A Stone for a Pillow

by Madeleine L'engle

  Copyright © 1986 Crosswicks, Ltd.

  Reader’s Guide copyright © 2017 by Penguin Random House

  Foreword copyright © 2017 by Rachel Held Evans

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Convergent Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  convergentbooks.com

  CONVERGENT BOOKS is a registered trademark and its C colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Originally published in different form by Harold Shaw Publishers, in 1986.

  The poems “Disciple” on this page and “With Jacob” on this page both appeared in Polishing the Petoskey Stone, copyright © Shaw Books, 1990, Wheaton. Used with permission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780451497086

  Ebook ISBN 9780451497093

  Cover design by Jessie Sayward Bright

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword by Rachel Held Evans

  1. Separation from the Stars

  2. The Butterfly Effect

  3. Let the Floods Clap Their Hands

  4. What Are You Looking For?

  5. Rooted in Cosmos

  6. Angel Unaware

  7. Bless the Bastard

  8. A Sense of Wonder

  9. Breaking the Taboo

  10. Let the Baboons Clap Their Hands

  11. Redeeming the Symbols

  12. Echthroi and Angels

  Reader’s Guide by Lindsay Lackey

  The best authors can be counted on like good friends.

  There are those to whom you return when you need a clever quote for sealing up an argument or concluding a toast, those to whom you return in search of words as familiar and comforting as a hot cup of coffee in your favorite mug, those to whom you return for inspiration, or analysis, or a freshly relevant word.

  And then there are those authors to whom you return when everything is on the line—faith, hope, a reason to look squarely at the world for what it is and yet trudge on.

  For me, and for millions, Madeleine L’Engle is that author, the one for those moments when only the truest words will do.

  Like so many, I first encountered L’Engle’s work as a child when I read A Wrinkle in Time, and as another young reader so aptly put it, “didn’t understand it, but knew what it was about.” Later, when that simple faith evolved into one riddled with questions and doubts, I found a kindred spirit in L’Engle’s memoirs, essays, and poems, which meander so seamlessly through philosophy, science, literature, and Scripture, and like her fiction, never patronize, never paper over the darkness with trite platitudes or five-point solutions, but instead challenge the reader to “rejoice in paradox” and “embrace the not-knowing.” When my own dreams of becoming a published author were realized, I imbibed every word of Walking on Water, L’Engle’s classic on creativity, and have returned to its worn pages at least a dozen times in the course of my career, if only to be reminded to “be obedient to the command of the work, knowing that this involves long hours of research, of throwing out a month’s work, of going back to the beginning, or, sometimes, scrapping the whole thing.” (“Be Obedient to the Work” is scrawled in green marker on a notecard taped above my writing desk, right next to it a sticky note reminding me “the next sentence is not in the refrigerator.”)

  L’Engle, it seems, has a word for every season, be it one of faith, doubt, childhood, parenthood, planting onions, burying pets, writer’s block, jury duty, death, birth, or rebirth.

  And so it is with the Genesis Trilogy.

  One might wonder what a twenty-year-old series on a thousands-year-old sacred text has to say about a modern world divided by conflict and connected by technology, and the short answer is, everything. In times of tumult and uncertainty, we return to the stories that have shaped our identity, that tell us who we are. As L’Engle insists throughout the series, the story of Creation, the story of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Joseph, is her story, too—our story. For in these ordinary, embattled characters, complete with ordinary faults and fears, we encounter a God who is stubbornly present—“marvelously, terribly there”—and who invites us all into the ongoing work of creation, even in the midst of our own failures and doubts.

  “Every single one of us, without exception, is called to co-create with God,” she writes in And It Was Good. “No one is too unimportant to have a share in the making or unmaking of the final showing-forth.”

  L’Engle demonstrates this showing-forth by inviting us into her own life—aboard a wind-assailed ocean freighter, into a jury deliberation room, amid the bleary aftermath of her husband’s death—and by expertly, as only she can, connecting these events to everything from quantum mechanics, to atonement theology, to gender theory, to Shakespeare, to ancient stories about pharaohs and angels and strange dreams.

  For me, a reread of the Genesis Trilogy could not have come at a better time, for my favorite author had once again caught me in a new, critical season of life: the year I became a mother.

  I gave birth in a year so otherwise terrible, so ravaged by political and social upheaval and upended by blatant disregard for the truth, the planet, and the vulnerable among us, that I found myself very near despair, the words from the Advent poem pulsing with new intensity:

  This is no time for a child to be born…

  No time at all.

  And yet, once again, St. Madeleine (as my friends and I like to call her) grabbed me by the shoulders and shook the cynicism right out of me, not by turning me away from reality, but by helping me face it—every galaxy and quark, every senseless war and blighted tree, every Bible story that doesn’t quite resolve, every robin’s dance and stormy sea. What a relief it was to learn that this woman I admired so deeply struggled, too, with anxiety about the state of the world, and amid the dirty diapers and sleep deprivation of early motherhood, wondered herself what the future held for her children, yet in spite of it all resolved:

  Love still takes the risk of birth.

