The Spirit of
Writing
Along
with ‘Dancing on the Head of a Pen’ (Robert Benson) and ‘Creator Spirit’
(Steven Guthrie), ‘Walking on Water’ by Madeleine L’Engle is among the beautiful
descriptions of the creative process that I have read. And like Guthrie, L’Engle shows the way
creativity and one’s life as a Christian are inevitably intertwined. The Christian does not create ‘Christian art.’ The artist works very hard to create
beautiful art (be it poetry, music, novels, plays, or paintings). Because the artist follows Jesus Christ, what
she ends up creating is infused with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit speaks through the art without the
work being intentionally evangelistic. L’Engle
writes beautifully about both Christianity and the creative process.
One
great insight of the book is the way science expands (not reduces) one’s
faith. L’Engle wrote this at the
beginning of the 80’s, long before Francis Collins and John Polkinghorne and
others taught us that science can actually grow someone as a believer and
Christ follower. L’Engle was saying this
almost 4 decades ago.
She
doesn’t trust theology as a discipline nearly as much as she trusts the way
scientific discovery can grow the faith of the believer. Perhaps this is because writers like
Polkinghorne and Alister McGrath and N.T. Wright had not yet become popular in
her time. Perhaps she was listening to
the wrong theologians. But, she admits
more than once her own prejudice against theology. I found her admission to be a welcome
expression of humility.
L’Engle resides in a
world of artists who that some readers may find difficult to access. She recognizes that and tries repeatedly to
close the gap while at the same time remaining firmly planted in the world of
dreamers and seers and creators. If a
reader struggles to see as L’Engle sees, I recommend pushing through and
attempting to see differently. See with
childlike imagination. The world is a
big place, and artists like Madeleine L’Engle help the rest of us see more of
it.
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