"Your life story...a gift of love..."

"Carry with you maps and string, flashlights
Friends who make you sing
And stars to help you find your place
Music, hope and amazing grace…

Everybody strains to hear the sound
Of their heart's calling
Now you can write yours down
It's your life story…"
-Mary Chapin Carpenter

I sometimes wonder what difference it will make whether I write this, my life's story…or not.   Does it matter if I let a Tuesday pass without an installment…will Thursday's square on the calendar suddenly frown up at me from my Daytimer if I fail to exorcise something from the depths of my own experience.  Because that's all this is…just small snippets from the fabric of my life's story…sewn together into a patchwork quilt of songs and memories…tears and prayers.

I lost a friend I never met this past week…at least not in person.  Children's author and inspirational allegorist Madeleine L'Engle passed on before I could sit in her lap and ask her all the questions of the universe…which I hope she might have answered from the wrinkled folds of time and space she traveled in.  Her heart laid out life's lessons bare before us through her writing.  Her "voice" was magical and warm, innocent and wise…and I loved her…deeply.  A day full of sorrows could be resuscitated by just one pop into the pages of "A Circle of Quiet", or "A Swiftly Tilting Planet".  Her words were deeply inspiring, her characters touchable, and her worlds of wonder and delight were a retreat into hope and goodness.

"Why does anybody tell a story?" Ms. L'Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.

"It does indeed have something to do with faith," she said, 'faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically."

I believe this is true.  Her life's story, as told through fantasy and allegory, mattered to me.  I drew fresh breath from characters who, although broken, fought the darkness and discovered threads of light so strong that it led them home.  I found comfort and solace in the hollowed out places of warmth she feathered for her characters…and her readers.  Places where the light was golden and the quilts scattered about were already soft with wear.  I could almost feel her cool fingers stroking my temples as I lay curled into myself waiting for the book to warm me.

Jesus once said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." I think this is what we do when we tell our stories.  When we are willing to share…whether it is through fairytale or testimony, blog or blathering…doubled up in laughter or spent with weeping…we love. 

Even if you are not writing a blog, a book, a lecture, or an article…and you have a story to tell, call me…I am always ready to be loved by someone's laying down of their life.  Or you could send it in an email to your mom, your sister, your bestest best friend…or me...I'm sure there's almost nothing we'd rather read…

You never know how it might carve out a place of comfort and healing…a space of sanctuary…in the midst of sadness, indifference, despair…or just on "a dark and stormy night"… for a weary heart.

Thank you Mama Madeleine for loving us all enough to share your stories, for sharing Mrs.Whatsit, and Meg and tesseract-ing, and teaching us that when we love intensely evil cannot stand…thank you, thank you, thank you…

"Maybe love is all anybody
Ever should believe in…
Maybe time can choose
Whether to be earthbound or to fly…
I won't worry, the truth's always been found
In your life story…"

Kate