Across the Page

Madeleine L’Engle’s The Love Letters (1967) weaves together two stories: one from today, and one from yesterday. Charlotte Napier, fleeing to her mentor (and mother-in-law) in Portugal to rethink her troubled marriage, comes upon a book that relates the inner turmoil of a woman in similar straits centuries earlier. In reading The Letters of a [...]

Madeleine L’Engle’s Dance in the Desert falls into several categories. There’s the “totally new discoveries by favorite authors” category. Then there’s, “I got this for myself and my daughter stole it from the shelf and read it.” Finally, there’s “weird reading coincidences.”
The last weird reading coincidence was when, immediately after I’d finished reading a surreal [...]

Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art is an extended meditation on the nature of the creative process, the purpose of art, and the significance of an artist’s faith. The short answer is that the artistic process is essentially careful listening, the purpose of art is to tell the truth, and an [...]

I’m reaching the end of Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. L’Engle is wrestling with what it means to be a Christian artist, and what is meant by Christian art — if there is such a thing.
In the chapter “Names and Labels,” L’Engle is trying to make the point that our [...]

This week, browsing through the children’s section at the library, I saw Madeleine L’Engle’s name on this book I’d never heard of. Having just finished A Circle of Quiet, I was ready to dive right into Trailing Clouds of Glory.
As the subtitle indicates, this book’s central concern is with “spiritual values in children’s books.” I [...]

Madeleine L’Engle quoted an Andrew Marvell poem when she was describing her “circle of quiet,” a spot beside a stream where she let the stress and irritation evaporate into “a green thought in a green shade.” I think most of us have places like that. My best ones are around my parents’ home, where I [...]

A Circle of Quiet is one of Madeleine L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journals. It’s the third one I’ve read; the others are Two-Part Invention and The Irrational Season. I found this one to be an enjoyable read, but harder to get my mind around. I came away with a sense of Madeleine L’Engle’s thought life during a [...]

I picked up The Irrational Season on a whim off the library shelf, and it’s been a wonderful read for me. In fact, I’m going to have to purchase a copy so that I can underline and asterisk to my heart’s content (even though my husband is making jokes about me reading books on how [...]

I’m really enjoying Madeleine L’Engle’s The Irrational Season, and trying not to read it too quickly. Today I read her commentary on some works of art.
L’Engle writes, “Christian graphic art has often tended to make my affirmation of Jesus Christ as Lord almost impossible, for far too often he is depicted as a tubercular goy, [...]

I ran across this fragment of a Madeleine L’Engle poem in her book The Irrational Season. It’s perfect in honor of Valentine’s Day, the anniversary of my engagement:
(iv)
You are still new, my love. I do not know you.
Stranger beside me in the dark of bed,
Dreaming dreams I cannot ever enter,
Eyes closed in that unknown, familiar [...]