The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth

by Madeleine L'Engle

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes… –Madeleine L’Engle, from The Rock That Is Higher

Story captures our hearts and feeds our imaginations. It reminds us who we are and where we came from. Story gives meaning and direction to our lives as we learn to see it as an affirmation of God’s love and truth–an acknowledgment of our longing for a rock in the midst of life’s wilderness.

Drawing upon her own experiences, well-known tales in literature, and selected narratives from Scripture, Madeleine L’Engle gently leads the way into the glorious world of story in The Rock That Is Higher. Here she acknowledges universal human longings and considers how literature, Scripture, personal stories, and life experiences all point us toward our true home.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing, Spirituality, Faith, Religion, Christian, Christianity

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels: A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time. Her works reflect both her Christian faith and her strong interest in modern science.

Reviews

[Justin Wiggins]

I recently re-read Madeleine L'Engle's most well known book A Wrinkle In Time, and this afternoon finished The Rock That Is Higher Story As Truth, which I had been eagerly wanting to read.

L'Engle writes poignantly about how she survived a horrific car accident, her struggles and joys of being a writer, mother, grandmother, and wife; her theological views, love for the power of art, and how we all have our own unique life narrative filled with failure, struggles, beauty, mystery, and joy. This book is amazing. This quote below is my favorite from the book.

"The happy ending does not come automatically, and it does not come free. We must embark on the Quest, knowing that it involves dangers. We are not protected by our goodness or our own superior powers. We know we are not qualified, and we rejoice in being servants. The happy ending begins with our recognition of our wholeness, which is symbolized for us in the elements of the fairy tale. We are much more than we know, and we can begin to find that more through our willingness to go on the Quest, and to welcome in ourselves the younger son, the elder brother, the true princess, the benevolent king, the enchanted beast, the wise old woman, all leading towards that redemptive fulfilling of the journey which is our story."- Madeleine L'Engle

[Sarah]

Madeleine L'Engle is one of, if not my very favourite authors. This book was mixed for me. I found that she wandered more than usual and at times, I lost the thread of each chapter/essay. On the other hand, the chapter on Story as Truth is one that repeatedly made me want to stand up and cheer. Her reflections on how scripture can be true without necessarily being literal and the dangers of entirely literal thinking put into words a sense that I have always had but would never be able to articulate. L'Engle often expresses the essences of my faith in ways that I could never articulate and that is why so often, I am filled with a sense of gratitude as I read her writing.

[ladydusk]

I read this as my 2020 Lenten bedtime book.

It was a wonderful choice. Considering story - and true story - in to the Gospel, King David, and interwoven with her own life events was a beautiful way to study the incarnation and Resurrection.

L'Engle and I have theological disagreements, but she always makes me think and her perspective helps me to understand others with whom I may disagree in specifics but not essentials.

Her long career as a storyteller makes her eminently qualified to contemplate Story as Truth (and I compare with Mattie Ross in True Grit who calls lying "stories" - an all to frequent mischaracterization). I've been tracking what she calls chronos/kairos through other books - Pieper Leisure the Basis of Culture and Makoto Fujimura's Refractions. Her final chapters - Creative Act, Redemptive Act, and Resurrection were so encouraging and perfect during this past Holy Week. She talks about Myth and Fairy Tales in ways confirm much I read from Angelina Stanford.

"Story makes us more human, and until we become fully human we will not be ready for home." p38

"This is because Scripture is true. Truth is deeper and wider and much more demanding than many people would like, but Jesus promised that it would set us free." p 49

"We do not need faith for facts; we do need faith for truth." pg 94

"It is, I suspect, fear of story, fear of imagination, fear of the unexplainable. The less vocabulary we have, the more limited our words, the more frightening the imagination becomes." p 102

He grinned. ... "You're much better when you don't think."

And that is true. It doesn't mean that I must never think. It doesn't mean that he hadn't been training me [to co-lead studies] for a good many years. It doesn'tm ean that I didn't have a full barrel to draw from. It does mean that the creative actions do not come from the cognitive part of the brain alone, but from a much larger area. When I write, I realized, I do not think. I write. If I think when I am writing, it doesn't work. I can think before I write; I can think after I write, but when I am actually writing, what I do is write. This is always the instruction I give at writers' workshops: "Don't think. Write." And I put a time limit to the assignments. "You may not work on this for more than an hour. If you're not finished at the end of an hour, that's all right. Stop." It's a lot easier to write without thinking if there's a time limit. p 144

