Walking on Water (1/3) and The Hint of an Explanation Revisited

September Reading Guide Part One

and

Aug 29, 2024

Welcome to Reading Revisited, a place for friends to enjoy some good old-fashioned book chat while revisiting the truth, beauty, and goodness we’ve found in our favorite books.

Hello Readers,

I come to you fresh from my reread of the first four chapters of my very water stained copy of Walking on Water (see previous post for why that is). I am thrilled to be back at the weekly writing for Reading Revisited after two glorious months off. Thank you again to

Jessica Risma

and Hannah Suire
for their lovely guidance through East of Eden and Pride and Prejudice. Hearing from them about some of my favorite books was a delight and the break from writing was such a gift this summer. It enabled me to come back to the writing grindstone refreshed, excited, and, most importantly, not on the verge of burn out. It also gave me the chance to get our new podcast off the ground and, if I may say so myself, that has gone swimmingly. Now I come back to you ready to dive into one of my favorite authors on the intersection of faith and art (and motherhood, stories, and life as well). Do not fret though, they (Hannah and Jessica) will both be back writing about plenty of the books for the 2024-2025 Reading Revisited Year.

Walking on Water

(Chapters 1-4)

Now, let’s dig into Walking on Water and like Madeleine, “I offer my very, very, humble, humble opinion on the vast topic of the Christian and art.”

Cosmos From Chaos

We jump straight into Madeleine’s life as a mom (and grandmother), homemaker, and writer and I love the example she sets for the rest of us who also “seem to spend (our) days between the stove and the typewriter.” Simply sub out the word stove for your chosen household task and the word typewriter for computer (or hopefully a book) and I think we can all relate on a deep level.

I love L’Engle’s commitment to contemplation and “being” and its connection to being able to listen and therefore a prerequisite for creative activity. It reminds me of a recent conversation we had on the podcast with

Autumn Kern

about Book Gluttony (coming next Monday) and leaving room in your life for contemplation.

I sit on my favorite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busyness, time to be. I’ve long since stopped feeling guilty about taking being time; it’s something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don’t take enough of it.

We then get into her reason for writing this book. She has been contemplating the role of the Christian artist and seems to come to the conclusion that “art is art.” This brings me back to conversations from my childhood about what is “Christian,” and therefore good, and what is not. It never sat quite right as so much “Christian” art was bad and there was beauty in what was considered secular. L’Engle’s position (and many other respected authors’ as well) resonates with me a lot and helps me make some sense out of the books that I love.

Generally what is more important than getting watertight answers is learning to ask the right questions.

The above quote is something I have been thinking about lately and is an interpretive key to L’Engle herself. She is no theologian and sometimes makes statements that aren’t theologically true, however I think she is good at asking questions that start the process of thinking about the deep things we all should be contemplating.

David Kern

said something similar on a Close Reads HQ
podcast recently (possibly on the To Kill a Mockingbird (RR 2023) series) and it has been sitting with me since then. I believe this is also what good stories do for us. Sometimes they provide good answers, but a lot of the time they raise the questions and then the story brings up possible answers but it is left to the reader to work out the nuances that make up life (and stories).

I will end my meditations on this chapter (because I can feel myself getting long-winded) on L’Engle’s contemplation about the Christian artist being like Mary. This section reminded me a lot of Caryll Houselander’s The Reed of God (which is timely because we are also reading a short story by her this month). Houselander claims that Mary is the saint that all Christians are called to imitate because she carried Christ within her. Likewise L’Engle says that all artists are called to be “a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver.”

In a very real sense the artist (whether male or female) should be like Mary, who, when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.

She then describes an aspect of Mary and the incarnation that I had never thought about before. L’Engle makes the connection that Mary’s youth was actually a benefit in her obedience. Like Jesus says, “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Childlikeness is not a stumbling block to our faith, but a prerequisite. It feels very Chestertonian to draw a link between Mary’s young age and her quick “yes.”

I could go on to chat about works of art having meaning beyond the artist’s intentions, modern art’s formlessness, My Name is Asher Lev (RR 2023), Tolkien, Lewis, Flannery, and the beauty of liturgical and rote prayers, but alas we still have three more chapters and a short story to cover so I will leave you with this allusion to the title…

Sometimes I will sit…and think of Peter walking across the water to meet Jesus. As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it….Perhaps one day I will remember how to walk across Dog Pond.

