Thanks to reader Babs for sending me the following excerpt from one of Madeleine L’Engle’s books, “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art.” Madeleine was one of my very favorite authors, and I was saddened by her recent death. It made me regret that afternoon at the Religious Booksellers Trade Exhibit when I skipped out on her keynote in order to have lunch with friends. Ironically, though, I think she would have agreed that I had my priorities straight that day:

It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not had to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there’s no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with the deafness. Could Milton have seen all that he sees in “Paradise Lost” if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.
My mother’s long life had more than its fair share of pain and tragedy. One time, after something difficult had happened, one of her childhood friends came to give comfort and help. Instead of which, she burst into tears and sobbed out, “I envy you! I envy you! You’ve had a terrible life but you’ve lived.”
I look back at my mother’s life and I see suffering deepening and strengthening it. In some people, I have also seen it destroy. Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Neverthelesss, without it we do not grow.