Christina Wong and Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle, author of more than forty books, "A Wrinkle
in Time", "A Wind in the Door", and "A Swiftly
Tilting Planet" among others, chooses her words carefully.
Decked out in a blue and white, pinstripe, denim blouse and a
skirt embroidered with a beaded flower design, the 77-year-old
storyteller looks every bit the wise author who millions of readers
have come to know and love. In town to teach a writing workshop
on Creativity and the Bible, L'Engle casually weaves together
bits of scientific knowledge and spiritual insight to anyone who
will listen.
"We're right now at a new paradigm shift," L'Engle begins,
"and I don't think any of us have really caught on to it,
but it is far more terrifying than anything that Darwin suggested."
"What do you mean?" I ask, puzzled.
"Nothing at all happens in isolation. It all happens together,
and we are no longer in that deterministic world that troubled
Einstein. Then, everything was totally predictable. It was pre-determined."
Catching up to her first remark, I interject, "Wait a minute
- you mean the way we perceive reality has fundamentally changed,
and we're not even aware of it?"
She nods. "Prayer and sub-atomic physics can both communicate
instantly," she continues. "We're part of a new universe."
"How's that?"
She grins. "Physicists have discovered that, under certain
circumstances, two subatomic particles can be thousands of miles
away, but communicate instantly."
"All right. Now how's that related to prayer?"
"We can pray for those we love in far off places knowing
that our prayer is there instantly. It transcends time. Prayer
breaks the boundaries of time."
"So what you're saying is that we are no longer confined
to our former ways of thinking. Science and God have come together.
Is that right?"
She winks. With a smile, L'Engle explains that her vision of God
isn't of some distant omnipotent being who performs miracles,
but rather of an entity that is with us in the midst of chaos.
It takes me a minute to grasp what she's just explained. But something
is still unclear. "What does Charles Darwin have to do with
all this? You mentioned him earlier."
L'Engle pauses briefly to collect her thoughts. "Someone
asked me about creation versus evolution," she says. "I
said I can't get very excited about it. There's only one question
worth asking, and that is, 'Did God make it?' And if the answer
is 'Yes,' then why get so excited about it?"
Madeleine continues, "I need to know when I go to bed at
night that I'm loved, and forgiven. And along comes poor Darwin
and gets everybody upset." She goes on to explain that evolution
does not preclude the existence of God. It may merely be a mechanism
by which God operates.
These words are not surprising coming from someone who believes
that writing is a spiritual discipline. Her first novel, "A
Wrinkle in Time" (1962) met with much initial resistance.
People kept turning it down because it dealt with the problem
of evil and was considered too difficult for children. L'Engle
explains that there was some confusion as to whether it was a
kid's book or an adult's book.
"It took ten years to get published," the author confesses.
"Now I get publishers coming up to me saying, 'You should
have sent it to me.' I say, 'I did!'"
Now that we're onto the subject of writing, I tentatively ask,
"How do you come up with all your wonderful ideas? Do you
actually see the things you write about?"
She replies humbly, "I just listen. When I write, I don't
think. I just listen."
"To what?"
"To the Holy Spirit."
"What about writing technique, structure, and all that? Do
you think about those things?" I ask.
She smiles. "I like the advice of the King of Hearts in Alice
in Wonderland - 'Begin at the beginning, go on 'till you
come to the end, then stop.'"
Madeleine continues by describing her theory of art - that all
art derives from the chaos found in the cosmos. "We're all
part of that unpredictability out of which Pattern comes,"
she says. "All of us are here to help make the Heavens and
the Earth, to bring Creation into being, and in the end wind up
triumphant with God." She shouts with joy, "Alleluia!
We're all at the party - let's have a wonderful time!"
