Writing and Art, Incarnate
A Review of Madeleine L'Engle's Insightful Book Walking on Water
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art reads much like a diary. So it should; it was compiled from years of Madeleine L'Engle's personal journals of profound musings and treasured quotes. From the award-winning author of A Wrinkle in Time comes this intimate album of found truths, in which every page is a revelation, no matter one's religious persuasion.
Art as Religious Experience
L’Engle views art as a religious undertaking. “If it’s bad art, it’s bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it’s good art…and there the questions start coming, questions which it would be simpler to evade”(L’Engle, 5). Yet so often asking the right questions are better than having all the right answers, and the author proceeds to unearth truths that resonate in any artist’s heart. Creators must give themselves to their craft with a religious devotion and assurance, for, “the creative process has a lot to do with faith and nothing to do with virtue, which may explain why so many artists are far from virtuous…And yet, at the moment of creation, they must have complete faith, faith in their vision, faith in their work” (L’Engle, 175).
Obeying the Inner Voice
The book’s most powerful assertion is its central metaphor: that the creative process is analogous to the Virgin Mary conceiving of the Holy Spirit. “Each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, “ ‘Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me’” (L’Engle, 10). L’Engle declares that whenever shoddy workmanship results, an artist has chosen the easy way out instead of obedience. For an artist must listen and choose to be the servant of the work, allowing the work to ultimately take over. This, paradoxically, means work, discipline, and then abandoning oneself to creative expression.
However, L’Engle does not condone the subconscious ruling the conscious, and she writes that emotion comes before and after writing, not during. However, we must not “fear that large part of ourselves over which we have very little control, but in which lies enormous freedom, and the world of poetry, music, and the region of that deepest and truest prayer which is beyond all our feeble and faltering words” (L’Engle 149). We must allow ourselves the transcendental nature of art and succumb to Plato’s “divine madness” to a certain degree in order to reach truth in what we create.
Art as a Vessel of Truth
Truth, after all, is what art is about. The artist makes himself available to revelation of truth, and when that revelation comes, the artist expresses it in order to share it with others. For it is not in the nature of the artist to be a consumer, but rather a nourisher. “Maybe the job of the artist is to see through all of this strangeness to what really is, and that takes a lot of courage and a strong faith in the validity of the artistic vision even if there is not a conscious faith in God,” L’Engle writes (L’Engle, 149). Not only could the artist be understood as a prophet or visionary, James Baldwin would describe his station in life as “'exactly the same as the role of a lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see’” (L’Engle, 165).
With such sacred roles comes responsibilities, ones that are easily abused. L’Engle feels that much of modern “art” has depicted distortion, meaninglessness, and chaos when art should be affirming of life, the lifter of our heads. Art is an optimistic vocation by definition; it celebrates creation and not destruction. The author notes that “when the art of the absurd was at its height, theologians began to announce the death of God. Religion and art both reflect what is happening in the world around us. And both must learn to discern the difference between revelation and nightmare” (L’Engle 163).
Artist as a Vessel of Humility
There is also a posture of humility that becomes an artist, L’Engle points out. She quotes E.M. Forster’s words “Literature wants not to be signed.” Transcendent writing allows us to forget about the author of a piece as we read it, just as he forgot himself as he composed it. An artist understands that creativity is a collaborative work, and that the work is served by the artist and should not be the other way around. If an artist truly listens and obeys as he creates, the finished product will be greater than himself. That is the ultimate message of an artist’s life. “Our identity is hidden, even from ourselves…The doctrine that we are made after the image of God proclaims that the human being is fundamentally a mystery, a free spirit. The creative artist carries within him the wound of transcendence. He is the sign that human beings are more than they are,” L’Engle borrows from her son-in-law (L’Engle, 150).
Artists of all disciplines could do well by employing this book as a source of daily meditations. No artist can deny the importance of his or her spirituality. Madeleine’s writing flows freely from her Christian beliefs, but here is no bleary-eyed, stodgy religious adherent. Her voice is that of an empowered intellectual writer who reminds us “ ‘Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories’”(L’Engle, 56). After Walking on Water, one might redefine the life of piety as a life of passion—an existence continually consumed by the incarnation that is art.
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art
Random House, originally published in 1980.
ISBN: 087788918X
Why Not Introduce Your Child to Madeleine L'Engle?
Her science fiction series, beginning with Newberry winner A Wrinkle in Time can be found at her site Madeleine L'Engle.
Walking on Water Cover Image
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A Wrinkle in Time Cover Image
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