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Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art Paperback – October 11, 2016
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherConvergent Books
- Publication dateOctober 11, 2016
- Dimensions5.16 x 0.59 x 7.96 inches
- ISBN-100804189277
- ISBN-13978-0804189279
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Editorial Reviews
Review
–Vinita Hampton Wright, author of Grace at Bender Springs and Velma Still Cooks in Leeway
“Once again, L’Engle touches the deepest parts of our psyche and heart with her artist’s wand. She writes with an earthy rhythm that not only reveals the mysteries of our artistic natures, but also qualifies all along the way her inimitable wise-woman philosophies. L’Engle’ s writing is God’s gift to a generation who needs to sit on a stump and lend an ear to what the right brain is saying to the left and to what the soul is saying to the heart. Walking on Water guides the wandering artist back to the Savior and says ‘There, you’ve come home again where you belong!’”
–Patricia Hickman, award-winning author of Katrina’s Wings
“There are those who write about art-making as if they’ re detailing the techniques of a heart surgeon. Then there are those, like Madeleine L’Engle, who simply show you their heart. Like the words of Jesus to the fisherman brothers, the words of Madeleine are ‘follow me’ words. Through the pages of Walking on Water hungry, thirsty folks have been following for two decades–quickly recognizing that the reason Madeleine is worth following is that she follows Jesus.”
–Charlie Peacock-Ashworth, record producer and author of At the Crossroads: An Insider's Look at Contemporary Christian Music
About the Author
Ms. L'Engle was born in 1918 in New York City. She wrote her first book, The Small Rain, while touring with Eva Le Gallienne in Uncle Harry. She met Hugh Franklin, to whom she was married until his death in 1986, while they were rehearsing The Cherry Orchard, and they were married on tour during a run of The Joyous Season, starring Ethel Barrymore.
Ms. L'Engle retired from the stage after her marriage, and the Franklins moved to northwest Connecticut and opened a general store. After a decade in Connecticut, the family returned to New York.
After splitting her time between New York City and Connecticut and acting as the librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Madeleine L’Engle died on September 7, 2007 at the age of 88.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
Cosmos from Chaos
The apple trees in the orchard at Crosswicks are growing old. Last winter the beautiful green pie-apple tree died during the ice storms. This summer I notice that the leafing of some of the others is thin. A neighboring farmer friend tells me that these trees have been “winter killed.”
When the children were little we used to tie presents, presents and balloons, on the trees for summer birthdays. This year the willow by the north meadow was hung with balloons and a big basket of blooming ivy-geraniums as we prepared for a spring wedding. A lot of water has run under the stone bridge of the brook since the birthday trees. The pebbly shoreline of Dog Pond, where the children learned to swim, has been tarred for motorboat launching, so that the utter stillness of the lake is often broken. But there is still a pattern to the summers which I hope will never change, a lovely kaleidoscope of family and friends coming and going. Quite a few of the photographs taken at the time of this spring’s wedding show me in a typical position, standing at the stove, stirring something. In the summer I seem to spend my days between the stove and the typewriter, with time out for walking the dogs to the brook, bearing the big red clippers which help to clear the paths.
I sit on my favourite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busyness, time to be. I’ve long since stopped feeling guilty about taking being time; it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it.
This spring I was given two posters which I find helpful in reminding me to take being time. (Both givers must have known I needed the message.) A few weeks before the wedding I ran impetuously out to the dark garage to turn on the outside light and rammed into a cardboard cat carrier--mere cardboard, mind you!--and broke the third metatarsal bone in my foot. I have frequently taken mammoth, crashing tumbles without breaking a bone. What a way to do it now! Humiliating, to say the least, and my children rub it in by emphasizing the cardboard.
“Can you stay off your feet for six weeks?” the doctor asked.
“No, I’m off day after tomorrow for a ten-day lecture tour all over Ohio. Then we have the wedding, and then I get my grandchildren for a week . . .”
So off I went, leg in cast, via wheelchair and crutches and elegant pre-boarding on planes. The first poster was given me on my second stop, the Convent of the Transfiguration near Cincinnati, where I was conducting a retreat. The poster tells me: Listen to the silence. Stay open to the voice of the Spirit.
