Walking On Water

This weekend while resting I read Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle. I loved it. This is the book for the artists who create music, written word, paint, draw, photography, anything that requires creativity and imagination. I have been feeling a tinge of despair as writing has not come easily to me since I have gotten home from my latest surgery with my T-tube. I have felt lost. I have dismal with what I am writing and creating. I wondered why I am stuck in this shallow place. Then I received L’Engle’s book in the mail and I was inspired again to continue to write and do my own version of creativity. I know this is a great book for us artists, male and female, Christian and non-Christian.

Here are some tidbits that inspired me:

• We all have a decision to make. Like Beethoven, Milton, and other artists who have disabilities they had a decision to make. To stop creating and live in dismal surroundings or to continue to create and live in the colorful world of chaos and love that Jesus provides for us.
• We are co-authors with God in writing our own stories.
• Language is a living thing. We speak words to either heal or encourage or we speak them to kill and destroy. Like the Toby Mac song Speak Life, it is imperative that we choose wisely what kind of language we will use when we create.
• Faith, helps us remember the impossible things Jesus did and that we can recreate them ourselves. We can do as Jesus did. He has given us that gift and the authority to recreate and collaborators with him.
• When we start thinking we know that is when smugness and Pharisee thinking comes into play and destroys our creativity.

I hope that all the Christian artists will check out this creative and encouraging and detailed book that explores what it means to be a Christian artist. It is well worth the read.

Here are some links:

Barnes and Noble

Madeleine L’Engle

In exchange for my honest review I was given a copy of Madeleine L’Engle’s book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art from Blogging For Books. The opinions I express are my own and are in no way influenced.