Icons of the True

L’Engle covers a lot of ground in this chapter, but I am going to focus on the idea of secular and sacred art. I grew up with an idea that they are very separate. This chapter convinces me that this is not the case. L’Engle says that God calls those he will call though this may not make sense to us and that on top of the art simply being good art that it may even help the unbelieving or immoral artist in the end…

We may rest confident that at the last judgement the angels will produce his works of art as testimony on his behalf.
-Timothy Kallistos Ware

I love that idea. There are so many authors who have brought me closer to God through their works, but they themselves led very morally questionable lives. I would like their work to be a witness for them at the judgement. “Dare we hope” that they could be saved by helping the rest of us see God more clearly?

We would like God’s ways to be our ways, his judgements to be like our judgements. It is hard for us to understand that he lavishly gives enormous talents to people we would consider unworthy, that he chooses his artists with as calm a disregard of surface moral qualifications as he chooses his saints.

reminds me of…

Human beings judge one another by their external actions. God judges them by their moral choices. When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God’s eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God’s eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.
C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

As a judgmental person myself, these are good reminders to let God do the judging.

I will simply list the last few points in this chapter that are not to be missed…

Don’t forget to ask questions instead of being smug with the answers
Art needs an audience…the reader can be a creator in the act of reading
The paradox of wanting/needing to know about the artist, yet also knowing that the work transcends the author/artist (if it is true art)
The importance of words and language in thought and bringing the reader up to the language, not the language down to the reader
Don’t look up words while reading…the context will be enough, delight in the story!
The ability to take in language above your head (The Book of Common Prayer reflection)
L’Engle’s professor (Caroline Gordon) was Flannery O’Connor’s good friend….no wonder I find so many similarities in how they view art
True art stands the test of time

I will add that toward the end of this chapter I do come across some sentences where I think, “meh, a bit relativistic Madeleine?” But as I keep reading I usually see the point she is trying to make even if the initial statement isn’t theologically correct. I encourage you to take what is good and pass by what is “less right” (we are true kindred spirits if you get the megamind joke). The advice I received while reading L’Engle was just say “Oh Madeleine” (affectionately) and keep on reading. Otherwise you may miss some of the beauty this woman offers to the word.

Healed, Whole, and Holy

As I try to wrap this post up I will share a few favorite quotes and a few thoughts from each chapter.

But first, a quick summary. L’Engle says that children are born creative and then corrupted by the world. Jesus told stories and the Bible is full of mostly stories. Stories can convey truth that makes sense of the world that doctrine and essays can’t. Fairy tales, myths, and legends convey truths, not proofs. Children are open to wonder and most of us grow out of it. Whole and healthy people are the most human and therefore holy. She ends the chapter with the idea that pain and suffering are almost always part of the artist’s life.

And I knew, as a child, that it was through story that I was able to make some small sense of the confusions and complications of life.

…lie and story are incompatible. If it holds no truth, then it cannot truly be story.

These quotes help me make sense of why stories and novels make me see life so much clearer so much of the time. It also gives a justification to those of us who can sometimes be tempted to doubt whether we are using our time well when we are caught up in a story.

The well-intentioned mothers who don’t want their children polluted by fairy tales would not only deny them their childhood, with its high creativity, but they would have them conform to the secular world, with its dirty devices. The world of fairy tale, fantasy, myth, is inimical to the secular world, and in total opposition to it, for it is interested not in limited laboratory proofs but in truth.

I have come across this mother before and it makes me so sad for them and their children. I have heard the distinction before that instead of saying a story is “false” because it didn’t happen in reality (or couldn’t have happened for various reasons), we should instead say that stories are “truer than true” because of the truths they communicate.

The artist cannot hold back; it is impossible, because writing, or any other discipline of art, involves participation in suffering, in the ills and the occasional stabbing joys that come from being part of the human drama.

The connection between suffering and creativity rings true to me. It seems to go right along with the idea of sanctification through suffering. Maybe we see the light a little bit clearer after being in the darkness. Or like I like to say, the hot tub is a lot hotter after being in the cold pool.

We all have glimpses of glory as children, and as we grow up we forget them or are taught to think we made them up; they couldn’t possibly have been real because to most of us who are grown up, reality is like radium and can be borne only in very small quantities.

A Coal in the Hand

I will finish this up and leave you with a few more quotes from Madeleine…

many artists who are incapable of this (love) in their daily living are able to find it as they listen to their work, that work which binds our wounds and heals us and helps us toward wholeness.

