighted, dogeared, and worn.

5. Layne on September 14th, 2007 2:54 pm

   Madeline L’Engle’s books have had an incredible impact on me as a lover of God and as a creative individual; the themes of mystery, beauty, and love in A Wrinkle in Time and the Time Quartet have been especially influential. I am one of many Meg Murrays in the world, looking for love, adventure, and transcendant truth in this dangerous and often dark world.

   The scope of her imagination and ability to create such moving characters make her one of my top role models as a writer, but most of all, from her writing I could always tell that her faith never limited her, but she always let it carry her works and enhance the beauty of her art.

   She is home.

6. Dawn on September 15th, 2007 2:56 am

   Just today I was reading one of her books and thanking God that someone like her was still with us. This article was the first I’d heard of her death. I’m saddened, but glad of her legacy, which has influenced both my imagination and intellectual understanding of what it means to be an artist.

7. Kate Parsons on September 16th, 2007 6:49 pm

   Madeline L’Engle and her writings were such an important part of my childhood and adult life. Her books fed me creatively and spiritually, and she herself was a blessing to anyone who read her. God Bless her, and may she be with Him now…

8. Kristen on September 17th, 2007 11:55 pm

   She gave my heart wings. I was MEG. I was curled up in bed in Jr. High full of angst and the desire to be me…and to be everyone else. Through these books, I dared to become myself. Strong, strange, creative, smart…me. I am so thankful for her creative view of God and life when I so needed that push.

9. Pastor Mark on September 19th, 2007 8:24 am

   Discovering her books as an adult… reading them with my teenagers… we discovered lands of vivid imagination and a God of all Time Who is in control as we obey Him. Thank you Madeleine L’Engle for stretching our minds and hearts for God.

10. Tricia Mae Chua on November 6th, 2007 9:16 pm

    Madeleine L’Engle’s writings were to me an influential force in my own spiritual awakening. To Grandma Madeleine, you will be sorely missed!

    Grandma Madeleine

    You introduced me to the Star Rock and sat with me in that hallowed place,
    To kytheing and to quantum physics,
    To grace and to wonder,
    To the beauty and glorious mystery that is life,
    To the song of the stars and the dance of the galaxies.

    Now you yourself join the stars you loved so dearly
    in their timeless song.
    Now you join them in their eternal dance of joy.

    November 5,2007
    Bowie, Maryland

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