Books Read You

Charles Wallace's problem is to learn to adapt while remaining wholly himself.
- A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L'Engle

Charles Wallace's problem is my problem as well (and quite possibly all our problems). The issue in this book (A Wind in the Door, the second book after A Wrinkle in Time) is that young Charles Wallace (6 years old) gets picked on by many children, and he comes home from school with a black eye sometimes. He would be in his first grade class and when asked something about himself one day, he would begin to talk about microbes and mitochondria, and how tiny the particles are, and what microscopes can see, and what mitochondria need to thrive. He was a "special" child, with genius scientist parents. His bedtime reading was scientific books. He was doomed to always being misunderstood and picked on. The teacher and principal tried to coax him to fit in and not display his true self. 

It is not an easy task when the world wants you to be something else that fits easily in a group. It keeps things pretty simple when everyone is the same. Somewhere along the way, sometime in elementary school, I realized that I was not made to be like other people, or to follow them just because. I was always glad to be different and go my own way. I knew that having red hair (strawberry brown, so I'm told) automatically made me stick out a bit. Then, add the fact that I loved to read and learn, while most young girls were more interested in cute boys and lip gloss, and I stuck out even more. Of course I was interested in cute boys and lip gloss, but have always been more interested in reading. I don't remember the reason why a girl in my 5th grade class decided to break all my coloured pencils in half and spread them out on my desk one day, but I remember approaching my desk with my newest library book in my hand completely clueless as to why someone would do that. I was just being myself, and didn't understand why someone would dislike that so much.

Sometimes it is easier to give in to the world, but we are meant to be our truest selves. It is amazing how we can forget who we are too easily. The book is filled with themes of embracing who you are and naming your true self. When the characters would name who they truly are, the danger would flee. Satan slips in those subtle words or memories from the past to bring back certain feelings, and before we know it, we are not ourselves. Oh how the subtle workings of Satan are much more dangerous than a blatant attack because we do not easily realize it slipping into our subconscious We need to recognize it to snuff it out.

"I don't know. We don't have to know everything at once. We just do one thing at a time, as it is given us to do." (pg 113)

When are we our truest selves? In the book, Meg had to learn to love Mr. Jenkins with an agape (giving and selfless) love, even though she didn't actually like him. When we can love others, and continue to give, we are our truest selves. We become more and more ourselves. 

How can we know our truest selves? If we learn to know, really know deep down into the fiber of every cell, that God first loves us (before we existed, before we do anything, before we deserve it) we will become our truest selves by way of letting God's love live through us. Meg learns how many of us can be led astray to believe in nothing but themselves: a selfish darkness which ends in destruction. It takes a long time to truly know this, and let it sink in.

Oh! How we can learn so much about ourselves as we read good stories and books.
The books we read, read us.

"But you said your last assignment was to memorize the names of all of them."
"I did. All the stars in all the galaxies. And that's a great many."
"But how many?"
"What different does it make? I know their names. I don't know how many there are. It's their names that matter." (pg 206)