The second poster came a month later, when I was out of the cast but still on crutches, sent me by Luci Shaw, who is largely responsible for my struggling to write this book. It shows a covered bridge in the autumn, very much like the covered bridge we drive through en route to Crosswicks, and it echoes my need: Slow me down, Lord.
Good messages. When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling me of the death of trees, the death of planets, of people, and what all these deaths mean in the light of love of the Creator, who brought them all into being, who brought me into being, and you.
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.
So when the two messages, Listen to the silence. Stay open to the voice of the Spirit, and Slow me down, Lord, came, I was forced to listen, and even to smile as I heard myself saying emphatically to Luci, “No, I most certainly do not want to write about being a Christian artist,” for I realized that the very vehemence of my reaction meant that perhaps I should, in fact, stop and listen. The Holy Spirit does not hesitate to use any method at hand to make a point to us reluctant creatures.
Why is it that I, who have spent my life writing, struggling to be a better artist, and struggling also to be a better Christian, should feel rebellious when I am called a Christian artist? Why should I feel reluctant to think or write about Christian creativity?
It’s more than just that I feel the presumption of someone like me--wife, grandmother, storyteller--attempting such a task. I wouldn’t even consider it had I not already struggled with it in talks which Mel Lorentzen, Bea Batson, and others in the English department at Wheaton College have pulled out of me. It was some of these faltering lectures which caused Luci and Harold Shaw to ask me to expand my thoughts into a book. And then came Ayia Napa.
Probably it was Ayia Napa that clinched it. When Dr. Marion van Horne asked me to come to Ayia Napa, in Cyprus, for two weeks, how could I resist? I love to travel. My brief trip several years ago to Greece and the Greek islands made me love the incredible blue and gold air of this land where Apollo drove his chariot across the sky, where John brought the mother of Jesus, where Pythagorus walked on the beach, and where Paul preached a message of love even more brilliant than the sun.
Who could resist a trip to Cyprus? To teach at a conference on literature and literacy for delegates from twenty-two underdeveloped and developing countries all over the world, delegates whose only common denominator was Christianity--every denomination and brand and variety of Christianity. And what was I being asked to lecture about? The Christian artist.
Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music; a story is a story. If it’s bad art, it’s bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it’s good art . . . and there the questions start coming, questions which it would be simpler to evade.
In college I read some aesthetics: Plato, Aristotle; a great chronological jump to Lamb, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Pater, Ruskin. Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madness in the poet. It is a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go of our sane self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety. But safety is only an illusion, and letting it go is part of listening to the silence, and to the Spirit.
Plato also wrote--and I lettered this in firm italic letters and posted it on my dorm-room door--All learning which is acquired under compulsion has no hold upon the mind.
I’m not sure he was right there. During my school and college years I learned a good bit under at least moderate compulsion. I’d never have taken math or science had they been optional (but I enjoyed the poster on my dormitory door!).
What I remember from Ruskin is the phrase the cursed animosity of inanimate objects, which I mutter under my breath when I get in a tangle of wire coat hangers. I also wonder if there is any such thing as an inanimate object.
From Coleridge comes the phrase the willing suspension of disbelief, that ability to believe which is born firmly in all children, and which too often withers as we are taught that the world of faerie and imagination is not true.
Aristotle reinforces Coleridge when he writes, That which is impossible and probable is better than that which is possible and improbable.
Not long after I was out of college I read Leo Tolstoy’s What Is Art? I approached it with reverence and hope. Surely this great writer would provide me with the definitive definition, would show me all the answers. He didn’t, and I was naive to expect him to. Generally what is more important than getting watertight answers is learning to ask the right questions.
What do they have in common, all these people I read in college and thereafter? All men, and all dead. Their distance from us in chronology seems to give them overwhelming authority. But they were not dead when they wrote, and they were as human as the rest of us. They caught colds in damp weather and had occasional pimples in adolescence. I like to think that they enjoyed making love, spending an evening with friends, tramping through the woods with the dogs. The fact that they were men simply speaks for their day when women may have been powers behind the throne, but they were kept behind it.
Whatever possessed these writers to sit down and write their views on the creative process? Maybe they were prodded, as I have been, and maybe at least a few of them hesitated at the presumption of it.
