A Madeleine Day

Will I ever retire Walking on Water: just leave it alone or give it away? I doubt it. It continues to speak to me, even though I would never think to include L’Engle in a list of my favorite writers. Obviously a very personal book for the woman, it nevertheless conveys timeless truths that I need to continue exploring. Most of these days include poetry (generally that of Robert Frost), but too little art has wended its way in. Matters of faith, on the other hand, are always at my fingertips and in the folds of my brain.

So, today is a Madeleine day.

This questioning of the meaning of being, and dying and being, is behind the telling of stories around tribal fires at night; behind the drawing of animals on the walls of caves; the singing of melodies of love in spring, and of the death of green in autumn. It is part of the deepest longing of the human psyche, a recurrent ache in the hearts of all of God’s creatures.

—Madeleine L’Engle

Do we recognize the presence of this question when we pick up a book or read a story? I do, but then again, I’ve trained myself to look for the questions and ask them. It is a way of life that leaves me happy, but also tends to leave me alone. Being alone is not a bad thing, per se (in fact, I tend to prefer solitude), but sometimes it’s inflicted against my will, when my search for meaning and truth hits the wall someone has constructed to keep the two out of his or her own world.