Hi friends!! A happy Saturday morning once again…even though right now it is quite gloomy and grey outside. Alas. But I’ve enjoyed a nice breakfast with Earnie and Joe and Jake and now here at Starbucks, soon probably going to upload some Iowa pictures to the facebook…but for now, just thought I’d share my latest read:

18. Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle. And so now my L’Engle re-read has come to an end. This book is probably (no, definitely) my least favourite of the L’Engle books I own (Wrinkle Trilogy + Many Waters), but still a delight and still a book I will never not re-read. I didn’t discover this book until a little later in life (probably when I was a teenager?) and I remember being so happy to find another book with the Murry family! But…it doesn’t have Meg or Charles Wallace in it…wait, the main characters are Sandy and Dennys?! About time right? They’ve been the side characters, the “normal” ones in all the other books and now they finally get a chance to shine. And it actually is such a joy to be in their heads in this book and get to know the twins a bit better. And so where are they? Well…they start out the book in the depths of a bitter winter and their desire to be somewhere “warm and sparsely populated (with low humidity!)” combined with the quantum experiments of their Dad (note – never enter random locations that are marked EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS – KEEP OUT) see them ending up in far-past Earth…Biblical history…with Noah and his family! Although of course they don’t quite realize it’s Noah immediately (I think the average reader will pick up on it much quicker than Sandy and Dennys do, even though maybe I’m over-estimating the average reader’s Biblical knowledge…), eventually Sandy and Dennys realize where they are – in the midst of the “Noah and the flood” story that to us may seem is just a story, but is actual…history. As always, L’Engle’s characters wonderfully shine, from the friendly and competent Japheth to the innocent and lovely Yalith…and I won’t describe the rest of the characters, but each of them is beautifully drawn. You get the sense (as L’Engle intends) that these “Bible names” are actual people, with worries, cares and fears…but that they also (well at least most of them) fear God, or “El” as He is called in this book. Of course Noah’s family are the only people that actually do fear God, hence the coming flood. And I am rambling on and on. And I’ve left out all the other wonderful L’Engle fantastical elements…the unicorns, mammoths, manticores, seraphim, nephilim…stars singing o’er head and young creation travailing even then. Something I was struck by this time as I read…how much of the book is the characters (Sandy, Dennys, Noah, Matred, Yalith, Oholibama, Japheth…) worrying about the future, wondering about the coming flood, confused and not being quite sure of what God is telling them, and fearing the unknown. And the answer given to the characters is always…fear not, be at peace, rest, be calm…the stars sing the glories and sovereignty of God. And how does this speak to us? Even as we don’t always know what is to come, even as we fear what we think we see coming (and we may be right!), we still must rest in the arms of our God, secure and at peace in Him. The sovereignty of God in love and judgment. Who would have thought that would come out of this book? He shall always do what is right. So yes, I can quite heartily recommend this book. Lots of weirdness abounds. The love of God o’er shadows all.

Now, I’m off. Peace, my friends. Peace and love.