A Glimpse of Starlight

I rediscovered Madeleine L’Engle’s wisdom and beauty after rereading A Ring of Endless Light recently. She’s definitely one of my favorite authors—any other fans of hers out there? Because it was a library book, I resorted to madly scribbling down page numbers of quotes to remember on a separate sheet of paper. Today, I thought I’d pick five of those and share them with you. I hope they bless you this Good Friday.

(Also, it feels weird posting again since I just posted yesterday. So read this post, check out that one, and pardon the unusualness of it all.)

{the beauty of mortality}

“If we knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we’d tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into shore. We’d tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living.”

Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now. Really, though, I don’t give enough thanks for the blessings of now. And my life will end someday—I don’t want to regret that I didn’t rejoice in it enough.

{letting go}

“It’s hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we’re left with a fistful of ashes.”

Despite Frozen, our world really does teach us to clutch, to grab, to cling. But you can only have joy when you live open-handed.

{old-fashioned}

“Maybe you’re old-fashioned too?”

“I’m not sure what being old-fashioned is.”

“Not falling for things just because they’re trendy. Not doing things just because everybody else is doing them. Not substituting what’s real with what’s phony.”

I’m old-fashioned, according to this definition. Or at least I hope to be. Who’s with me?

{how to pray}

“How do you pray for someone like that?”

Grandfather held out his open hand, palm up. “There are many different ways. I simply take him into my heart, and then put him into God’s hand.”

~ Vicky and Grandfather

We all have been there, trying to pray for so great a pain that you don’t have words. I like this definition, though—it helps me when prayer feels too hard or complicated.

{my charge to you}

“Vicky, this is my charge to you. You are to be a light-bearer. You are to choose the light.”

And this is what I leave you with: I charge you all to be light-bearers. I dare you to choose the light, even in the darkness. I dare you to call good a day that at first seemed so black.