All right. So it’s an impossible task. But thinking about it may open new questions, new insights. And as I listen to the silence, I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. It is what makes me respond to the death of an apple tree, the birth of a puppy, northern lights shaking the sky, by writing stories.
Recently I picked up a New Yorker on a plane trip and saw a cartoon of two men at a bar, one a great muscular hulk of a man, and the other half his size, scrawny and ineffectual looking. And the small man is saying, “. . . but I repeat, this is only my very, very, humble, humble opinion.” Just so, I offer my very, very, humble, humble opinion on the vast topic of the Christian and art.
I go to the dictionary, and it isn’t much help. Both Webster’s Collegiate and the Concise Oxford report that a Christian is a person believing in the religion of Christ. As for art, in both these dictionaries it is limited to skill, as “skill, especially human skill as opposed to nature; skill applied to imitation and design, as in painting, etc.; a thing in which skill may be exercised; those in which mind and imagination are chiefly concerned.”
Skill may be learned, and if art is merely a skill, then it can be acquired by anybody, and being a painter would merely be the equivalent of being a good dentist’s technician or a practiced butcher.
It is an honourable thing to be a dentist’s technician or a butcher, but neither would claim to be a creator.
Leonard Bernstein tells me more than the dictionary when he says that for him music is cosmos in chaos. That has the ring of truth in my ears and sparks my creative imagination. And it is true not only of music; all art is cosmos, cosmos found within chaos. At least all Christian art (by which I mean all true art, and I’ll go deeper into this later) is cosmos in chaos. There’s some modern art, in all disciplines, which is not; some artists look at the world around them and see chaos, and instead of discovering cosmos, they reproduce chaos, on canvas, in music, in words. As far as I can see, the reproduction of chaos is neither art, nor is it Christian.
e. e. cummings lauds the beauty of cosmos as he sings,
i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth
day of life and love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
now the ears of my ears are awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened
And the psalmist sings, “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man who trusteth in him” and “The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handiwork. . . .”
And I rejoice. But I have no idea what “denomination” or “brand” of faith cummings professed, if any, and the psalmist who wrote those lines died long before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. So perhaps the reason I shuddered at the idea of writing something about “Christian art” is that to paint a picture or to write a story or to compose a song is an incarnational activity. The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.
Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, “Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.” And the artist either says, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.
As for Mary, she was little more than a child when the angel came to her; she had not lost her child’s creative acceptance of the realities moving on the other side of the everyday world. We lose our ability to see angels as we grow older, and that is a tragic loss.
God, through the angel Gabriel, called on Mary to do what, in the world’s eyes, is impossible, and instead of saying, “I can’t,” she replied immediately. “Be it unto me according to thy word.”
God is always calling on us to do the impossible. It helps me to remember that anything Jesus did during his life here on earth is something we should be able to do, too.
When spring-fed Dog Pond warms up enough for swimming, which usually isn’t until June, I often go there in the late afternoon. Sometimes I will sit on a sun-warmed rock to dry, and think of Peter walking across the water to meet Jesus. As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it.
Product details
- Publisher : Convergent Books (October 11, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0804189277
- ISBN-13 : 978-0804189279
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.16 x 0.59 x 7.96 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #47,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #16 in Christian Poetry (Books)
- #354 in Inspirational Spirituality (Books)
- #752 in Christian Inspirational
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Madeleine was born on November 29th, 1918, and spent her formative years in New York City. Instead of her school work, she found that she would much rather be writing stories, poems and journals for herself, which was reflected in her grades (not the best). However, she was not discouraged.
At age 12, she moved to the French Alps with her parents and went to an English boarding school where, thankfully, her passion for writing continued to grow. She flourished during her high school years back in the United States at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, vacationing with her mother in a rambling old beach cottage on a beautiful stretch of Florida Beach.
She went to Smith College and studied English with some wonderful teachers as she read the classics and continued her own creative writing. She graduated with honors and moved into a Greenwich Village apartment in New York. She worked in the theater, where Equity union pay and a flexible schedule afforded her the time to write! She published her first two novels during these years—A Small Rain and Ilsa—before meeting Hugh Franklin, her future husband, when she was an understudy in Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard. They married during The Joyous Season.
