Awhile ago I stumbled upon the book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, by Madeleine L’Engle.  I couldn’t put this book down. In her thoughtfully provocative way, L’Engle questions the ways we as a society look at art and faith, and more specifically literature. A few days after deciding upon the book, Madeleine L’Engle passed away. Her words will continually challenge and inspire readers in their journey of discovering faith.
 
As she referenced her own published books in Walking on Water, I recalled that I had read A Ring of Endless Light when I was younger. In order to grasp the depth of her discussion, I thought it best to read more of the literature I missed growing up. A stack of her children’s books became my bedtime reads—A Wind in the Door and A Wrinkle in Time, to name a few. And I picked up a book of her poetry, The Ordering of Love:The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle.
 
But I discovered some sad news as she disclosed it to the reader in Walking on Water. The irony of her writing career was that she was sometimes met with scorn and judgment by the very people that proclaimed the same faith she was paralleling in her fiction. Her ideas were born from scriptural and spiritual contexts, yet some failed to read between the lines and were quick to accuse her work of being un-Christian. She almost had to laugh. Much of her whimsical and scientific settings had more to do with God than people realized. To me, anyone who can write about creation and the crucifixion in a hidden and creative way deserves merit. We, the people who often judge books by their covers, too often miss out on true art, true messages and the true inspirations God works through people’s creativity to reach us—whether it be music, a painting or a book. We’ve turned everything into “Christian” or “secular,” instead of taking it for what it is and drawing from it what we can. We don’t allow God to speak to us through something. Instead we judge it and toss it aside. This is the main point L’Engle makes. True art judges us; we do not judge it. 
 
One time I came across a posting online—a girl was in need of a roommate. She was very open about her Christianity, even to the point where she said, “I only listen to music that glorifies God”—which seemed to imply to me that she wouldn’t let anything “unglorifying” play in her house. I couldn’t understand. “What does that even mean?” I asked the computer screen. How is that statement drawing unbelievers toward faith in God?
 
We’ve turned the world into our own box of “in” or “out,” “good” or “bad,” “Christian” or “unChristian.” And what exactly is glorifying to God? Can we put a label on that too? If God created music, doesn’t all music, in it’s most basic form, glorify God, the one who created it? 
 
What would happen if we open our ears a little bit more? The other day, a friend told me as we discussed some themes from Walking on Water that she recently had a very spiritual experience at a mainstream concert—more so than some “Christian” concerts she’s been to. We explored how God can meet us in any form, through any means. It doesn’t have to be under a specific label, denomination or legalistic rule. 
 
“But we call the work of such artists un-Christian or nonChristian at our own peril,” L’Engle writes. “Christ has always worked in ways which have seemed peculiar to many men, even his closest followers. Frequently the disciples failed to understand him. So we need not feel that we have to understand how he works through artists who do not consciously recognize him. Neither should our lack of understanding cause us to assume that he cannot be present in their work.” 
 
She goes on later to suggest, “To be truly Christian means to see Christ everywhere, to know him as all in all.” 
 
As we come out of our legalistic traditions or as we are just coming into the faith, we must trust the Spirit inside of us as we are guided and counseled along the journey. The world doesn’t have to be one side against another, but instead, it could be an intricately woven blanket of different colors, shade, sizes, patterns—where everyone moves toward God together as we move in and out of each other’s lives and learn from the creativity around us. Knitted together, we can pull each other along without judgment or separation. What if we listened and looked just a little bit harder? What if our boxes opened up? God just might be trying to speak to us.

 
~+~ kate cremisino ~+~