It always bothered me that certain great writers and artists in general led such questionable lives and it made me question the goodness of their works. Some of Madeleine’s explanations help me make sense of this.

King Lear’s humbleness at the end of his play is all the more moving because it has been born of the pain cause by his arrogance.

May King Lear’s fall be a warning to us all.

Truth, for instance: we all want truth, that truth which Jesus promised would make us free. But where do we find it? How could it have happened that even in the church story has been lost as a vehicle of truth? Early in our corruption we are taught that fiction is not true. Too many people apologize when they are caught enjoying a book of fiction; they are afraid that it will be considered a waste of time and that they ought to be reading a biography or a book of information on how to pot plants. Is Jane Eyre not true? Did Conrad, turning to the writing of fiction in his sixties, not search there for truth? Was Melville, writing about the sea and the great conflict between a man and a whale, not delving for a deeper truth than we can find in any number of how-to books?

I will leave that as the last word from L’Engle for today. I hope you all enjoy ruminating on that thought until next week!

I will hand you over to

Sarah Van Hecke

now…

A Hint of an Explanation

by Graham Greene

Before delving into “The Hint of an Explanation,” let us take a few moments to get to know Graham Greene. Both his life and his theology are a bit of a wild ride, so buckle up! Make sure to pay attention to any similarities/differences between his and Madeleine L’Engle’s life and experience with Christianity. It is so interesting to see how the emotional life of an author affects their spiritual life, and by extension their artistic life as a writer.

Graham was born in 1904 in England to an Anglican headmaster. He was moody and sensitive as a child, and excelled in his studies more easily than in his friendships. Indeed, he had such traumatic social encounters with other students in boarding school that he attempted suicide frequently in his teens. Unable to reconcile the liberal Anglicanism of his youth with the darkness and evil that he felt so personally and so poignantly, Greene renounced Christianity entirely during his time at Oxford, even writing numerous very anti-Christian stories and atheistic essays. An atheist he might have stayed were it not for Vivien Dayrell-Browning, a very intelligent, very attractive, and very Catholic young lady who caught his eye.

While Graham’s conversion to Catholicism may have begun as a mere means to the end of making Vivien his wife, he nonetheless became quite serious about it. He saw Catholicism as uncomfortable, but true. Paradoxically, he found great hope and consolation in the Catholic teachings of original sin and hell, for through them Graham was able to accept the suffering he experienced as a child for the first time. Catholicism would also greatly affect the direction of his writing, as he believed in the wake of his conversion that the tension between the salvation or damnation of a soul was what made literature truly great.

Yet, in Greene’s subsequent marriage and life he struggled to live in accord with the truths that he espoused. Indeed, Greene has been called the Poet Laureate of sinners, and with good reason. Greene had numerous adulterous liaisons throughout his life, most significantly with Catherine Watson, a married woman who largely influenced the character of Sarah in The End of the Affair (March 2022). For over 30 years, Greene voluntarily excommunicated himself, unwilling to disrespect the sacraments that he still believed in, but equally unwilling to end his own affairs.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this odd pairing of devout faith and stubborn clinging to sin lead to Greene abandoning his belief in hell entirely for much of his later life, and adopting a pseudo-universalism surprisingly similar in feel to that later held by Madeleine L’Engle. After all, if one feels acutely or simply knows practically that one is not “worthy,” then there are really only three choices: one must repent, one must despair, or one must presume. The tendency to universalism found in both Greene and in L’Engle seems to stem from their acute sense of their own unworthiness, manifesting as presumption/the lack of belief in permanent damnation. One of the following quotes is L’Engle and one is Greene… see if you can tell who is who…

“I can’t bring myself to imagine that a creature conceived by Him can be so evil as to merit eternal punishment. His grace must intervene at some point.”

“No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love.”

(Compare/contrast with C. S. Lewis’s portrayal of the soul a la The Great Divorce, (August 2022) as having the capability to harden against God permanently as a necessary effect of free will.)

But back to Graham Greene. Believe it or not, Greene’s social life was as crazy as his theological life. Greene traveled extensively throughout Europe, Africa, and Central and South America, as an MI6 agent during WWII, and independently as a novelist, playwright, and political journalist in the years following. Greene’s travels led him to make a wide range of friendships and acquaintances, including Fidel Castro, whose revolutionaries Greene materially supported for a time, and Charlie Chapman, who retired to the same town in Switzerland as Greene did, prompting them to become close friends.

