A Single Layer

I can't remember the first time I read Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time , though I have read it since at least half a dozen times. It feels new every time I pick it up, and for that reason alone it belongs in the category of Great Books. It is a great book for other reasons, though I'm not entirely convinced it's a good  book. I don't want to be confusing about this distinction. What I mean by this is that the book contains a lot of faults. There are awkward moments, hiccups in dialogue that should have been scribbled over by a good editor. And the very premise has a certain degree of obviousness to it that's only forgivable because of the book's age - and it's not really that old. But the book has magic. I suspect in part because the author believes in the world she creates - and we do too. Our vision of the universe expands even as we read it. At the moment, I've begun reading the book again along with my book group from Grace. It's th...

It's an interesting thing to give an appraisal of a person based on their Twitter tagline, or the section on Facebook titled "About Me." I always feel a bit stumped by those requirements of a social networking profile. What do you need to know about me that can be summarized into a single sentence? My profession? My hobbies? My sense of self-deprecating humor? My cynicism toward the world at large and profile summaries in particular?  There's a similar section in the profile of a Pinterest user, and regular readers know well that I take my Pinterest account very seriously. So it was with much consideration that I decided to forgo the usual descriptors and opt, instead, for a quotation by George MacDonald.   The line is from the book Sir Gibbie , a novel set high in the Highlands, about a little boy whom no one thinks much of until it turns out that he's very important after all. That's about the vaguest summary of a novel I've ever come up with,...

For those not paying very much attention, we are in the midst of Lent. Among other things, Lent is the season in which we observe a humility that remembers our shortfall, the great distance between what we are on our own and what Christ has called us toward, made us for, and redeemed us into. I've quoted Richard John Neuhaus before, a line that I remember particularly during Lent every year: "About chief of sinners I don't know, but what I know about sinners I know chiefly about me." This comes from his book Death on a Friday Afternoon , which I probably mention every year about the same time I'm reminded of this line. I was reminded of it again yesterday while reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together . He addresses the same question, Who among us is the chief of sinners? with the same answer. It brought me back to Neuhaus today, and I think rather than talking about it more, I'll just give you a small passage: "I may think it modesty when ...

Later this month, I'll be starting another ten-week book group in which we'll be reading through three Madeleine L'Engle novels along with Walking on Water . I've featured two of them in my "Book Therapy" box on the left, one of which is there now. Like any normal Madeleine L'Engle reader, we'll begin with A Wrinkle in Time . If you haven't read it since you were a kid, now's your chance. Read along with us and tell me what you think. I have very few expectations for the group, which is probably a good thing. (Few is not the same thing as low, by way of clarification.) Half the attendees have been with us before, and the other half are brand new. We'll see how it goes.