Made for Another World

Madeleine L’Engle

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:41:29 -0400

Madeleine L’Engle, Writer of Children’s Classics, Is Dead at 88 - New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/boo...

Madeleine LEngle, who in writing more than 60 books, including childhood fables, religious meditations and science fiction, weaved emotional tapestries transcending genre and generation, died Thursday in Connecticut. She was 88.

This hit me like a death in my own family, and I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about it. Then I read the ending quote in this article and realized that she had explained part of why I cared for her and her books so deeply. Thank you Madeleine.

“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.” - Madeleine L'Engle

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made known through our stories

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:03:11 -0400

I've been going through some of my quote notebooks, and this one jumped out at me and demanded to be shared here. Storytelling is a big theme in the quotes I've collected over the years.

"My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours. Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I, of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories, in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally."
-- Frederick Buechner

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When Winter Comes

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:41:01 -0400

The Queen in Winter

I always have a few collections of short stories and/or novellas around for those times when I just want to dip into a world quickly. This morning I read Sharon Shinn's novella "When Winter Comes" from the collection The Queen in Winter, and this was a passage that grabbed me, so I wanted to share it here.

People always say they're willing to die for the ones they love, as if nothing else they could do would be so hard. But it is harder to keep living for someone else, doing everything in your power to keep that person safe and breathing. I know. All these past weeks I have been living for my sister and her son, battling everyone else in the world, or so it seems, to keep Annie and Kinnon alive. I have defied my father, broken my mother's heart, traveled in secret, gone without sleep, gone without food, and hidden from violent strangers trying to kill all of us because of the magic in Kinnon's veins.

Most days it would be easier to be dead.

"When Winter Comes" seems to be set in the same world as the Shinn series that begins with Mystic and Rider, and I enjoyed this novella enough that I'll probably pick that up as well. Those sneaky writers keep pulling me in! ;) I read the Samaria trilogy by Shinn years ago and loved them, but for some reason, I haven't kept up with her more recent work.

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QotD: My Autobiography

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 18:48:41 -0500

What would the title of your autobiography be?
Submitted by princesskasren.

I think I could see calling it the same name as this blog: Made for Another World. It's from a sentence in Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

In that context, it refers to the longing for God and Heaven, and as a Christian, I can relate to that feeling. Second to that, the phrase captures that feeling that you must have been adopted or that you must have been born on another planet because no one quite gets you. Basically, "made for another world" is my shorthand of saying that I'm a freak in a lot of ways, and I kind of like it. :)

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When I was your age, television was called books.

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:38:02 -0400

What movie can you quote by heart?
Submitted by clamhead.

The Princess Bride (Special Edition)

The one that immediately comes to mind is The Princess Bride. I think a lot of people can quote that one. It's one of my favorite movies ever.

When I kiss Matt good-bye in the morning as he goes to work, I always say, "Have fun storming the castle!"

The wedding scrapbook I put together has "Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” written next to a photo of our kiss at the end of the ceremony.

Quotes from the movie just spill out of me, and I never get tired of watching it. It has just the right mix of romance, comedy, and fantasy. It's got something for everybody.

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source for blog title

nobody@vox.com(Brandy) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 14:51:28 -0500

I've collected quotes in journals since I was a little girl, and I tend to share them whenever the mood strikes.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

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