My creative life has been shaped by a number of writers and musicians and painters that I will never match in talent or achievement. One of my literary kindred hearts is Madeleine L’Engle.

I read her works of fiction as a pre-teen, then a parent, and finally began exploring her non-fiction work through Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.

Her words spoke to me during a time when I was ready to give up on writing . After only moderate commercial interest in my magazine articles, columns, study booklets or my first (and only to date) trade book, I was not embracing the “near-miss” as Sarah Lewis calls the pursuit of mastery over success.

My first thought of becoming a writer was planted by my second grade teacher, who began sending my compositions home with notes about my artistic potential. Starting in third grade, my piano teacher/choir director began echoing those affirmations, continuing to encourage me through high school and college.  (I will return to them in a future post).

I have kept several childhood writings for half a century, because I feel they reflect my truest, unedited self. Last summer I received some of my dad’s personal files that my sisters thought I might want . I was astounded that my dad saved it, since no one person discouraged me more about the vocation of journalism.

My Father

My father is good humored, sweet and proud of his work. He’s black-headed with blue eyes, glasses and a sweet touch of curiosity. That’s why I have faith and love in him. There’s nothing but love in his heart.

Madeleine L’Engle’s The Crosswicks Journals I-V were published between 1972 and 1989. They probably mean more to me because they capture the volatile season of cultural, political and theological changes as I was coming to faith and coming of age. But they also encourage me to continue living life fully.

Madeleine was “my age” now, looking back on her marriage, her family life and her arduous creative journey. “To be half a century plus is wonderfully exciting” she wrote, “because I haven’t left any of my past and I’m free to stand on the rock of all that the past has taught me as I look towards the future.” (Circle of Quiet, p. 106).

After ten years of rejection slips (including A Wrinkle in Time), even her husband began questioning if she should put herself in the same company of great writers like Dostoevsky or painters like Van Gogh (who sold exactly one painting during his lifetime).

She pushed back, “It has nothing to do with comparing degrees of talent and everything to do with a way of looking at the universe . . . Dostoevsky is a giant; I look up to him; I sit at his feet; perhaps I will be able to learn something from him, but we do face the same direction no matter how great his stride, how small mine.“

Thank God for giants like Madeleine L’ Engle, Mrs. Rector and Mrs. Warren.