  “Caught up as most of us are in the complexities of daily living,” she writes, “we forget that we are surrounded by the creative power of Love. Every once in a while we need to step aside from the troubles and pleasures of our lives, and take a fresh look, a time to feel, and listen to our Source.”

  I came to the Genesis Trilogy as I came to A Wrinkle in Time—like a child. Frightened. Fledgling. Longing for a good story. L’Engle’s words lovingly, patiently took me back to the Source. I didn’t have to understand every page to know exactly what this Story was about.

  In A Stone for a Pillow, L’Engle tells of a young admirer and fellow writer, who, upon learning a medical condition would prevent her from ever giving birth, called the author from the hospital and tearfully asked, “ ‘Madeleine—all the things you’ve written, do you believe them?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You really do?’

  ‘If I didn’t believe them, I couldn’t survive.’ ”

  The young writer, who might as well be any of us who long from time to time to call up St. Madeleine and ask the very same thing, pressed once more: “ ‘I just need to be sure you believe what you say in your books.’

  ‘I do.’ God help me, I do. Even when I don’t, I do.”

  The best authors are those who remind you of what you already know, what you already deeply believe. In this regard, reading Madeleine L’Engle is a bit like going to church, for she reminds me of the truths I declare every Sunday morning in the little Episcopal congr
egation to which I belong.

  I believe there is a good and almighty God who is the creative force behind all things seen and unseen; that this God is One, yet exists as three persons; that God loved the world enough to become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived, taught, fed, healed, and suffered among us as both fully God and fully man. I believe that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born to a virgin; that Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross and buried in the ground; that after three days dead, Jesus came back to life; that he ascended into heaven and reigns with God and will return to bring justice and restoration to our world. I believe that God continues to move in the world through the Holy Spirit, the church, and God’s people. I believe that forgiveness is possible; that resurrection is possible; that eternal life is possible.

  I believe all of these things, at least most of the time.

  And, thanks St. Madeleine, even when I don’t, I do.

  —Rachel Held Evans

  In the late afternoon, when the long December night had already darkened the skies, we opened Christmas cards, taking turns, reading the messages, enjoying this once-a-year being in touch with far-flung friends. There, incongruously lying among the Christmas greetings, was an official-looking envelope addressed to me, with Clerk of Court, New York County, in the upper left-hand corner. A call to jury duty. Manhattan does not give its prospective jurors much notice. My call was for the first week in January. To the notice inside had been added the words, Must Serve.

  It wasn’t the first time that my call had read Must Serve. A few months earlier I had written from Minnesota to the Clerk of Court, New York County, explaining that I was not trying to avoid jury duty, that I had previously served on a panel under a fine woman judge, and that I was ready and willing to serve again. But I pointed out, as I had already done several times before, that I do a good bit of lecturing which takes me far from New York, and I gave the Clerk of Court several dates when I would be available, sighing internally because bureaucracy never called me on the weeks that I offered.

  This time they did.

  So I relaxed and enjoyed Christmas in the country, at Crosswicks, bitter cold outside, warmth of firelight and candlelight within, and laughter and conversation and the delectable smells of roasting and baking. One of the highlights came on Christmas Day itself, with the mercury falling far below zero, when my husband went out into the winter garden and picked Brussels sprouts, commenting as he brought them in triumphantly, “Mr. Birdseye never froze them like this,” and we had Brussels sprouts out of our own garden with Christmas dinner.

  And then, before Twelfth-night, I was back in New York again, taking the subway downtown to the criminal court to which I had been assigned. I took plenty of work with me, because I had been told that lawyers do not like writers. But just as had happened on my previous jury duty, I got chosen as a juror on the second day. The case was an ugly one, involving assault in the second degree, which means possession of a dangerous weapon, with intent to cause injury or death.

  Two men were sitting in the courtroom as defendants. They looked at the twelve of us who had been told to stay in our seats in the jury box—looked at us with cold eyes, with arrogance, even with contempt. Later, as we jurors got to know each other, we admitted that we were afraid of them. And yet, according to our judicial system, we had been put in the position of having to decide whether or not, according to the law, these men were guilty as charged.

  I was fortunate to serve again under a highly intelligent woman judge, who warned us that we must set aside our emotions. What we felt about the defendants should not enter into our deliberations. We should not form any preconceived opinions. “And remember,” she told us, “these two men and their lawyers do not have to prove to you that they are innocent. They do not have to appear on the witness stand. The burden of proof is on the assistant district attorney. The American way is that these two men are innocent, unless it can be proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that they are guilty. This is the American way.” She also pointed out that this assumption of innocence unless guilt can be proven is not the way of the rest of the world, of countries behind the Iron Curtain or in much of South America, where the assumption is that you are guilty unless, somehow or other, by persuasion or bribe, you can prove your innocence.

