It began for me personally while standing at a pay phone outside a hometown restaurant in Florida.  I had read in The Orlando Sentinel that Madeleine was recently in our area, a thought that sparked the idea to call upon her at the cathedral library position noted in the newspaper article.  I hesitated, “What am I doing standing in the wind of an outside phone calling this literary legend?”  The cathedral receptionist put me right through.

Just the voice you would imagine – one we all know and remember so well – chiming, “Hi!” and patiently listening to me recount the lifelong odyssey leading me to that moment.

“You see, Ms. L’Engle,” I rambled, “A Wrinkle in Time changed my entire worldview as a child, and I studied the Italian renaissance overseas where a discovery of Giotto’s painting yielded similar breakthroughs.  And when I discovered this synthesis of beauty, art and faith in your book The Glorious Impossible, I had to call.  I’ve been reading it recently to my children – not realizing you had written that powerful narrative to accompany the art – when something awoke in me, insisting this be shared with many more people in a new way.  Ms. L’Engle, I’d like to come to New York to speak with you about producing a theatrical presentation of The Glorious Impossible, one that we could share with audiences everywhere.  Would you perhaps agree to see me?”

We know what she said, because she was so remarkably present for others, open to possibility.  (This is a trait shared by humans through the ages who have developed a higher calling, a higher consciousness.  God exists there in the moment, free from the guilt of the past’s missed opportunities and the future’s anxieties.)  “Of course.  When can you come?”

That first trip was postponed, but the vision persisted until a year later we met at one of her writer’s workshops at Holy Cross Monastery up on the Hudson.  My multimedia program was complete, her text edited to accommodate a musical score and an hour long production of Giotto’s painting.  We sat after dinner with the monks and workshop participants in the monastery library when I asked Madeleine to read, allowing me to rest a hand on her arm to signal when to stop and start the narrative.  It was a divine moment at the conclusion as she leapt to her feet to hug me and declare, “We must do this many more times together.”

What followed were trips to British Columbia (the Sorrento Centre), Ontario (for the Windsor diocesan convention), New York (St. Paul’s Catholic), Kanuga in North Carolina, Palm Beach, Florida and other places around North America to tell the story of the life of Jesus in a way that celebrates God’s imparting of artistic genius.  Despite almost two generations of age differential, Madeleine and I became close along the way.

I learned so much from her – how to remain open to infinite possibility, how to be truly present for others.  I remember one time, standing in the pouring rain outside her cabin at Kanuga, when she asked me about a mutual friend.  Madeleine stopped and focused her eyes intently upon my reply, totally unaffected by the rain, in no hurry whatsoever to hear truly how they were doing.  She taught me again in that moment.

There were other times to learn and absorb – over spaghetti at Crosswicks, potluck at her New York apartment – to celebrate the power of music, philosophy and of spirited conversation.  Even that next to last time visiting her at Rose Haven Assisted Living, when I caught her in a good mood, joyously exclaiming, “Randy!” upon entering the room.  Recounting with her a recent trip to Italy, she insisted we plan to go together.  Over wine and cheese outside, that loving twinkle remained evident.

That’s what she did best, teach us about love.  Though the religion of my childhood was more about guilt and shame, Madeleine L’Engle shattered that prism to reveal one of a universe bound together in divine love.  I strive to see that always, and to thank her for so ably showing it to me.

Last year at this time, we visited the catacombs outside Rome to ponder the subterranean artists of the second and third centuries C.E. whose religious tradition expressly told them not to make graven images.  Why these devoted souls did so and with such verve is a testament to their undeniable ardor.  Let us now reach further to 30,000 B.C.E. and the caves of Chauvet, France to contemplate the birth of art.

The symbiosis between human beings and the wild animals surrounding them is complex.  Humans hunted them and were hunted by them.  Their life-giving and life-threatening attributes inspired reverence and awe.  Take a moment to ponder the animated power of Chauvet, the clear authority of its artistry and shading.  Is it any wonder Picasso exclaimed, “all else since is decadence” upon studying paleolithic art of his native Spain?

Recently discovered and verified through carbon dating, the art of Chauvet is among the first set of images to have appeared on our island home.  Try to imagine it above the flickering light of a feeble flame, perhaps rendered in stolen moments in flight from a cave bear.  Its innate spirituality is what experts believe delineated us from the moot Neanderthal species, a uniquely Cro-Magnon seed of transcendent thinking beyond one’s self and own predicament.

This raw creative talent is what our friend Marcus Borg terms a “thin place” where the human reaches toward the divine.  Might we look upon the incarnation of a Middle Eastern baby who grew wise and resolute, touching generations of spiritual pilgrims, as the ultimate expression of divine creativity?  Jesus of Nazareth tended to ask questions, to probe, to break rules and to envision beyond the horizon a new creation.

30,000 years is a long creative testimony.  So is 2,000.  We create.  God creates in us and with us.  May we genuflect to the birth of art and proclaim, “Hosanna, to the Son of David!”