Madeleine L'Engle
One of the great friends of the Festival died earlier this month. Madeleine L’Engle will be remembered by many for her sixty some works of award-winning fiction and non-fiction. She’ll be remembered by many Festival attendees for her memoirs and her writing about life and art, and, in particular, for her Festival appearance in 1996. She was one of the keynote speakers that year, and she also joined Luci Shaw in a well-attended public conversation about friendship and writing.
Those who were here that year will have, no doubt, their own specific memories of their encounters with Madeleine, who, though she was in a wheelchair because of an injured leg, participated rather heroically in all three days of the conference. As a member of the Festival’s organizing committee that year, I came away from her visit with some mental snapshots of Madeleine that, in retrospect, say something very concrete about who she was.
First, a word about her influence as a writer. Those of us in charge organizing her book signing felt as if we had been given a glimpse of the life of a pop star. What struck us was not only the size of the crowd—the huge numbers of people who queued up for an hour or more to get a book signed—it was also the passion and familiarity of her readers. Most called her by her first name; many wanted to tell her about events in their own lives; some even showed her pictures of their kids or grandkids.
Through it all, Madeleine was gracious. She listened; she was present for them and paid attention as they said what they wanted to say. That brings me to my second snapshot—a personal moment of my own: Madeleine eating cake and singing happy birthday to my wife, whose birthday happened to fall during the conference that year. When Madeleine found out that several of us were going to take a few minutes from the hubbub to commemorate a family event, she wanted to join in. Celebrations were important to her.
The third snapshot is one that captures an image of Madeleine as a person of faith. It’s an image that because of the numerous attacks on Madeleine’s faith, I find particularly striking. While she was waiting for an elevator, a Festival attendee came up to Madeleine to talk about Two-Part Invention, her autobiographical book about her relationship with her husband, Hugh Franklin, including the story of his struggle and death from cancer. When Madeleine heard that this person’s spouse was facing a similar situation, she immediately suggested that we pray for the attendee and for healing for her spouse. And that’s what we did; we held hands and prayed—five or six of us, strangers to each other in many ways, but brothers and sisters in Christ.
The article that is linked here (260KB PDF) is one that was written for a festschrift that Luci Shaw put together for Madeleine L'Engle's eightieth birthday.