  When I was called for jury duty, I knew that I would be taking two long subway rides each day, and riding the subway in Manhattan is nothing one does for pleasure. So I picked up a small book from one of my piles of Books to Be Read Immediately. Why did I pick this book at this particular time? I don’t know. But I have found that often I will happen on a book just at the time when I most need to hear what it has to say.

  This book couldn’t have been more apt. It was Revelation and Truth, by Nicholas Berdyaev. I didn’t do much reading the first day because I was sent from court to court, but once I was on a jury and had long periods of time in the jury room, I opened the book, surrounded by my fellow jurors who were reading, chatting, doing needlework or crossword puzzles. There couldn’t have been a better place than a criminal court in which to read Berdyaev’s words telling me that one of the gravest problems in the Western world today is that we have taken a forensic view of God.

  Forensic: to do with crime. I first came across the word in an English murder mystery. Forensic medicine is medicine having to do with crime. The coroner needs to find out if the victim has been shot, stabbed, or poisoned. Was the crime accidental, self-inflicted, murder? Criminal medicine.

  And there I was, in a criminal court, being warned by a Russian theologian that God is not like a judge sentencing a criminal. Yet far too often we view God as an angry judge who assumes that we are guilty unless we can placate divine ire and establish our innocence. This concept seemed especially ironic after the judge’s warning that this is not the American way of justice.

  How did the Western world fall into such a gloomy and unscriptural misapprehension? Only a few weeks earlier I had participated in a teenage TV show on the topic of religion. When the master of ceremonies asked the group of twenty or so bright high school students on the panel what they thought God looks like, I was horrified to hear them describe a furious old Zeus-figure with a lightning bolt in his hand. A forensic god.

  Would this angry god, out to zotz us, have cared enough about us to come to us as Jesus of Nazareth, as a human, vulnerable baby? Or was it anger and not love at all that was behind the Incarnation, as a forensic view would imply? Did Jesus have to come and get crucified, because only if he died in agony could this bad-tempered father forgive his other children?

  We got into a good discussion, then. The teenagers did not really like their cartoon god. They were ready and willing to hear another point of view. We talked about astrophysics and particle physics and the interdependence of all of Creation. But I suspect there may have been in their minds a lingering shadow of God as a cold and unforgiving judge—not a judge who believes in the American way, but one who assumes our guilt.

  But no, Berdyaev states emphatically, no, that is not God, not the God of Scripture who over and over again shows love for us imperfect creatures, who does not demand that we be good or virtuous before we can be loved. When we stray from God, it is not God’s pleasure to punish us. It is God’s pleasure to welcome us back, and then throw a party in celebration of our homecoming.

  In Hosea, God says,

  “All my compassion is aroused.

  I will not carry out my fierce anger,

  I will not destroy Ephraim again,

  for I am God, not man:

  I am the Holy One in your midst,

  and have no wish to destroy.”

  The nature of God does not fluctuate. The One who made us is still the Creator, the Rejoicer, the Celebrator, who looks at what has been made, and calls it good.

  —

  After the guard summoned us from the jury room to the court room, I sat in the jury box and looked at those two men who were there because they were destroyer
s rather than creators. They had used sharp knives, destructively; their intention had been to injure, or kill. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to be at the same celebration with them. They both had long hair, one head dark and greasy, the other brown and lank. They looked as though they had strayed out of the sixties, hippies who had grown chronologically, but not in any other way. It was difficult to abide by the judge’s warning and not form any opinion of them until all the evidence was in.

  That evening I was tired, mentally as well as physically. I bathed, then sat in my quiet corner to read Evening Prayer. For the Old Testament lesson I was reading the extraordinary story of Jacob’s ladder of angels ascending and descending, linking earth and heaven, the Creation and the Creator, in glorious interdependence. The story of Jacob is not a story that can be interpreted forensically. It is not a tale of crime and corresponding punishment. Jacob is anything but a moral or virtuous character. He is a liar and a cheat. Heavenly visions do not transform his conniving nature. The story of Jacob is unfair. He didn’t get his just desserts. But do not turn to Scripture if you are looking for fairness!

  When Jacob saw the ladder of angels he was fleeing Esau’s legitimate outrage. He was afraid of his brother, and of God; that is, his father’s and his grandfather’s God. He had not yet made the decision to accept their God as his own.

  But God stood above the ladder of angels, and said:

  “I am the Lord God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac: the land that you are lying on, to you I will give it, and to your seed. And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth….And behold, I am with you, and will keep you in all the places where you go, and will bring you again to this land, for I will not leave you, until I have done that which I have said.”

  And Jacob woke out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.” And he was afraid, and said, “How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”