"Many of the symbols which are now purported to be New Age, or, even worse, signs of devil worship, are Christian symbols. Indeed they may be misused and distorted by groups which are not Christian (a black mass is a blasphemous distortion of the Christian Eucharist), but that does not mean we need to toss them out and hand them over to the enemy! Give up the rainbow as a glorious sign of God's covenant with his people? Never! Give up the crescent moon and the stars and call them symbols of S--n rather than visible signs of the glory of God's creation? Never! The enemy can't have them unless we weakly and thoughtlessly relinquish our very own heritage." pg 185

"Too much Christian art relies so heavily on being Christian that the artist forgets that it also must be good art." pg 200

"... the people I know, in literature and in life, whose chief concern is fulfilling themselves, are always empty." p 202

"In the fairy tale we find hope of interrelatedness, and sometimes this hope comes because fairy tales deal forthrightly with brokenness. ... In fairy tales, and in life, there is risk--risk of failure, of horror, of death. But there is no despair. Rather, there is an unspoken affirmation of the ultimate happy ending." p 225-226

Once there was a man who was a Namer. That is what he was called by God to be, and to do. Out of the earth,in the days of the beginnings, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would name them: and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was its name.

Adam's vocation as a son was to be a Namer; that was how he was to co-create with the Maker of the Universe. If you name somebody or something, you discover that the act of Naming is very closely connected with the act of loving, and hating is involved with unNaming--taking a person's name away causing anyone to be an anonymous digit, annihilating the spirit.

When we are unNamed, we are broken; all around us we see fragmented, mutilated people. And the world offers little help for healing, for knitting up the "raveled sleeve of care." p 229-230

"And is the importunate widow a witch or a wise woman? It all depends. Witches do not have either humility or a sense of humor; wise women can laugh." pg 247

"We are not privileged because we deserve to be. Privilege accepted should mean responsibility accepted." pg 253

"Meditation is the practise of death and resurrection." pg 263

"But the beast and the princess and the journey [of fairy tale] are not without us, but within us, and we ourselves are the kingdom over which they are now to rule." pg 263

"People who try to sell us cheap grace equate integrity with self-indulgence, freedom with anarchy, liberation with chaos. It doesn't work. Only discipline and obedience to the strict law of love allow us to be free. It is only the daily discipline of work at my desk which frees a book to be bore. It is only the discipline of daily prayer which allows the freedom of meditation and contemplation. A river isn't a river when it overflows it banks. The stars would be raging, flaming destruction if they had not been set in their beautiful courses. So with grief; each day of our lives is preparation for grief, preparation for living in Jesus so he may live in us." pg 273

She ends with He is risen indeed! (italics hers, pg 296) which was perfect to finish with yesteray.

May the Lord help us to understand the many facets of story.

[Daniel Chapman]

As I was reading it was easy for thoughts like, "Is this really orthodox?" or "Where is she going with this?" to float across my brain. But much like Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, this book is a tonic. Madeleine L'Engel's writing is thoroughly Christian in the same way that other mystics are - she is good about pointing out that often we obsess over facts when scripture is about truth. She writes about the value of story and points to the story telling Savior. I don't agree with everything she says, sometimes because it makes me too uncomfortable and as she would point out that's exactly what the words of Truth do.

But like other mystics of the faith she reopens me to the mystical, wondrous beauty of Christianity. And as the title would indicate, the Rock is central to this memoir, her story, and writing. For her and this book I am grateful.

[priscilla]

10/10 recommend. L’engle’s tenderly-written words of insight & gentle challenge are timeless—structured around story, this book is winsome and captivating in articulation of the Creator’s inexorable love and longing for all of Creation. reading and discussing this with Em has been a reflective & surprisingly relevant practice for 2025.

one of numerous favorite quotes:

“An institution, be it religious, medical, legal, or educational, tends to move very slowly, holding onto the status quo, afraid of rocking the boat, loath to accept that familiar ideas may have to be left behind.
We shouldn’t wait for the institutions to do the changing, but be willing to change ourselves, for in the end it is we who make up the institution, and if we become more open, more loving, more interdependent through the lavishness of God’s love, then we can and will make a difference.”

[E.L.]

Not entirely what I was expecting - I thought there would be more emphasis on Story (I've been reading Tolkien and Lewis on Story lately, so that's where my mindset has been) - and instead got a gentle rambling of meditation, sometimes connected to stories, sometimes not. Still, a beautiful little book, filled with hope and faith. And the latter part does tie more into Story than the first.

