A Stone for a Pillow

by Madeleine L'engle

  “The world has enough for every man’s need,” said Gandhi, “but not for every man’s greed.” There are many who will hunger and thirst. But they are never beyond the saving grace of God’s love, the tender shepherd who will lift the dying child into strong and gentle arms and say, “Come, little lamb, into my Kingdom.”

  —

  In that desert land wells were so important that they were given names. There was an honouring of the reality of water and stone, of tree and sand. Everything in the created order belonged to God, and what is God’s is named.

  I have named many of my favourite pausing places as I walk across the fields and through the woods. I love the Grandfather Oak which somehow survived whatever disease killed off most of the oaks in our part of New England, and who now looks benevolently down on many grandchildren oaklings. There is one ancient maple tree which is known to me as the Icon Tree, and one mountain ash which we discovered one autumn, rising above the scrub cherry and alder, bearing a bright load of berries, and which is for me the Star Singer. One of the favourite anthems we sang in choir was to the melody of the Ash Grove, and we sang the song of the stars in their courses, and hence the name Star Singer for this slender ash tree. There is Cleft Rock (and the two largest clefts were noticeably wider after the earthquake and more difficult to leap across), and the Star Watching Rock and the Precipice.

  I like houses to have names, not numbers, but I am told that when the present postmaster here in our village is retired we will no longer be able to use “Crosswicks” as our address, but will, instead, be limited to a number. A house may have a number, but a home has a name.

  It is harder to name things in the city. Our apartment building has a number, and is also called the Clebourne, but the Clebourne means little to me; it is, maybe, the old lobby with its marble walls, reminders of a grander day, but it is not the rooms in which we live. Some of the rooms have names, though. The room with the big Morse portrait of my great-grandmother with her harp, and great-great-aunt with her flute, is, logically, the Portrait Room, in which I have my desk, and the Quiet Corner where I sit at night to write in my journal, to read Scripture, to pray.

  The city is overcrowded, and Manhattan is an island whose boundaries cannot be widened. There is no way to make room for everybody except by moving up, in taller and more cramped buildings. This crowding is a precursor of violence. I used to have favourite trees and resting places in the Riverside Park, but now I no longer feel safe strolling and relaxing. I go to the park now to walk the dog, and I no longer linger; I walk the dog.

  When we first moved back to the city, the dog was Oliver, a collie who appeared in the village, and then in our lives and who, of course, had to make the move to New York with us. After Oliver came Timothy, the Irish Setter. New York has a dog pick-up law (which maybe half of us dog-walkers observe), and when I put the leash on the dog, I also put a plastic bag in my pocket. Timothy, like all Irish Setters, dropped large, redolent loads, and I picked his up with my hand in the plastic bag, so that my fingers touched nothing except the plastic, and walked along, holding his warm, cereal-scented b.m., and feeling absolutely fearless. Suppose someone came up to me? I’d simply hold out the odorous bag and say, “Yes?”

  There came a day which I knew was Timothy’s last. He was fifteen and a half years old—extremely old for an Irish setter—and I think he knew it was dying day. A friend helped me to get him to the animal hospital, driving me there through the city streets, with Timothy lying in my lap, his head against my breast like a trusting baby’s. My friend carried him in for me, and while we waited for the vet, again he lay in my lap, not in pain, simply letting the life drain out of him. When we put him on the surgical table there was no question that his time had come. The doctor said to me, “Do you want to see him afterwards?” Not understanding, I replied, “Not particularly. I’ll stay with him now.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” the doctor said. “People tend to get nervous, and that upsets the dog. I’m thinking only of what is best for the dog.”

  “Then you’ll let me stay with him and hold him,” I said. I was told later that this city veterinary doctor had had to deal with hysterical people who perhaps loved their dramatics more than their animals. Anyhow, he looked at me, looked at the dog, and let me stay. I held my old friend while the needle was inserted. I was not nervous, but there were tears slipping down my cheeks. I said to the doctor, “I do not think that anyone, animal or human, ought to die without being held.”

  Timothy was not the first animal I have held through death. Probably he won’t be the last. When we take on an animal, we have to accept that a dog’s life span is considerably shorter than ours. Now I walk with Doc—Doctor Charlotte Tyler (named after my husband’s role, Dr. Charles Tyler), a romping, loving, willful golden retriever.

  Abraham’s sons, Isaac and Ishmael, reconciled at their father’s deathbed, were with him, and I hope that they held the old man as life ebbed away, their own hands touching.

  Ishmael, Scripture tells us, “died in the presence of his brethren,” Isaac, and the children of Keturah, and likely the children of Abraham’s concubines. Perhaps Isaac held Ishmael, and Laughter eased Bitterness.

  Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah, and his son Esau

  was forty years old when he took to wife, Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, which were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah.

  A grief of mind, not because the women made quite a harem for Esau—having several wives was customary—and also compassionate, since there were many more women than men, and a husbandless woman had a hard time surviving. What upset Isaac and Rebekah was that Judith and Bashemath worshipped alien gods. They would also give Esau more children, and, therefore, strength, if Esau wanted to pay back Jacob for all his trickery.

