I just love Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle.
My review:
I recommend this book to any writer or artist, anyone in the creative world.
This book is not just for artists. This book is about creating, and the connections between faith and art. Anyone who appreciates the creative will be touched by this book.
This book is more than a devotional. It’s more than a writing manual. It’s not just an inspirational journey.
It’s not biblical doctrine. It’s the summation of a writer wrestling with God and the world and revealing what she’s learned from decades of experience.
Within twelve little meditations, we are encouraged to strive to be more than we are, because God calls us to be. We are encouraged to use our intuition and imagination, to trust and believe. We are exhorted to be vulnerable and love, love, love. We are reminded that none of us is qualified but only to give God glory.
Some of my favorite quotes:
Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.
You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.
Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability… To be alive is to be vulnerable.
But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.
We don’t want to feel less when we have finished a book; we want to feel that new possibilities of being have been opened to us. We don’t want to close a book with a sense that life is totally unfair and that there is no light in the darkness; we want to feel that we have been given illumination.
About the Book:
In this classic book, Madeleine L’Engle addresses the questions, What does it mean to be a Christian artist? and What is the relationship between faith and art? Through L’Engle’s beautiful and insightful essay, readers will find themselves called to what the author views as the prime tasks of an artist: to listen, to remain aware, and to respond to creation through one’s own art.
About the Author:
Madeleine L’Engle was the author of more than forty-five books for all ages, among them the beloved A Wrinkle in Time, awarded the Newbery Medal; A Ring of Endless Light, a Newbery Honor Book; A Swiftly Tilting Planet,winner of the American Book Award; and the Austin family series of which Troubling a Star is the fifth book. L’Engle was named the 1998 recipient of the Margaret A. Edwards award, honoring her lifetime contribution in writing for teens. Read More About the Author.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
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