We do not draw people to Christ 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.
Source: shirtofflame.blogspot.com
To do violence to language, in the sense in which he used the phrase, is not to use long words, or strange orders of words, or even to do anything unusual at all with the words in which we attempt to communicate. It means really speaking to each other, destroying platitudes and jargon and all the safe cushions of small talk with which we insulate ourselves; not being afraid to talk about the things we don’t talk about, the ultimate things that really matter. It means turning again to the words that affirm meaning, reason, unity, that teach responsible rather than selfish love. And sometimes, doing violence to language means not using it at all, not being afraid of being silent together, of being silent alone. Then through the thunderous silence, we may be able to hear a still small voice, and words will be born anew.
Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet
I do not know how to react to this piece of text just yet but I am letting it simmer inside me because it is true, sometimes I have forgotten the purpose of words.
I think Madeleine L’Engle needs to be talked about a little more in this generation.
My respect and admiration for Madeleine L’Engle began in 2000. Her book entitled “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art” landed on my hands after much awaiting. A friend from Seattle recommended it to me and I have never felt so much release and resonation in my journey of faith as well as art until I have read that book.
Very little has been said about this paradox. This crux. This beautiful and ironic reality of the juxtaposition of the journey of faith and art in this day and age. Perhaps in the Western World these ideas are very prominent. But unfortunately where I am from, the worldview has been very limited.
It is for this reason that I feel quite propelled to use my experiences everyday while teetering between faith and art to pave this way of living out an active spiritual life. Necessary? Yes. The corporate world devours intellectualism like a predator. Pop culture and the secular destroys moral fiber and disorients the soul.
Only in the spirit can one find sense in it all. And L’Engle’s life has been one quite testament to this.
So, here’s to series of collections, blogs, reblogs, and spontaneous thought about an adored author and spiritual friend.
i would like to be the air… (by adrienne santos)
The first time she explained this to me, I thought it was genius. Inverted sculpting. And as L’Engle would put it:
A great painting, or symphony, or play, doesn’t diminish us, but enlarges us, and we too, want to make our own cry of affirmation to the power of creation behind the universe. This surge of creativity has nothing to do with competition or degree of talent. When I hear a superb pianist, I can’t wait to get to my own piano, and I play about as well now as I did when I was ten. A great novel, rather than discouraging me, simply makes me want to write. This response on the part of any artist is the need to make incarnate the new awareness we have been granted through the genius of someone else.
(Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet)
Source: Flickr / lightpaintbrush
I think the best way to respond to this is through this…
When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew, Rembrandt’s brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend.
When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere.
When the work takes over, the artist listens.But before he can listen, paradoxically, he must work. Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes easily, either in art or in prayer.
- Madeleine L’Engle
Source: unforcedrhythms
Remember that quote by L’Engle on the importance of names from her book “Walking on Water”? I do not have it with me now as I am in the office. But the ceremonial quality of giving a name to someone, something or an experience is almost like the tradition of anointing or even baptism. It is a sacrament. And that is why identity is significant. People die for it. People fight for it. People become lost without it.
Source: unforcedrhythms
The more limited our language is, the more limited we are. The more our vocabulary is controlled, the less we will be able to think for ourselves. We do think in words, and the fewer words we know, the more restricted our thoughts. As our vocabulary expands, so does our power to think.
(Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet)
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I took this February 2009. It’s part of a series of photographs of my grandmother’s things. I have not dabbled seriously with photography for the longest time and find myself wading through photos taken by me at this night’s hour. L’Engle has awakened an inquisition. And it might be one that will lead me through a serious digging of what could be woven into the story I’ve been wanting to write.
So my hope, each day as I grow older, is that this will never be simply chronological aging—which is a nuisance and frequently a bore—the old ‘bod’ at over half a century has had hard use; it won’t take what it did a few years ago—but that I will also grow into maturity, where experience which can be acquired only through chronology will teach me how to be more aware, open, unafraid to be vulnerable, involved, committed, to accept disagreement without feeling threatened (repeat and underline this one), to understand that I cannot take myself seriously until I stop taking myself seriously—to be, in fact, a true adult.
- Madeleine L’Engle, Circle of Quiet
The storyteller is a storyteller because the storyteller cares about truth, searching for truth, expressing truth, sharing truth. But that cannot be done unless we know our craft, any more than a violinist can play Sibelius’ Violin Concerto unless the techniques are there, learned, until they are deep in the fingertips as well as the mind.
- Madeleine L’Engle
via mydailytea
