It's no coincidence that just at this point in our insight into our mysteriousness as human beings struggling towards compassion, we are also moving into an awkward interest in the language of myth and fairy tale. The language of logical argument, of proofs, is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith. For me this involves not trust in "the gods" but in God. But if the word God has understandably become offensive to many, then the language of poetry and story involves faith in the unknown potential in the human being, faith in courage and honor and nobility, faith in love, our love of each other, and our dependence on each other. And it involves for me a constantly renewed awareness of the fact that if I am a human being who writes, and who sends my stories out into the world for people to read, then I must have courage to make a commitment to the unknown and unknowable (in the sense of intellectual proof), the world of love and particularity which gives light to the darkness.
-Madeleine L'Engle - A Cirlce of Quiet - page 194
No comments:
Post a Comment