skigirl1689's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed reading L'Engle's reflections on life through the lens of the Church year. I noted many nuggets of wisdom and made me consider different things relating to the Church year from a different perspective.
rachel_abby_reads's review against another edition
5.0
I loved her thoughts, her faith, and her admission of times when she feels an atheist because circumstances around her become overwhelming and she isn't feeling God as clearly as she'd wish.
I love the common theme I've seen from Madeleine, Mother Teresa and CS Lewis: If all of our love is for people we never see, and all of our contempt is for our immediate companions, then our love is imaginary and our hate is real (paraphrased from CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
Madeleine talked about not being able to get excited about a cause (world hunger, for example), if it meant she didn't feel any obligation to address the immediate hunger and need in her neighborhood.
Mother Teresa talked about the love that compels people to buy rice for someone halfway about the world, and the need for that love to look for wounded hearts in your own home.
Caring about others, however distant and remote, is good; genuine caring, work, service, contact, reaching out, talking with, loving for those who are in our homes and neighborhoods is where love and Christian charity really meet the road and do their holiest work.
I love the common theme I've seen from Madeleine, Mother Teresa and CS Lewis: If all of our love is for people we never see, and all of our contempt is for our immediate companions, then our love is imaginary and our hate is real (paraphrased from CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
Madeleine talked about not being able to get excited about a cause (world hunger, for example), if it meant she didn't feel any obligation to address the immediate hunger and need in her neighborhood.
Mother Teresa talked about the love that compels people to buy rice for someone halfway about the world, and the need for that love to look for wounded hearts in your own home.
Caring about others, however distant and remote, is good; genuine caring, work, service, contact, reaching out, talking with, loving for those who are in our homes and neighborhoods is where love and Christian charity really meet the road and do their holiest work.
boureemusique's review against another edition
5.0
I like books that follow a year: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy, Kingsolver's one about living off the land. I also liked one I read by a gay liberal mystical poet professor Muslim about his experience of Ramadan. Meditations on time speak to me
L'Engle's theology is unique and deep and inspiring. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but while reading her words I embrace Keats's negative capability.
This gorgeous, meditative, delightful, and not-at-all-recommended-for-my-happily-atheistic-friends book, came to me at the right time, as I have drastically changed my living situation and started a new job (at a church).
Maybe I can write more clearly. This book meditates on Jung's light and dark, about the ungraspable mystery of God becoming man. It's about community and nature and pain and working hard and being vulnerable and faithful.
L'Engle's theology is unique and deep and inspiring. We don't see eye to eye on everything, but while reading her words I embrace Keats's negative capability.
This gorgeous, meditative, delightful, and not-at-all-recommended-for-my-happily-atheistic-friends book, came to me at the right time, as I have drastically changed my living situation and started a new job (at a church).
Maybe I can write more clearly. This book meditates on Jung's light and dark, about the ungraspable mystery of God becoming man. It's about community and nature and pain and working hard and being vulnerable and faithful.
eupomene's review against another edition
5.0
My favorite of the Crosswicks journals. In this one Ms L'Engle follows the church year in her discussions of our place in this world and our limiting perceptions of God. I've read this book so many times -- every time it is worth it and I find something new.
artartefacts's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
rissaleighs's review against another edition
2.0
This book just wasn't for me at the moment. Too meandering, too much a jumble. Too many sentences starting with 'and' or 'but'. (Normally, I would be the last person in the world to notice something like that, but it was so irritatingly excessive.) I remember really enjoying the first Crosswicks a few years ago, but this one didn't work for me. I felt like Madeline was either railing at God, or stalwartly insisting on the unknowableness of things, or inventing her own theology to suit her feelings.
mimima's review against another edition
4.0
I've never had the deep and abiding love for Madeline L'Engle that I see others have, but after reading this, I have more. It reminds me a lot of "Facing East" by Kh. Frederica Mathewes-Green, it's a collection of essays around the Liturgical Season.
theremightbecupcakes's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderful...like having a breakfast nook or walk through the woods talk with Madeleine--the talk began about the liturgical year as delineated in the Book of Common Prayer, but has delightfully swerved back and fro to physics then troublesome Bible stories to family politics then the place in our society for the very young and the very old...
The coffee grows tepid, the dog bashes ahead in the brush. The talk continues and weaves and braids. There is always more coffee, and the dog knows the way, and is only following his nature. All is well.
The coffee grows tepid, the dog bashes ahead in the brush. The talk continues and weaves and braids. There is always more coffee, and the dog knows the way, and is only following his nature. All is well.