The Pirate Review - Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

It won't be to everyone's tastes, but Walking on Water is a positive, intriguing personal essay on the nature of faith and its relation to creativity

If you recognize the name "Madeleine L'Engle," you're probably familiar with her Time Trilogy—A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet—but you may not have read any of her nonfiction. I was certainly one of these. Until about a year ago, I hadn't realized she had written anything that could be found outside the young adult fiction bookshelves. Then one day, while wandering through the wilds of Barnes & Noble in search of hidden treasure, I came across a slim little paperback with a familiar name on the spine. I pulled it off the shelf, scanned the title. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle. Hmm. I opened it to a random page and began to read.

Fifteen minutes later, I bought the book.

Don't be misled—if you're expecting another Wrinkle in Time or Meet the Austins, you'll be disappointed. This book is essentially a long personal essay concerning two ponderous subjects, Faith and Art, written from the point of view of a life-long Christian. But much of the almost lyrical descriptions and phrases typical to L'Engle's other work can be found here.

The book's primary thesis is that art is an act of faith. L'Engle submits that any true art requires the "death" of the artist's self or ego, to get out of the way of the work. Such a death, she admits, is terrifying but necessary; by doing so, we join with the ultimate Creator in bringing to life a lasting creative work.

Christian mysticism plays a large part in this discussion—the shifting nature of time and reality in the Gospels; the suggestion that by power of our faith, we ought to be able to do any of the things Christ did in His life, including walking on water. L'Engle muses that we as a culture are too much in time, too concerned with the clock; our lives seem to go so quickly because of this obsession with time, a human-created construct. She theorizes that by largely letting go of time and learning to savor the moment, we grow closer to a God of timelessness.

One of the more interesting—and probably controversial—discussions in the book is L'Engle's definition of "Christian art." She claims that art is not Christian simply because it embraces Christian themes, or even because the artist is a Christian. In her eyes, art of any kind which uplifts, transforms, and brings the observer closer to God is by its nature Christian. I'm still not sure what I think about this—although I come from a tradition which teaches that all truth proceeds from God and that all things which are of good report or praiseworthy bring one closer to God, I'm certain some very talented non-Christian artists would object strongly to having their art described as Christian. The jury's still out on this definition, but it makes for interesting reading.

I disagree with at least one other assumption made in this book—the idea that creativity is innate and unlearnable. Yes, I realize we are not all Mozarts and Michelangelos, but that is largely beside the point. I maintain that creativity is a process that CAN be learned and developed over time. Just as with Christ's parable of the talents, it is not necessarily the innate talent with which one is born, but the way in which it is used and practiced, that makes the difference. I may practice violin all my life and never be as brilliant a violinist as Isaac Stern (may he rest in peace), but in the practice and study I have increased my small talent to something grander; the effort I have expended was worthwhile. To say that only the highly talented are truly open to Art is to destroy millions of potential artists-in-embryo (watch any five-year-old child and you'll see unbridled creativity in action; watch the same child at eight or nine and you'll notice how most of his or her creative impulses have been squashed).

Perhaps in accordance with her belief that we should let go of time, L'Engle displays a certain tendency to ramble in her narrative. She may see an interesting side path and wander off on it for a few pages before returning to the original discussion. Depending on the mindset of the reader, these detours can be either charming or annoying (for the record, I enjoyed most of them).

The final measure of quality of any book is how eager one is to recommend it to others. I've bought copies of this book for several friends, and my personal copy is currently lent out to another friend. However, because of the subject matter, I would hesitate to recommend or lend it to friends who are not of a Christian faith unless they specifically inquired about art from the point of view of a committed Christian.