While Greene’s Catholicism was anything but orthodox, it was at least persistent. He never renounced the faith, even as he struggled with most aspects of it. We do know that he returned to the sacraments during his last years, and that he received Last Rites on his deathbed. We also know that despite his many conflicts, the glory of truth, the goodness of God, and the power of beauty shine forth from many of his written works, including (but certainly not limited to) “The Hint of an Explanation.”

If you are interested in learning more about Graham Greene, I highly recommend this article by Christendom Professor Dr. Adam Schwartz: “Like a Birthmark”: Graham Greene’s Catholicism" (there is a downloadable PDF which is worth printing out!) I literally feel like an expert on Greene for having read it, though it was only 17 pages. My summary of Greene’s life is basically a summary of his summary. Worth it. Also, the first quote was Greene, and the second was L’Engle!

But enough about the author, let’s dig into his work!

In Greene’s “The Hint of an Explanation” an agnostic traveler strikes up an acquaintance with a Catholic stranger on a train, which leads to the question: “how can a good God allow the corruption of innocent children?” The Catholic answers by relating an incident from his own childhood in which a man, Blacker, tries to corrupt him, and God seems to bring good out of the incident. For this particular Catholic, his personal experience provides the necessary hint of an explanation as to how God’s providence, though sometimes seemingly unjust and inexplicable in the moment, is ordained for the good and the future happiness of its recipients.

Being that the short story itself is a mere ten pages, I will not waste your time with more than that brief summary. If you need a review, just go read the whole thing again! Instead, I will share a few of my favorite things about this story.

One thing I admire about short story writers is the skill required to employ repeated imagery and themes that are both effective and subtle, despite being encountered rapidly by the reader due to the brevity of the reading experience. Greene makes use of several such recurrent images in “The Hint of an Explanation,” showcasing his talent while inviting us to dig deeper into the story. A good story, short or not, should feel a bit like an onion, full of concentric circles of meaning that structurally support and fulfill the whole. The use of bread throughout this short story is a perfect example.

Right away, in the opening paragraph, we see bread bring the two men on the train together. They who could easily have remained strangers are instead united by the coincidence of having struggled to chew the same dry bun. Indeed, our narrator changes from referring to the other as “my fellow traveler” to “my companion” after this incident. This is a very intentional choice by Greene, because companion comes from the Latin com- ‘together with’ + panis ‘bread’, making it clear that these two men have come together precisely because of bread, and foreshadowing the centrality of the Eucharistic to the plot.

The next time bread appears is indirect, as we learn that Blacker is a baker, consumed with hatred. Thus it is no surprise when Blacker’s first temptation to young David is through the offering of a Chelsea bun. Like we just saw happen in the frame story, this sharing of bread also initiates a relationship, albeit this time a toxic one. Blacker reveals that his real interest in David is merely a means to the end of obtaining a consecrated host to “see what your God tastes like,” or rather to see “what’s the difference” between bread that is bread only, and bread that has been consecrated. The following quotes always strike me:

“When I was there, I looked quickly round for a hiding-place and saw an old copy of the Universe lying on a chair. I took the Host from my mouth and inserted it between two sheets - a little damp mess of pulp.”

and

“I was haunted by the presence of God there on the chair. The Host had always been to me - well, the Host, I knew theoretically, as I have said, what I had to believe, but suddenly, as someone whistled in the road outside, whistled secretively, knowingly, to me, I knew that this which I had beside my bed was something of infinite value - something a man would pay for with his whole peace of mind, something that was so hated one could love it as one loves an outcast or a bullied child.”

Greene forces his Catholic readers to confront exactly how gritty belief in transubstantiation truly is. To believe that God might allow himself to become pulp that a child can spit out into a magazine (so fittingly called the Universe when the universe itself cannot hide God any more successfully) stretches the rational adult mind to the brink, and requires nothing more or less than the radical and simple faith of a child.

The repeated train imagery also serves to unify the frame story with David’s memory. The strangers encounter each other on a train, and likewise it is a model train that serves as the main temptation leveraged against young David by Blacker. Why trains? Perhaps because trains combine passivity and activity in motion in a way that is reminiscent of the working of Providence. Passengers on a train have the free will to choose to get on or to get off of the train, yet, while on the train they are not directly responsible for its motion. In the same way, we are not responsible for the motion of Providence. God’s will will be done with or without our assent, although we can choose whether or not to unite our wills with His, thereby “getting on the train.”

