Heroes for February: Madeleine L'Engle

Have you ever been asked that tried-and-true interview question: “If you could have dinner with any person from history, who would it be?”

While Julia Child always pops into mind at mention of the word “dinner,” at the top of my real list is Madeleine L'Engle. I could skip the dinner in fact, because I'd be so busy asking questions and listening that I wouldn't have time for chewing and swallowing.

2012 marks the 50^th anniversary of the publication of A Wrinkle in Time. It's hard to imagine what I'd be writing had that book been rejected a few more times (it was turned down by the first 27 editors who saw it!) because there are few books that have become so much a part of how I think and how I see the world.

I've never connected with a character as I did with Meg Murray. I read her story when I was ten years old, in the midst of becoming more self-aware as a person. I had come to the realization that I was a very flawed person, and there were times when I found it difficult not to dislike myself. I had a fiery temper and a stubborn streak that was penned across me in wide-tipped permanent marker. I was trying to be better, but I failed more often than I succeeded. Enter Meg. A character who did not so much overcome her failings as learn to use them. Her temper and stubbornness saved the world, because she learned that they were part of her and that she could master them instead of letting them master her.

Since I've “grown up,” fiery temper and stubborn streak still intact—though, well, tempered—I've found more and more to love about Meg's creator. After reading Walking on Water, I discovered a friend who shared my ideas about art and life and faith, and who deepened my understanding of them. Now whenever I'm down about my writing or about the world, I turn to that book and always find encouragement. I recommend that you read the entire thing if you haven't already, but to whet your appetite I'll leave you with a few of the lines to which I most often turn:

“Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.”

“But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.”

“We don't want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don't want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.”