[Jaclyn]

I really did not enjoy this one. We have a lot of theological differences but also the book didn’t seem as focused as I would have liked.

[Skye Lauren]

So many beautiful thoughts on how stories are truth. Each chapter was basically a different essay or collection of thoughts, and while sometimes L’Engle gets a little side tracked, it always comes together in the end and I appreciate all her little wanderings. This one felt very stream of consciousness but because I love L’Engle as person and her writing SO MUCH I just simply enjoyed it all.(: she gave me a ton to think about (per usual) and I’m always thrilled to find that the things I’m currently studying and interested in are things that she loves too and has already spoken on thoroughly.

My copy of this book looks like I’ve owned it for 10 years because it’s so filled with highlights and crinkled pages. I almost destroyed it just due to all my scribbling and obsessing as I read.😂🤍

[David Bjorlin]

There's a bit of fluff between, but then there are these absolute jewels of wisdom:
"I am using myth in its ancient meaning--that which was true, that which is true, that which will be true, that strange truth which is as elusive as home."

"As I read Scripture I saw that God used strange people to do the work of Love, ordinary people who were just like the rest of us, not perfect, not morally virtuous, but people who listened to God and, often reluctantly, did what was asked of them."

"Story helps us with the questions that have no answers. I wish the Church (of all denominations) would be brave enough to acknowledge that there are questions which, during our mortal lives, are not going to be answered. There are no answers to the wonder of Creation, the marvel of the Incarnation, the glory of the Resurrection. Too many answers lead to smug self-righteousness and--even worse--to human beings, rather than God, deciding who is and who is not loved by the Maker. Can't we trust God?"

"God is constantly breaking human rules in order to offer the greater rule of love, speaking through people shunned by society."

"It is only when we are not rigid in our expectations of our communities and when our doors are wide open, that [Christ] may choose to come, with the stranger, into our midst."

"Almost everything good can be abused, but that doesn't make the original good any less good, and if it's fun, it may well be joy in the Lord and in Creation, not sin. When we deny our legitimate pleasures we are denying the Incarnation for Jesus came to affirm, not deny."

"[T]he hysterical need for a common enemy is an enemy of story. If the only way we can believe that our faith is valid is by accusing another faith of being false, then our faith is shaky indeed."

""It is easier for a single human being to be open and willing to change than it is for an institution, but if enough of us single creatures are open to God's amazing revelations, our institutions will ultimately come alone with us. Long before the church institution was ready, many individuals were willing to accept that the earth is round and is a planet circling a parent sun in one of countless galaxies. An institution, be it religious, medical, legal, or educational, tends to move very slowly, holding onto the status quo, afraid of rocking the boat, loath to accept the familiar ideas may have to be left behind.We shouldn't wait for the institutions to do the changing, but be willing to change ourselves, and if we become more open, more loving, more interdependent through the lavishness of God's love, then we can and will make a difference.”

"Someone who loudly affirms Jesus as his personal Savior may be further from knowing the Lord than someone who lovingly longs to be able to do so and hardly dares, knowing the enormity of such an affirmation and the incredible responsibility it brings."

"I structure my life in the daily readings of Morning and Evening Prayer, and in the Eucharist. Then, when tragedy strikes unexpectedly, as it so often does, the framework for grief is already there."

[Mary]

Profound yet accessible.

“But who wants a comprehensible God in the aftermath of an incomprehensible accident?”

I came to this book while grappling with a tough season and it met me where I was. Written in a season of recovery, after a devastating car crash, Madeleine L’Engle writes a contemplative book on theological topics. It is neither a memoir nor a theology book but feels like having a long chat with a good friend of faith.

At times the book felt a bit rambly but that felt fitting for the season she was writing in (and to), and when thoughts felt incomplete in the moment most of them (I think maybe all) came full circle by the book’s closing. I will say, in the first chapter her train of thought was hard to follow, but overall I found that the rambling, softer tone of the book actually welcomes the reader in. When she poses theories I didn’t, at first, agree with I felt comfortable disagreeing with her and leaning deeper into the read. Madeleine L’Engle is a careful thinker and even in times when something didn’t align with my own thinking, I respected her opinion constantly because this book (if not each one she has written) is proof that she never thinks about things merely at surface level.

I’d recommend this book to anyone wanting to read about and/or seek truth in a soft way. Plus, extra extra emphasis on the recommendation if they love books and story. I especially loved the section where she discussed fairytales and how they impact and shed truth into our lives; it made me reconsider so much I learned in college as an English major about fairytales and their place in literature.

