Madeleine L’Engle’s poetry continues to inspire, challenge and encourage my walk with Christ. Her collection, ‘The Ordering of Love’ will nurture the 3 day Bishop’s retreat, ‘Walking in Holiness’ I am leading next week. It was fun to discover that Rebecca, who helped me with the retreat materials, is also an aficionado of Madeleine L’Engle. The ‘First Coming’ on page 242 of this collection was read at a devotional led by my then chaplain, Laurie McIntyre. This introduced me to her gift to us. The poem’s final stanza,

‘We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!’

Her collection can be said to encompass all of life’s great treasures as it includes two poems, about donkeys! Me biased? Well, why not?  🙂

I also enjoy Les Murray who ranks among Australia’s great poets. Like Madeleine L’Engle his Christian faith shines through and is well highlighted in a recent article from Michael Jensen, ‘Les Murray, to the glory of God’,

‘Murray dedicates his poetry these days ‘To the Glory of God’. Like Gerard Manley Hopkins, what he means by this is most evident in his descriptions of nature, where he is able to find the glorious essence of the creator shining out of every creature.’