She had a baby girl and kept on writing, eventually moving to Connecticut to raise the family away from the city in a small dairy farm village with more cows than people. They bought a dead general store, and brought it to life for 9 years. They moved back to the city with three children, and Hugh revitalized his professional acting career.
As the years passed and the children grew, Madeleine continued to write and Hugh to act, and they to enjoy each other and life. Madeleine began her association with the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where she was the librarian and maintained an office for more than thirty years. After Hugh’s death in 1986, it was her writing and lecturing that kept her going. She lived through the 20th century and into the 21st and wrote over 60 books. She enjoyed being with her friends, her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren.
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Customers find the book thought-provoking and inspiring. They describe it as a wonderful, memorable read with memorable quotes. The author connects creativity and faith in a refreshing way for artists. Readers praise the writing style as interesting and true. They appreciate the author's reflections on faith and art, particularly for readers with a Christian worldview. They find the imagery beautiful and the perspectives profound. Overall, customers consider the book a treasure and a classic.
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Customers find the book inspiring and thought-provoking. They say it helps them rethink creation, their response through art, and the meaning of life in the everyday world. The book provides great points and helpful statements like "Maybe art is seeing."
"...Her perspectives are profound, well presented, and I found them to be alarmingly timely in our current time despite having been written some time ago..." Read more
"This book is spectacular. It’s a well of wisdom and faith. The author is humble, well spoken and knowledgeable...." Read more
"...her beautiful words of God, art, writing, and the meaning of life in the everyday world, as well as the world on the other side..." Read more
"...Short interesting book with some great points. Well narrated, too." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and full of memorable quotes. They say it's an intellectual read that will get their juices flowing. Many consider it a classic, one of their favorite writing books, and a rich source of Christian art inspiration. Readers describe it as entertaining and inspirational.
"This book is spectacular. It’s a well of wisdom and faith. The author is humble, well spoken and knowledgeable...." Read more
"This book sits at the top of my list of all time favorite writing books...." Read more
"...Short interesting book with some great points. Well narrated, too." Read more
"Worth the read because Madeline L'Engle will teach you somethings you never thought of and help you to see life from a creative unique angle." Read more
Customers find the book inspiring and refreshing for artists. They say it connects creativity and faith in a refreshing way. The book helps them learn about themselves and their art, and how faith is part of it all. Readers mention it's relevant to all types of artists and flows around the central themes relating to faith and art.
"...This is a sweet, sometimes rambling journey through her views on art, writing, and faith, and how the three can often be very intertwined...." Read more
"...She comments on the role of art in prayer and how the true task of the artist is to be a servant, one who creates cosmos in the chaos...." Read more
"...is treated to a deeply personal narrative that both encourages him to interact with art and inspires him to create art--to see through the chaos and..." Read more
"...but it is insightful as to her heart and philosophy of art...." Read more
Customers find the writing style engaging and insightful. They describe the author as intelligent, well-spoken, and knowledgeable. The book is narrated well and has influenced their own writing. Readers recommend it to both established and aspiring writers.
"...It’s a well of wisdom and faith. The author is humble, well spoken and knowledgeable. Her faith in angels and the Bible inspire me to be more...." Read more
"...After a spell of depression, her beautiful words of God, art, writing, and the meaning of life in the everyday world, as well as the world on the..." Read more
"...Short interesting book with some great points. Well narrated, too." Read more
"...In "Walking on Water," the reader is treated to a deeply personal narrative that both encourages him to interact with art and inspires him to..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's faith and creativity. They find it interesting and true, especially for readers with a Christian worldview. The book is a standard in the spiritual community and a favorite devotional. Readers feel encouraged to be faithful and relinquish control through admitting that they are.
"This book is spectacular. It’s a well of wisdom and faith. The author is humble, well spoken and knowledgeable...." Read more
"...sometimes rambling journey through her views on art, writing, and faith, and how the three can often be very intertwined...." Read more
"...This book is a thoughtful explanation. of the inseparability of art and religion for a Christian...." Read more
"...on the philosophy of aesthetics, particularly for readers with a Christian worldview...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's beautiful imagery and profound insights. They find it a fine treatise on the philosophy of aesthetics, particularly for Christian readers. Readers appreciate the well-presented perspectives and consider the book the best on Christian art they have read.
