My Letter to Madeline

Dear Madeline L'Engle,
Seven pages into Circle of Quiet, I found a resounding need to write a letter back to you. Several days later, I found out that you had died about 6 years beforehand. But I still need to write you this. In your Journal was revelation after revelation for me personally. Most of the time, you affirmed what I already knew, but made me less alone for believing or knowing it. I'm disappointed that I didn't read you earlier, but also grateful that I read you when I did. I read you at the end of my first semester of senior year in which I also took classes on CS Lewis and Creative Nonfiction. In the middle of this period of transition, Lewis and Tolkien had been chatting about truth in myth and writing essays about myself and hearing other people's stories were beginning to give me insight things. And then you came along, had a good long chat with me, and connected the two ideas.

About 30 pages into Circle of Quiet, I began to connect the Madeline I was reading with the Madeline that wrote all of those wonderful books from my childhood. They were adventure and soul-inducing, and they made me realize that you could be smart or creative or different or even Christian and it would still be all right. You (and my parents) gave me permission to be myself and to seek intelligence, because knowing about Tesseracts and theories of time travel is just alright. You are the only author I have the need to thank. So thank you. Thank you for my childhood and for my burgeoning adulthood. Also, I wish you were alive because I believe that you would be rather nice person to have a talk with. However, I also believe that someday I will have the chance. Thank you very much,

Melora