Last but not least, the repeated imagery of light and darkness demands our attention. This tension is introduced in the very first paragraph, as the agnostic narrator notes that “the lights went out entirely in the frequent Pennine tunnels and were too dim anyway for us to read our books without straining our eyes.” The constantly flickering lights and numerous submersions into the more complete blackness of the underground have clear parallels to the spiritual life, where even the holiest saints often experience moments of total spiritual desolation. In the story, light brings revelation, and in a moment of light as the train passes a wayside station, the agnostic catches a glimpse of his companion’s face and is startled by a contentment and happiness completely at odds with their stark surroundings.

Blacker’s name is not subtle. He is clearly identified with darkness and shadow, and it is worth noting that, since he is a baker, blackening has the additional connotation of burning. Blacker is described as ugly and has a wall-eye. His physical lack of clear vision symbolizes his blindness to the faith, and his inability to see spiritual realities clearly. While Blacker is a self-proclaimed “free-thinker,” Greene pointedly shows how Blacker is the very opposite of free. His hate-fueled obsession and the idea of taking vengeance against God and against the Catholics have destroyed any freedom he might once have enjoyed.

Yet, Blacker is not as black and white as he seems at first, for when he sees from the back of the church that David has taken a host, David notes unhappiness in Blacker as well as triumph. Then, when David consumes the host rather than betraying it, Blacker weeps, and it seems terrible to David. David, the weapon, is broken along with Christ as the weapon turns against Satan’s breast. The adult David wonders aloud whether it might be possible that Blacker too is later redeemed, despite his hatred. Might not this hatred give way to love? Could not Blacker also become a weapon broken against Satan’s breast?

When David is revealed to be a priest, and concludes his conversation (and the story!) simply by noting that he is “a very happy man,” the reader is immediately challenged with the question, “Is that it?” “Is this hint a good enough explanation?” The hint seems at first to be as trite as Fr. David’s earlier comment that “Our view is so limited.” Is Greene really going out on the platitude that “God can bring good out of evil, so you should be happy?” Is this enough?

It isn’t. To anyone in the midst of suffering, it isn’t enough. And Greene knows this better than most. The real brilliance of this short story is that it is beautifully and poignantly self-aware of its own inability to make a convincing theological or philosophical argument to flourish away the problem of pain. Instead, Greene posits through David, we MUST turn to experiential arguments to “solve” this problem. Some truths simply do not convey unless experienced. Love is like this. Men cannot love if they have not first felt loved. Redemptive suffering is also like this. It is next to impossible to “forgive” God for allowing the innocent to suffer if you have not personally encountered moments in your life or in the life of someone you trust where the suffering of innocents has been redeemed. This is where Greene’s story is full of hope, for it promises that when that moment comes, happiness will once again be possible, even in this vale of tears.

Or as L’Engle beautifully puts it in Walking on Water:

But how can we trust an Abba who has let the world come to all the grief of the past centuries? Who has given us the terrible gift of free will with which we seem to be determined to destroy ourselves? We trust the one we call Abba as a child does, knowing that what seems unreasonable now, will be seen to have reason later. We trust as Lady Julian of Norwich trusted, knowing that despite all the pain and horror of the world, ultimately God’s loving purpose will be fulfilled and “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

Further questions to stew on:

Have you experienced similar hints or moments in your own life that have helped you to understand God’s providence?
Graham Greene hated being called a “Catholic writer”, preferring to think of himself as “a writer who happens to be a Catholic.” Likewise, L’Engle disliked being labeled a Christian children’s writer, saying “I’m a writer. That’s enough of a definition.” L’Engle would almost certainly agree with Greene that the writer who feels the pressure of any additional labels is less likely to write truly or well. But is this the actually the case? Or is this a misunderstanding of the “responsibilities” that the “label” of a denomination bestows?
In “Walking on Water,” Madeleine L’Engle asserts that the moral life of the artist has little or nothing to do with the ability of their art to convey goodness, beauty, or truth. She claims that God “chooses his artists with as calm a disregard of surface moral qualifications as he chooses his saints.” The life and work of Graham Greene seem at first to substantiate this claim. After all, he wrote great works of literature that speak goodness, beauty, and truth to many Christians, even though his moral life was a hot mess. The question becomes: Would Greene’s art have been even “better” (more accurately conveyed goodness/beauty/truth) if he had been able to see goodness/beauty/truth more clearly himself? In other words, if he had lived a more virtuous life?

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