"...Her perspectives are profound, well presented, and I found them to be alarmingly timely in our current time despite having been written some time ago..." Read more
"...This book is beautiful for the artist, in all mediums, and for people who want to feed their souls." Read more
"...It is a fine treatise on the philosophy of aesthetics, particularly for readers with a Christian worldview...." Read more
"...This is a book where art, the Christian faith and philosophy merge...." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's value. They find it a valuable resource and consider it a great addition to their collection.
"...This little book is a treasure, and it would make a wonderful gift for any artist who is serious about their work." Read more
"Loved what was included in the book. Very sad that the book was not complete!!!" Read more
"...This was a great addition to her collection." Read more
"excellent resource..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2022As a creative writer, I loved so much about this book, even when it made me cringy or challenged some of my intellectual superiority that needs some adjusting. I had at least two things to highlight, flag, star or reread in every single chapter, and this will stay on my keeper shelf right beside Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Her perspectives are profound, well presented, and I found them to be alarmingly timely in our current time despite having been written some time ago. I needed to read slowly, and appreciate that this book, while only in part, rips straight into the heart of the question is there a difference between Christian art and art. Is the distinction necessary, needed, and sometimes even possible? Quotes that have stuck in my brain from this book are:
"If I leave the story for a day, it leaves me for 3."
"Keep the clock wound." - On the important of writing every day or even in seasons of non-inspiration.
"Would I want the children to see?"
And just everything about "serving the work" and "Feeding the Lake."
HIGHLY recommend, primarily for those who share the Christian faith in any denomination, but lots of deep thought and perspective to be had outside of that as well.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2023This book is spectacular. It’s a well of wisdom and faith. The author is humble, well spoken and knowledgeable. Her faith in angels and the Bible inspire me to be more. This book is beautiful for the artist, in all mediums, and for people who want to feed their souls.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2012This book sits at the top of my list of all time favorite writing books. Even though I owe Stephen King's On Writing a re-read, he is now firmly on line two. I connect with her writing in ways that influence my life. It was true when I was a child, it is still true today. In three areas I found new inspiration from these pages.
She was asked to write a book on writing as a Christian. This is a powerful examination of what being a Christian artist and producing Christian art means. We like to think theses questions belong to our generation. Madeleine states strongly - all art is inspired by God and your Christian beliefs will show through your work.
She answers the question of why one writes. You write because you must. You become better at writing when you let go of yourself and listen and obey the work.
One of her thesis is Christian art should be life affirming. For me, the life affirmation I found in these pages was powerful. After a spell of depression, her beautiful words of God, art, writing, and the meaning of life in the everyday world, as well as the world on the other side (of reason, silence, time and space) lifted me to an engaging level.
Her advice is 1) be obedient to God's call and to the work you hear, 2) listen and learn from the work and 3) to write every day.
As a writer you are a co-creator with God and your reader, such an empowering thought.
This book is for you if you are looking for answers to what is Christian fiction, am I a Christian writer, should I be a writer, or what is my calling. Or maybe you just want to be reminded to embrace life with child like faith so you too, can walk on water.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2023My first nonfiction from L'engle after ready a biography of her. This is a sweet, sometimes rambling journey through her views on art, writing, and faith, and how the three can often be very intertwined. Short interesting book with some great points. Well narrated, too.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2023I love basically everything Madeline L'Engle has written. This book is a thoughtful explanation. of the inseparability of art and religion for a Christian. It examines how the recent loss of humanity's collective imagination deprives us of the wonder of creation and the active suspense of disbelief that faith requires. She comments on the role of art in prayer and how the true task of the artist is to be a servant, one who creates cosmos in the chaos. This clearsighted reflective book is incredible!!! Also go read Ring of Endless Light by her because it's life-changing!
- Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2024Worth the read because Madeline L'Engle will teach you somethings you never thought of and help you to see life from a creative unique angle.
Worth the read because Madeline L'Engle will teach you somethings you never thought of and help you to see life from a creative unique angle.
