Called by Name

I have been reading the non-fiction book A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle and it is so full of amazing, thought-provoking stuff that I had to share it with all of you! (Some of you know Madeleine as the writer of excellent youth fiction, such as A Wrinkle in Time.) By the way, if you stop in a Barnes and Noble and read the first 2 pages, you will discover where the title “a circle of quiet” came from and, I expect, be looking for one of your own.

So, here is a brief excerpt from A Circle of Quiet (By the way, this was written in the early 1970's.):

Those who teach, who suggest books to either children or adults, are responsible for their choices. Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surround us or we light a candle to see by.

We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world…Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don’t look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it.

One of the greatest weapons of all is laughter, a gift for fun, a sense of play which is sadly missing from the grownup world…If every hair of my head is counted, then in the very scheme of the cosmos I matter; I am created by a power who cares about the sparrow, and the rabbit in the snare, and the people on the crowded streets; who calls the stars by name. And you. And me.