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" by Luci Shaw
To the Edge: for Madeleine L'Engle
Be with her now. She faces the ocean
of unknowing, losing the sense
of what her life has been, and soon
will be no longer as she knew it, as
we knew it with her. Lagging behind,
we cannot join her on this nameless shore.
Knots in her bones, flesh flaccid, the skin
like paper, pigment gathering like ashes driven
by a random wind, a heart
that may still sing, interiorly - we cannot
know - have pulled her far ahead of us,
our pioneer.
As we embrace her, her inner eyes embrace
the universe.. She recognizes heaven with its
innumerable stars - but not our faces.
Be with her now, as you have
sometimes been - a flare that blazes,
then dulls, leaving only a bright
blur in the memory. Hold her
in the mystery that no one can describe
but Lazarus, though he was dumb
and didn't speak of it. Fog has rolled in, erasing definition at the edge. Walking
to meet it, she hopes soon to see
where the shore ends. She listens as
the ocean breathes in and out in waves.
She hears no other sound. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Luci (Shaw) captured it well when she wrote to Madeleine, in Friends for the Journey, "And you, on your part, can make radical theological statements with which I may disagree, but again, because of our bond of love we accept each other for who we are , flawed and failing, but always truth-seeking. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" For believers who pray the same prayers week after week, who come to the Communion table expecting to be changed, we must claim that it is possible for lives to be rescripted. We must assert that it's possible for habits and language to be reshaped by a different, more powerful story. The seeds for critiquing our behavior, - indeed, for critiquing the tradition itself - are there inside the narrative we claim. The radical call of faith is not to insist upon a set of universal principles about right and wrong, but to offer an alternative story by which lives can be shaped into new instincts, new practices, new ways of speaking and being in the world. We want our teens to make a decision consistent with the better story of which they are a part, a decision that doesn't even feel like a decision but a script they know by heart. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Madeleine describes her difficult decade of trying to write while parenting small kids - which, for many women writers, in particular, resonates powerfully. Freelancer Aleah Marsden told me, "She blessed my desire to pursue something outside of mothering in a way that didn't diminish either calling's importance. Yes, of course, I was to be the best mother I could be to the children entrusted to me. No, they didn't have to be the epicenter of my existence. Yes, my writing was a gift worth protecting and pursuing, and I would be a better human (and mother) for it. No, it didn't give me license to abandon the embodied work that came with the season of mothering young children, "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Picture the bold minister again, glancing up at the congregation with glasses that look suspiciously like Mrs. Who's. He prays stridently from the 1892 baptismal rite: "Grant that this Child may have power and strength to have victory" - and everyone, even the people who slipped in the back late, strain to glimpse the baby's round face - "and to triumph, against the devil, the world, and the flesh." Wide-eyed, the parents and the people respond, "Amen."
Dare we pray such prayers for today's children? Dare we name aloud the enemy they're up against? Dare we claim that God will not fail with any part of his creation? that in Christ, light and goodness eclipse darkness and evil, now and forever?
Dare we say with the congregation - with Madeleine herself - Amen? "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Because you're not what I would have you be
I blind myself to who, in truth you are,
Seeking mirage where desert blooms, I mar
Your YOU, Aaah, I would like to see
past all delusion to reality:
Then would I see God's image in your face,
His hand in yours, and in your eyes his grace.
Because I'm not what I would have me be,
I idolize Two who are not any place,
Not you, not me, and so we never touch.
Reality would burn. I do not like it much.
And yet in you, in me, I find a trace
Of love which struggles to break through
The hidden lovely truth of me, of you. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Saint Clement of Rome
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we pray, that we might be grounded and settled in your truth by the coming of your Holy Spirit into our hearts. What we do not know, reveal to us; what is lacking within us, make complete; that which we do not know, confirm in us; and keep us blameless in your service, through Jesus Christ our Lord. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
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" Madeleine taught us that we don't abandon spiritual habits just because we're in a season of struggle and doubt. We keep attending to those practices, day in and day out. This is not the same as legalism, in which we obey certain commands in some misguided attempt to be on God's good side. Instead, it requires deep humility and trust to acknowledge, "I don't understand this right now. Everything feels dark and meaningless. But there's more going on than I understand; and somehow God has promised to show up in the midst of these daily habits. So here goes." Prayer, worship, reading Scripture, breaking bread in community, spiritual counsel, and conversation with spiritual friends: all those are ways we put one foot in front of the other, even in the dark. These are the ways we practice believing. "
― Sarah Arthur , A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
