Another fine post, as always. Also wanted to mention that I finished “Dangerous Territory” and really enjoyed it! I guess I had never really thought that much about the challenges missionaries deal with. It’s also a great read as a memoir of your faith journey.
Canon Tallis! Such a figure of mystery and fascination! It amazes me how L’Engle (and a handful of others) were able to create loves and beliefs that are still with me today. I wish I could read books in the same way that I did at 8 years of age.
I also read these books every summer for probably ten years, then spent a part of my late 20s tracking them all down. Betsy and Julia’s tender earnestness—and their dad’s gentle blessing—nudged a door open in my heart. I didn’t end up Episcopalian—more neo-Anabaptist with a sacramental imagination—but I feel so nourished in more richly liturgical spaces. And I didn’t get to read L’Engle until adulthood (our fundamentalism didn’t welcome her!), but YES. What an enormous gift to have our hearts and minds shaped by these stories. What a balm.
I never knew this story. It is meaningful to me, being in an Episcopal Church now where all the aesthetics aren't as rich as they might be --- we don't have music, for example -- that the words of the liturgy are always rich, always meaningful, always poetic.
I was seduced by the beauty also. I can remember so clearly this Methodist girl’s first worship service in the Episcopal Church. I think I was 12. It was Morning Prayer in the “old” Book of Common Prayer. The language was ethereal, as was all the ritual, procession, vestments, gestures. I thought to myself “this is where God is; this is what heaven must be like.” I’ve never looked back.
Sounds like it’s time for a re-read! But seriously, thank you for being one of the authors who works to create us good, formational stories of beauty and light.
Another fine post, as always. Also wanted to mention that I finished “Dangerous Territory” and really enjoyed it! I guess I had never really thought that much about the challenges missionaries deal with. It’s also a great read as a memoir of your faith journey.
Thank you! I'm currently working on the Afterword for the second edition... have any thoughts on what readers of DT would want in an Afterword? ;-)
Maybe how your experiences overseas helped put you on the path to where you are now? As an Episcopal priest in WNC?
Whatever you include, I know it will be good (and a reason to get the second edition)!
Canon Tallis! Such a figure of mystery and fascination! It amazes me how L’Engle (and a handful of others) were able to create loves and beliefs that are still with me today. I wish I could read books in the same way that I did at 8 years of age.
Just re-read A Ring of Endless Light and 1)was amazed by how clearly that book shaped me, 2)it absolutely holds up.
I attribute entirely my lifelong fascination with Lisbon to the O’Keefe books.
I also read these books every summer for probably ten years, then spent a part of my late 20s tracking them all down. Betsy and Julia’s tender earnestness—and their dad’s gentle blessing—nudged a door open in my heart. I didn’t end up Episcopalian—more neo-Anabaptist with a sacramental imagination—but I feel so nourished in more richly liturgical spaces. And I didn’t get to read L’Engle until adulthood (our fundamentalism didn’t welcome her!), but YES. What an enormous gift to have our hearts and minds shaped by these stories. What a balm.
(And I didn’t settle until I found my Joe.)
I never knew this story. It is meaningful to me, being in an Episcopal Church now where all the aesthetics aren't as rich as they might be --- we don't have music, for example -- that the words of the liturgy are always rich, always meaningful, always poetic.
Absolutely.
I was seduced by the beauty also. I can remember so clearly this Methodist girl’s first worship service in the Episcopal Church. I think I was 12. It was Morning Prayer in the “old” Book of Common Prayer. The language was ethereal, as was all the ritual, procession, vestments, gestures. I thought to myself “this is where God is; this is what heaven must be like.” I’ve never looked back.
Same, same, same, same. I love this all.
Now you have me wondering what role The Sugar Creek Gang has played in the formation of my theology. :)
Sounds like it’s time for a re-read! But seriously, thank you for being one of the authors who works to create us good, formational stories of beauty and light.
That means a lot. Thanks, Amy.
Wow, thank you so much for sharing...I can relate so much with having an openness to the world cultivated in me by good fiction as a kid.
Yes -- one of the best gifts in my life.