  Esau and Jacob did not have the kind of intimacy often associated with twins. And certainly with their startling physical differences they were obviously fraternal rather than identical twins. Even when they made peace with each other, it may have seemed to Jacob an uneasy truce. It is often more difficult to accept forgiveness than to give it.

  The long-gone world of the rival twins was not as different from the world of today as it might seem. We are still struggling with alien gods; we are still trying to learn what it means to forgive and be forgiven.

  It is not just that the God of the Christian appears different from the God of the Muslim or the Buddhist, but that even within Christianity God wears so many contradictory aspects that Christianity seems appallingly inconsistent to many people. It is not surprising that Christians themselves (ourselves) have made many people not only mistrustful of Christianity, but anti-Christian.

  A brilliant young professor, whose son had recently joined a rigid, orthodox Jewish sect in Jerusalem, where all questions were given final answers, all actions dictated, said bitterly, “Religion is divisive.” I have to agree that yes, alas, it is. But we were together in saying that God is not. Religion is divisive when it becomes fanaticism—an insistence that we know all the answers, and that anybody whose answers differ from ours is damned.

  The human being’s attempt to understand the Creator can never be final, but dynamic, in motion, almost as though we were climbing that ladder of angels joining heaven and earth.

  Do we get dizzy on the ladder? Refuse to climb? Turn over and tell the vision to go away?

  One of J. B. Phillips’s books is entitled Your God Is Too Small. Our God becomes too small when we make God in our own image, instead of heeding the image of God in us. In us, not outside us, but in us, waiting to be recognized.

  Our call, no matter what our vocation, is to witness to the God within, the God who is One.

  Cardinal Suhard writes, “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”


  My faith in God, who is eternally loving and constant even as my understanding grows and changes, makes life not only worth living, but gives me the courage to dare to disturb the universe when that is what el calls me to do. Sometimes simply being open, refusing to settle for finite answers, disturbs the universe. Questions are disturbing, especially those which may threaten our traditions, our institutions, our security. But questions never threaten the living God, who is constantly calling us, and who affirms for us that love is stronger than hate, blessing stronger than cursing.

  If our planet is frequently dark, it may be Lucifer’s bitter breath blowing against the light—Lucifer, the prototypical anti-universe-disturber, wanting the glory for himself, instead of rejoicing in being the most luminous of all the light-bearers.

  It is easy to name myriad anti-universe-disturbers. We have them in our own country. What confuses us is that people can simultaneously disturb the universe both creatively and destructively. Some of the greatest advances in medicine, which not only save human life, but improve its quality, have come about because of our blasting open the heart of the atom. The laser can be used to save lives and also as a terrible instrument of destruction. Almost everything the human being has made, from plastic to penicillin, can be an instrument of both good and evil.

  We daily have to make choices between good and evil, and it is not always easy, or even possible, to tell the difference between the two. Whenever we make a choice of action, the first thing to ask ourselves is whether it is creative or destructive. Will it heal, or will it wound? Are we doing something to make ourselves look big and brave, or because it is truly needed? Do we know the answers to these questions? Not always, but we will never know unless we ask them. And we will never dare to ask them if we close ourselves off from wonder.

  When I need a dose of wonder I wait for a clear night and go look for the stars. In the city I see only a few, but only a few are needed. In the country the great river of the Milky Way streams across the sky, and I know that our planet is a small part of that river of stars, and my pain of separation is healed.

  Dis-aster makes me think of dis-grace. Often the wonder of the stars is enough to return me to God’s loving grace.

  The story of Jacob’s and Rachel’s love reads like a fairy tale. Rebekah became Isaac’s bride without trial or trouble. Not so with Jacob and Rachel. No prince in a fairy tale had more trouble in marrying his princess than did Jacob.

  It started out, in the usual way by a desert well, where Rachel came with her father’s sheep, to give them water.

  Jacob saw Rachel, and went near and rolled the stone away from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban, his mother’s brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice and wept. And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother, and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.

  Why did Jacob weep? With joy? Men wept freely before too much “civilization” taught them that tears are unmanly. But Jacob was sure enough of his own manhood that he was free to do all kinds of things which would be frowned on today. It’s a freedom we all need to regain, and surely men are as much in need of liberation as women. Their chains are perhaps less visible, but easily as crippling.

  Jacob wept.

  He was exhausted, fleeing for his life, leaving the known safety of home. And there at the well was a beautiful young woman, and he learned that she was Rachel, and he loved her, and wept.

  So Jacob told Rachel who he was, and Rachel ran and told her father, and Laban ran to meet Jacob, and kissed him, and brought him to his house. And Jacob stayed with Laban for a month.

  Then Laban said, “Surely you shall not serve me for nothing. Tell me, what shall your wages be?”

