In the Company of Artists

Beauty, Writing 0

When I look back on [my] decade of total failure – it’s been a mixture, both before, and since – there was, even on the days of rejection slips, a tiny, stubborn refusal to be completely put down. And I think, too, and possibly most important, that there is a faith simply in the validity of art; when we talk about ourselves as being part of the company of such people as Mozart or van Gogh or Dostoyevsky, it has nothing to do with comparisons, or pitting talent against talent; it has everything to do with a way of looking at the universe. My husband said, “But people might think you’re putting yourself alongside Dostoyevsky.” The idea is so impossible that I can only laugh in incredulity. Dostoyevsky is a giant; I look up to him; I sit at his feet; perhaps I will be able to learn something from him. But we do face the same direction, no matter how giant his stride, how small mine.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Circle of Quiet, quoted in Madeleine L’Engle, Herself, p. 32

Beautiful Cracks

Beauty, Healing 0

One has to be done with the pretense of being just fine, unscarred, perfectly self-sufficient. No one is.

The ancient Chinese had a practice of embellishing the cracked parts of valued possessions with gold leaf, which says: We dishonor it if we pretend that it hadn’t gotten broken. It says: We value this enough to repair it. So it is not denial or a cover-up. It is the opposite, an adornment of the break with gold leaf, which draws the cracks into greater prominence. The gold leaf becomes part of its beauty. Somehow the aesthetic of its having been cracked but still being here, brought back not to baseline but restored, brings increase.

— Anne Lamott, Hallelujah Anyway, p. 50

Deepest Wounds

Beauty, Healing, Trials 0

Maybe you can live a full and beautiful life in spite of the great and terrible moments that will happen right inside of you. Actually — maybe you get to become more abundant because of those moments. Maybe — I don’t know how, but somehow? — maybe our hearts are made to be broken. Broken open. Broken free. Maybe the deepest wounds birth deepest wisdom.

— Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way, p. 24

A Bit of Love Frozen

Beauty, God 0

Everything beautiful is a bit of love frozen: the love that gives is to the gift as water is to ice. Ah, you should hear our torrent shout in the spring! The thought of God fills me so full of life, that I want to go and do something for everybody.

— George MacDonald, Warlock O’Glenwarlock, chapter 22, quoted in Discovering the Character of God, edited by Michael Phillips, p. 230.

Last Year’s Blooms

Acceptance, Beauty, Growth, Letting Go, Life 0

And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments [of our past experience] which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope by fondling and sniffing, to get last year’s blooms, and you will get nothing. “Unless a seed die. . .”

— C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm, Chapter 5

Honoring the Cost of Our Gifts

Beauty, Core Value, Relationships 0

Each of our gifts carries its own costs, and those costs are real. Someone who has a deep sense of loyalty usually has known the great pain of staying too long in a relationship that doesn’t serve him or her. Someone who sees through hypocrisy and can’t bear dishonesty knows the pain of being punished for speaking the truth. People with humility know the pain of being unseen. And people who bond deeply know the pain of separation in the keenest ways.

As we learn to understand and honor our gifts, we can lessen the pain these gifts carry in their wake. The more skilled we are at using our gifts in wise ways — and this is the work of a lifetime — the less burdensome they become. But to some degree, part of the wise stewardship of a gift is to accept the pain that comes with it. It is the price of the greatness within us. It is the cost of being human, of having a soul. Many of us flee our gifts because we dread paying the price of them. To become mature means learning to own and honor the cost of our gifts in this world.

— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p. 69