Found Words
It's a sad commentary on our world that "integrity" has slowly been coming to mean self-centeredness. Most people who worry about their integrity are thinking about it in terms of themselves. It's a great excuse for not doing something you really don't want to do, or are afraid to do: "I can't do that and keep my integrity." Integrity, like humility, is a quality which vanishes the moment we are conscious of it in ourselves. We see it only in others. -- Madeline l'Engle, from A Circle of Quiet
This book was published in 1972, when Madeline was just turned 50. I've owned it for ...probably three decades now, a 1983 reprinting which eniastoa gave to me when we were both still in high-school. This and it's companion pieces (Summer of the Great Grand-Mother, An Irrational Season) are among my favourite books about writing and being a writer.
Possibly this is because Madeline and I share a lot in common, particularly as I approach the age of the Madeline who wrote these books. We are each a writer, a mother, a (Protestant) Christian woman. A lot of the way I think about both faith and writing has been shaped by the words Madeline wrote in these essays, and my books are dog-eared and much underlined. (Except An Irrational Season, which I loaned and which has either never been returned, or was lost shortly after being returned. ...and which I miss immensely.)
Another of Madeline's books which I read extensively while I'm working on my own writing is Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. I still need to find a copy of Ladder of Angels.
emilielf asked what inspires my writing, and my answer to her was not wrong, but it might have been incomplete: Madeline also inspires me to write.
This book was published in 1972, when Madeline was just turned 50. I've owned it for ...probably three decades now, a 1983 reprinting which eniastoa gave to me when we were both still in high-school. This and it's companion pieces (Summer of the Great Grand-Mother, An Irrational Season) are among my favourite books about writing and being a writer.
Possibly this is because Madeline and I share a lot in common, particularly as I approach the age of the Madeline who wrote these books. We are each a writer, a mother, a (Protestant) Christian woman. A lot of the way I think about both faith and writing has been shaped by the words Madeline wrote in these essays, and my books are dog-eared and much underlined. (Except An Irrational Season, which I loaned and which has either never been returned, or was lost shortly after being returned. ...and which I miss immensely.)
Another of Madeline's books which I read extensively while I'm working on my own writing is Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. I still need to find a copy of Ladder of Angels.
emilielf asked what inspires my writing, and my answer to her was not wrong, but it might have been incomplete: Madeline also inspires me to write.