Images in this review - Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2009When I was a child, I was utterly mystified and captivated by the revelation that, "there IS such a thing as a tesseract." I didn't know what one was, exactly, but I knew what it meant: it meant that there was something beyond the chaos, a mysterious otherness that exists outside the realm of the visible world. Ms. L'Engle's most famous book, "A Wrinkle in Time," is about that marvelous discovery that the universe contains much more than meets the eye. Even as a child, I was able to comprehend the spiritual and metaphysical allusions--though I did not recognize them as such. This book, "Walking on Water," is kind of like the adult version of "Wrinkle in Time," except that it is not fiction. All of that stuff about angels and tesseracts turns out to be very real and true and necessary. In "Walking on Water," the reader is treated to a deeply personal narrative that both encourages him to interact with art and inspires him to create art--to see through the chaos and into the cosmos. It is a fine treatise on the philosophy of aesthetics, particularly for readers with a Christian worldview. This little book is a treasure, and it would make a wonderful gift for any artist who is serious about their work.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2022I'm working on a study on creative ministry and so seeing one of the great artists and authors of the last century having written a book on faith and art, I became most intrigued. It wasn't quite what I expected and in many ways it was more. This is a book where art, the Christian faith and philosophy merge. Her thoughts are challenging and intriguing and I came away realizing that I need to go even deeper in my thinking on this topic. I highly recommend this book, especially to those who are interested in the arts and the Christian faith.
Top reviews from other countries
- Cindy B.Reviewed in Canada on March 29, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book
I had not realized that L’Engle was a Christian. I’d read A Wrinkle in time as a young child, almost 18 years before I came to faith. When I saw this book in a search for “Christian creativity” I was intrigued. It is a wonderfully deep book, but pleasant and easy to read. L’Engle’s faith is built on sound doctrine, and I found great insight into what being a Christian artist or writer is all about.
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Cliente BBReviewed in Italy on October 22, 2017
4.0 out of 5 stars Arte nella cristianità quotidiana
Bel libro spirituale , lei una scrittrice ma l approccio all' arte attraverso la preghiera, rappresenta quello che faccio prima di dipingere..un Po troppo descrittiva del suo essere scrittrice....mi ha ispirato
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Australia on August 9, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful exploration of faith and creativity
This is a beautifully written, fascinating exploration of what it means to be a Christian, and to create art. L'Engle focuses on writing, as that's her medium, but many of the underlying principles hold true for the other expressive arts as well - visual arts, acting, and so forth. L'Engle also weaves in a discussion of faith itself, of what it means to be human, as co-creators of the world with God. I have never highlighted a book as much as I did this one, so many amazing passages, resonating with deep truth.
Highly, highly recommend, and especially recommend for anyone with an interest in living in this world as a Christian artist.
- TLCReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2014
5.0 out of 5 stars Walking On Water--A Beautiful Spiritual Book
Madeleine L’Engle is best known for her children’s fantasy series, A Wrinkle In Time and other works of fiction. However, in this truly inspiring book, she writes her own reflections on her Christian faith and shares some of the background to her writing process of some of her novels. Whether you are a writer or an actor or an illustrator or creative on another level, this book will speak to you. On the other hand, if you are spiritually minded of any faith, this will enliven your faith and perhaps even inspire you to test your creative juices once more. The author explains how we lose our child-like creativity, forgetting how to ‘walk on water.’ Madeleine shows us how faith and art intermingles when she writes, ‘I have often been asked if my Christianity affects my stories, and surely it is the other way around; my stories affect my Christianity….’ She also writes, ’I learn that my feelings about art and my feelings about the creator of the universe are inseparable. To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory. It is what makes me respond to the death of an apple tree, the birth of a puppy, northern lights shaking the sky, by writing stories.’
Her reflections are beautifully and intellectually written yet not overly scholarly. In it, she quotes other famous (and not-so-famous) authors and thinkers. Though less than 200 pages, I found myself wanting to read this slowly, taking my time to savour all the ways it spoke to me. I read and re-read passages and wrote them down in my journal to save for later. It resonated on a deep level so that my spirit could only respond with a joyful, ‘YES!’ She is now top of my list in answer to the question, “If you could have anyone over for an evening of dinner and conversation whether dead or alive, who would you invite?” I only wish I had attended one of her workshops or lectures when she was alive. Her beauty shines through her words.
- SallyReviewed in Canada on September 14, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read.
Lovely book that connects the beautiful things in life - art and faith.