“And perhaps if we ever have real equality with all our glorious differences, the language itself will make the appropriate changes. For language, like a story or a painting, is alive. Ultimately it will be the artists who will change the language (as Chaucer did, as Dante, did, as Joyce did), not the committees. For an artist is not a consumer, as our commercials urge us to be. An artist is a nourisher and a creator who knows that during the act of creation there is collaboration. We do not create alone.”
by Madeleine L’Engle in “Icons of the True” from Walking on Water[1]
MUSE PROFILE
Who is Madeleine L’Engle:
The author who introduced my fourth grade self to the fantasy genre with her book, A Wrinkle in Time.
Why This Person:
I did not know L’Engle wrote anything but fiction for children until recently. I am finding her collection of essays on faith and art to be as invigorating now as A Wrinkle in Time was at age ten.
Why this quote:
My oldest daughter mentioned Interfaith Gathering tonight, and I got all nostalgic. What amazed me tonight was the fact that it did not exist until I created it. And that through that act of creation, something beautiful and life-giving happened for a diversity of women. And how much joy comes from creating something like this, even though it’s hard and the unknowns test you.
Since stepping away from this work following my move to the southern United States, I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit floundering a bit, doubting myself and how God may be using me in this new place and stage of life, doubting whether my creative, free-spirit self has a place in the PCUSA, which loves committees and the sense of order and direction they provide.
My heart is finally making the journey home to embrace my Presbyterian lineage–even if I don’t yet trust myself to let all my creative, free spirit colors wave there, or trust my home’s theological breath and demonstrated potential for finding grace in hard questions amidst its love of order and precision.
L’Engle’s words affirm who I am and why my creative, free-spirited self may be welcomed even where committees abound.
[1] Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (New York: Convergent Books, 2001), 35.
Amanda Edwards 