Art and the Probable-Impossible: Thoughts on miracles and Madeleine l'Engle

"That which is probable and impossible is better than that which is possible and improbable."-Aristotle in Poetics

Madeleine l'Engle is a hero of mine. In fact, I count her on a very short list of authors, alongside Wendell Berry, who have influenced my perspective on God and the world more than any others. So, when l'Engle wrote that she had been pondering this Aristotle quote from the time she was in college until near the end of her life I set it aside as something worthy of my own time and interest. Today, as I prepare to lead a discussion on miracles with our 9th-grade confirmation students, I find myself returning again to what this means for me and for all of us trying to understand this world.

I recognize firstly that both Aristotle and l'Engle were writing on art, but if you've read much of l'Engle you also should know that she believes art is not a discipline of escapism but a primary means of truth-telling. She is a scientist, an artist, and a poet, but you don't get a sense in her work that the three are separate; they are, in fact, equal, integrated and integral to the whole picture she is painting. So, when l'Engle talks about her favorability towards the probable-impossible it is in the sense of making good art but also telling something that is fantastic and true in the world, something that can't be told with such ruthless efficiency as we might like. The probable-impossible is for her (and for me) a world where miracle and God are the ultimate reality, while the possible-improbable is this world that we see which so often cheapens everything down its most banal and self-gratifying nature.



I bring this up today because art is only rarely understood as deeply as l'Engle would have it, and when it is portrayed cheaply it detracts from everything for which Christians stand. For example, when people are made aware that I love the Harry Potter series they often mistakenly assume that I would dress up as a wizard and that I must enjoy the idea of spells and fantastic beasts. In truth, I care little for all those things and I positively scoff at grown adults casting mock spells at one another in misplaced devotion for the books. I love the Harry Potter series as a piece of Christian art--one that tells us something true about the world and points to a God and a reality greater than our own. The accidentals of the story--magic and muggles and wands and wizards--are not what draws me in, and neither are the characters, except as I see in them reflections of myself. That is what great Christian art can do.

But I have digressed from the real reason I picked up l'Engle's Walking on Water again today, which is the question of miracles. One of the most haunting and beautiful illustrations she offers in the book is the story that gives the book its title. As she sits along the banks of Dog Pond near her home, she recalls the story of Peter walking on water to meet Jesus, and she writes, "As long as [Peter] didn't remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it."

Two paragraphs later she continues:

"In one of his dialogues, Plato talks of all learning as remembering. The chief job of the teacher is to help us to remember all that we have forgotten. This fits in well with Jung's concept of racial memory, his belief that when we are enabled to dip into the intuitive, subconscious self, we remember more than we know. One of the great sorrows, which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God's children are meant to be. Perhaps one day I will remember how to walk across Dog Pond."

It is passages like these that lead me to wonder if we aren't thinking about miracles in all the wrong ways. Maybe what is impossible is indeed probable, but we just don't remember it. Everything in this life--every hint of faith that we have--comes to us so far removed from this reality and, yet, it seems that much the same thing comes to millions and billions of others in much the same way. Perhaps we are starting to remember what we once knew, even if it is buried somewhere deep within us.

One of l'Engle's recurring points is that art allows the artist to approach those innate truths without presupposition. It is, to her mind, an outlook shared by scientists and artists alike. The question of "good" art or "bad" art is finally a measure of truth-telling. Does it speak to the truth or not?

So, does it? Is an empty tomb a truthful depiction of this world or a hopeless fantasy? Because it is from there that miracles emanate. Every theological question, and every fairy tale that seeks to provide a glimpse of an answer, are spawned by that stone, rolled away.