The Rabbit Room

Just one word: affirmation.

Thank you for posting ! Much needed.

I recently discovered and read her book Walking on Water ~ truly profound…

She is and has always been my favorite author and I looked for any video feed of her a few years ago and could find nothing, so thank you so much for posting a video of her! Headed to watch it now.

So we were fed up with gossip and that’s why we elected Clinton? Is that what she was saying near the end? It’s curious and disturbing thoughtful people say so many good things and mix them with other things you disagree with. Of course, she’s a Catholic, so we would disagree on many things there.

I want to read more of her books. I took from this talk that many adults want an illusion of fact or proof on their stories, so when fantasy announces it’s otherworldliness upfront, they reject it out of hand, however the stories they accept as true may be completely false or relatively less true that the recommended fantasy. The truth is not bound to historic fact or scientific proof.

I’m coming back to watch this later because I’m already up too late, but…I wanted to chime in.

I’m not so sure it’s as much “curious and disturbing” as it is HUMAN to “say good things and mix them up with things you disagree with.”

From my recollection she wasn’t Catholic, she was Anglican, but nevertheless, she said all sorts of theological things I might disagree with, but I still love her writings. I would disagree with CS Lewis, and Tolkien and others on certain points of theology, too, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love and learn from their writings.

A Ring of Endless Light is one of my absolute favorites of her YA books, and came to me at a particular time in my life when I needed it, as I was a young teen and searching for who God wanted me to be. I might not agree, even, with everything the characters DO in that book (or others) but I know they helped make me a better dreamer, a more thoughtful person, and one who wanted to seek after God’s glory in all the little details of life. I remember finishing AROEL the first time I read it and immediately starting it back over from the beginning, it was that good.

I’d suggest giving more of her books a read — I loved her mix of scientific facts and theories (regeneration, mitochondria, etc.) with fantasy. It is like ND Wilson talks about in Tilt A Whirl — seeing the glorious in everyday life, the crazy grandeur of God in this world he created. She was good at that!

[...] Several people have told me they enjoyed the post from earlier this week featuring J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis debating myth and lies. In the same vein, here is a lecture given six years ago by Madeleine L’Engle, in which she speaks about the relationship of truth and fantasy (HT: The Rabbit Room). [...]

I struggle with Universalism (not in the sense that I waver in my unequivocal opposition) and the way the Cross is essentially dismissed. How we would love for it to be true!
How do you acknowledge any author’s belief in Universalism and still find their writings so “inspired?”
Help me to understand so that I don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!

Elizabeth,

It’s impossible (or at the very least improbable) to find another person that you agree with entirely. We move through the world every day relating to people with whom we hold varying levels of disagreement, and yet we give each other grace, and that same grace ought to be extended to art and artists. For instance, I have strong disagreements with the Catholic church, but that doesn’t prevent me for appreciating, learning from, and being inspired by Flannery O’Connor. I may have similar disagreements with George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien—and yet every one of them have enriched me in more ways than I can possibly tell you. If my expectations for the enjoyment of good art include absolute agreement with the worldview of the artist, my mind would be very narrow indeed.