2016.05.10 They Came In Bunches

They came in bunches, like bananas, grapes or coconuts, though much more juicy and entertaining.

They walked two by two in two crooked lines, unlike Ludwig Bemelmans’ little girls who walked in two straight lines in one of my favorite childhood  books, Madeline. Most of us, if we are honest, love books that are like us, and I fancied myself as having the soul of the wee Madeline.

I loved the little girls having adventures in a big city, following their teacher, Miss Clavel. My city was New York and Madeline’s was Paris. But Paris could have been mine for all that my mother extolled France where she’d spent time as a child. She'd adored her governess, Mam’selle—who became my Miss Clavel. Besides being the smallest in my class, just like Madeline, I loved little girls in lines and uniforms like my private school made me wear. Girls in lines in uniform rhymed, like the poetry of Bemelmans' book.

Madeline and I loved the straights lines, and we both had a penchant for stepping out of line. I didn’t dare step too far out of line yet, but I knew that Madeline's spirit was brewing inside me.

To the tiger in the zoo Madeline just said, “Pooh, pooh”


The lines I saw from my window are children from a nearby private school. They have dark skin, and are uniformed in electric yellow T-shirts—shining brighter and closer than the sun itself. I watched a series of processions, worthy of any cathedral aisle, go by in ten-minute intervals. I think I am witnessing the most beautiful sight on this patch of earth right now.

It’s June. The school in our city neighborhood belched out these delicious lines of children all day long. I stopped watching and then was drawn back to the window to wait for the next one.

The little ones came first, by 9 in the morning. They were Madeline-sized and supposed to march. The teachers, one at each end of the line, command them to form straight lines. They just couldn't do it. They were also supposed to hush, to modulate their peeping and chirping voices. But it was June and a sunny day—a day to sing the Gloria about.

Their school is the Benjamin Baneker, School Baneker was the first African American astronomer. Everytime I see these children I can tell they are hopping proud of their school—but not enough to stay all summer, and summer is coming very very soon.  How can they keep from singing?

These bunches were headed for the nearby playground and park where there are swings and slides, climbers and monkey bars— and sprinklers (forbidden, I’m sure, though I bet some will return to school having to change into the extra set of clothes each parent had been instructed to bring at the beginning of the year—for emergencies.) Acres of lush green lawn await them, their souls being led by the Lord their Shepherd.

These kids know this. Their lines easily fell askew as the boys danced jigs along the way. Girls, all except "Madeline"who would be running ahead, grabbed their hands and tugged them back into line. They were crossing a street where evil cars could come and squish them. Nothing could squish their joyful gleeful spirits this day.

Nothing could squish mine either. I believe I had glimpsed God —in bunches.

2012.03.08 International Women's Day & Madeleine L'Engle

I honor the late Madeleine L’Engle, author and theologian, on this International Women’s Day. She was international in travel and cosmic in her ideas.

Madeleine L’Engle, when I was trying to get ordained priest in the Episcopal Church USA back in the late ‘70s, gave me a commandment I’ve never forgotten and still keep. She stood tall in height and put all her soul stature into this word: “Now, my dear, when you get ordained, and you will, do not become a little man.” Amen, I thought.

I’ve written about keeping Madeleine’s commandment before, but this year her classic “A Wrinkle in Time” turns 50 and I’d like to pay tribute to one of my mentors. I need a hero.

It took me a record time to get ordained at a time when the church had just voted women were “fit” to be priests. After I finally made it in 1988, Madeleine’s words rang in my ears. At one time in my 20s I thought I might like to be like a man just for power-in-the-world. But that passed quickly and gratefully for the sake of bearing wonderful children who filled my heart then—and now.

I’d read L’Engle’s book “A Wrinkle in Time” more than once myself, and later to my children. It took almost as long to get published as it took me to be ordained. Madeleine submitted it to 24 publishing houses before Farrar, Straus and Giroux took a chance on it that paid off. “Wrinkle” has over 10 million copies in print and won the Newbery in 1963.

All those rejections and she already had six books to her authorial name! I have two, the first of which Madeleine, with a provocative prompt, helped me jumpstart at a writer’s workshop. I have more rejections than I can count. Madeleine never lost faith in herself, her story or her voice. I hope I don’t either.

Our connections known and unknown continue to delight me in wonder.

Like me Madeleine was graduated from Smith College, she in 1941, I in 1960, she cum laude, I phi beta kappa. We both wrote out our ideas and feelings in journals from a young age and both loved the Bible. Madeleine wrote a great blurb for my book Spiritual Lemons.

An advanced theological thinker, Madeleine was adamant that there really was no such thing as a book for children, that children had deep thoughts and questions and spiritual longing the same as adults. I can attest to that as one of those children who badgered God, and her parents, with about every mysterious question possible—and never stopped.

We both were born and grew up in New York City. We both had religious imaginations early on and our earliest views were shaped by sky scrapers beyond whose majesty we sought the heavens. She was an Episcopalian and I became one. For me that was about finding a church that had sacramental worship and more hope for being inclusive.

When Madeleine was my spiritual director she talked a lot about the silliness of religious divisions, the pretension of clerics, and the necessity of a deity fit for the cosmos. No corseted divinity, she’d say. And of course there is universal salvation. Of course, I’d agree without hesitation.

And, although Madeleine might not have called herself a feminist, I did. One of “Wrinkle’s” worst offenses, according to some critics was that the book had religious (Christian) themes (far too sophisticated for children) AND a female protagonist who isn’t sweet or pretty and loves science and curious quests. “Wrinkle” is full of insights from quantum physics, intergalactic space, and fractals—mysteries of science and of theological cosmology.

I wasn’t that good at science but I was good at being a girl, and the protagonist of my yet unpublished memoir is a woman. It’s a quest story full of mystery—grace and earthiness all together.

Meg Murry in “Wrinkle” is insecure, plain, bossy, stubborn, and compassionate. I’m four out of those five. Meg sets off on a quest into space, time traveling through the universe, to save her father who is captive on a strange planet. I once thought I could save my father from a planet called alcoholism.

Madeleine L’Engle shared many ideas with me and gave me a portion of her spirit. I am nowhere near her in talent, faith or fame. I don’t aspire to that. I’d just like one more book.

Madeleine died in 2007 and just yesterday I heard her voice on NPR reading from a section of “Wrinkle.” It gave me a boost.

Thank you Madeleine L’Engle.