  Now Laban had two daughters, and the elder daughter was Leah, and she was tender-eyed, while Rachel, the younger, was beautiful, and well-favoured. Jacob loved Rachel, and said to Laban, “I will serve you for seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter.”

  Laban agreed, and Jacob served him for seven years, which seemed to him just a few days, for the love he had for Rachel. Then Jacob said, “Give me my wife, for I have fulfilled my seven years. Give me my wife that I may go in unto her.”

  So Laban made a great wedding feast.

  And that evening Laban took Leah to Jacob, instead of Rachel. The trickster was out-tricked in an extraordinary fashion. And here we must give the fairy tale an enormous suspension of disbelief. Even if Jacob had wined and dined extremely well at the wedding feast, it is hard to believe that he wouldn’t have noticed that he was making love with Leah, and not with his beloved Rachel. But, according to the story, he did not notice the exchange until morning, and then he cried out to Laban,

  “What is this that you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why have you tricked me?”

  Laban said,

  “In our country we must not give the younger in marriage before the firstborn.”

  So after marrying Leah, Jacob also married Rachel, and agreed to serve Laban another seven years for her.

  It was Rachel Jacob loved, not Leah, and these things happen. We do not always choose those to whom we respond with love. From the moment he saw her at the well, Jacob loved Rachel, not Leah. However, Leah was his number one wife according to the custom of the time, and he lived with her as his wife, and

  she conceived, and bore a son, and called his name Reuben, for she said, “Surely the Lord has looked upon my affliction; now, therefore, my husband will love me.”

  But it’s never that easy. Nor was it any easier for Rachel, because she did not conceive. Jacob’s love of her could not fill her empty womb. Meanwhile, Leah bore three more sons, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, and with each one she continued to hope that Jacob would come to love her. One wife had his children; one had his love.

  Barren Rachel envied Leah, her older sister, saying to Jacob,

  “Give me children, or I will die.”

  This made Jacob angry with Rachel and he said,

  “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”

  Then Rachel did what her grandmother-in-law, Sarah, had done before her; she gave her maid, Bilhah, to Jacob, saying,

  “She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.”

  Bilhah conceived, twice, and bore two sons, Dan and Naphtali.

  When Leah realized that she was through conceiving, she, in her turn, gave Zilpah, her maid, to Jacob, and Zilpah bore Gad and Asher. (How must the maids have felt, being offered to another woman’s husband, like it or not, to bear children for their mistresses? It was customary; must it not also have been humiliating?)

  We know more about Hagar, Ishmael’s mother, than we do about Bilhah and Zilpah, but they each bore two sons who were among the twelve sons of Jacob who made up the twelve tribes of Israel.

  Reuben, who must have been an adolescent by the time Gad and Asher were born, went out into the fields at the time of the wheat harvest, and found mandrakes, which he brought to his mother, Leah. The mandrake was supposed to have magic powers, and its root to resemble the human form. I think of Donne’s lines,

  Go and catch a falling star,

  Get with child a mandrake root.

  Rachel wanted her sister’s mandrakes, and asked for them, and Leah, rather understandably, refused.

  “Isn’t it enough for you that you have taken my husband from me? Would you also take away my son’s mandrakes?”

  Rachel said, “Then Jacob shall lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.”

  So when Jacob came in from the fields, Leah was the one who met him. And he lay with her that night, and she conceived, and bore a fifth son, Issachar. And she conceived again, and had a sixth son, Zebulun. After that she had a daughter, Dinah.

  And God “remembered Rachel,” Scripture says,

  and she conceived, and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my reproach,” and she called her son Joseph.

&n
bsp; After the birth of Joseph, Jacob went to Laban and said,

  “Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my own country. Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you all these years.”

  Laban did not want to let Jacob go, because under Jacob’s care, Laban’s flock had multiplied greatly. Finally he asked,

  “What shall I give you?”

  Jacob answered,

  “You shall not give me anything….But I will go through your flock today, and remove all the speckled and spotted cattle, goats, and sheep.”

  Jacob would be allowed to keep the less desirable beasts as his reward for his years of service with his father-in-law, leaving for Laban the purer animals.

  But Jacob was up to his tricks again, this time with an early example of genetic engineering, breeding the speckled and spotted animals for strength, so that they became more desirable than the others.

  Laban was not pleased, and Jacob saw his father-in-law’s displeasure in his countenance. So he quickly gathered together his wives and maids and children and set them on camels, and he stole away with all his goods and all his spotted cattle, fleeing once again because his trick had been found out.

  Laban, unaware that Jacob and Rachel were running away from him, went to shear his sheep, when he discovered that his teraphim had been stolen. Household gods, as the Romans later called them.

  When Laban discovered that Jacob and Rachel and Leah were gone, along with his images, he rushed after them.

  Jacob had pitched his tent on Mount Gilead, and there Laban overtook him.

  “What have you done,” Laban cried, “that you left without telling me, and carried away my daughters as though they were captives you had won in battle?…Why have you stolen my gods?”