There’s so much wisdom in this volume—I underlined so much! She has clearly read her Bible very deeply and has so many insights to share but gives them all with the utmost humility. I surely will be re-reading in the years to come and returning to it before then to flip through and read what was underlined.

[Emily Riley]

This was not my favorite Madeleine L’Engle book but her wisdom shines through nonetheless. Interesting to hear how her tone changes as she ages into her 70s - she seems a bit more cynical than in previous books. But she always says things in a way that I find myself thinking “yes! That’s what’s I think!”

“The universe is far greater and grander and less predictable than anyone realized and one reaction to this is to turn our back on the glory and settle for a small, tribal god who forbids questions of any kind. Another reaction is to feel so small and valueless in comparison to the enormity of the universe that it becomes impossible to believe in a God who can be bothered with us tiny, finite creatures with life spans no longer than the blink of an eye.
Or we can simply rejoice in a God who is beyond our comprehension but who comprehends us and cares about us.” ❤️

[Samantha Barnes]

Parts of this book I loved, and parts of it I skimmed. L’Engle writes in a stream-of-consciousness style that I sometimes got lost trying to follow. But there were some good parts, too, that sparked my own thoughts and creativity.

[Jacci]

I enjoyed this book. It was a slow read for me but there were hidden gems in it. The best part was feeing like I got to know this amazing author a little bit as a person.

[Michelle]

I enjoyed this one and learned some things, but I don’t think it was her best. There were some rants that I didn’t enjoy and some straying from the topic.

[Mary Reilly]

Read this one slowly and sooo good. Madeleine wrote this book almost 30 years ago but still so pertinent. I experience the world as story so this book speaks to me. Lots of things I am going to have to spend some time thinking about.

[Skylerhayes]

Read this if you want to feel like grandma is sharing her wisdom with you, with a few tears along the way.

[Elizabeth]

This book is full of truth, beauty, and goodness. It has become my favorite of L'Engle's nonfiction books.

I read this as one of my devotionals for the last month or so but it is not a devotional.

I found too many favorite passages to try to narrow down any to post here.

[Merrilee]

There is much food for thought in this book and I am going to read it again soon because I found it both instructive and inspirational. I love this author. She is a genius.

[Joe Taylor]

Madeleine L'Engle has an incredible way with words. I love the way that she captures the imagination and challenges the mind through story. In this book, she helps the reader understand the gift of story-telling. She does this both through teaching and beautiful story-telling of her own.

Most people think of truth as something that can be proven with verifiable facts and figures. The gift of story-telling grants access to deep truths that are far more important than facts.

As a Christian minister who is deeply immersed in the bible on a daily basis, the way that Madeleine reflects and expounds on the Christian Scriptures is inspiring. In her stories, she uncovers valuable gems that are sometimes difficult to see at first glance. I have picked up many helpful tools in these pages that are bound to benefit me for years to come.

The Rock that is Higher is a beautiful book that folk from all walks of life are bound to enjoy and benefit from.

[Cayla]

“Forgiveness requires healing grief. Forgiveness hurts, as all grief must, and if it hurts to forgive, it hurts equally to be forgiven.”

“Then how can I know which is the right one?” Aye, there’s the rub. We can’t. But one thing I’m learning is that I do not always have to be right. Or maybe we can look at two different interpretations of a story and understand that they are both right. If I have to take every story in the Bible as literal, and capable of only one interpretation, I will lose the story.”

“Our homesickness is alleviated only by love, that love that transcends our self-centeredness, our pettiness”

“When we are truly in love, not in the sense of romantic, erotic love, but in the sense of God’s love for all that the Power of Love created, then our homesickness is alleviated. When we are in love we are no longer homesick, for Love is home.”

“What, dear Lord, is your purpose for my life? Where, during the rest of my mortal years, is home?”

“Jesus said that unless we have the hearts of children we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Children love story and understand that story is truth.”

“Most of the writers to whom I turn are committed Christians, because it takes a firm grounding in the love of God for a writer to go into the darkest depths of the human heart. Often in these mysteries that love which will make us more human shines through the ugliness of greed and murder. Love does not triumph easily or without pain, but story gives us the courage to endure the pain.”

“the home to which we journey throughout the story of our lives”

“As I read Scripture I saw that God used strange people to do the work of Love, ordinary people who were just like the rest of us, not perfect, not morally virtuous, but people who listened to God and, often reluctantly, did what was asked of them.”

“Truth is deeper and wider and much more demanding than many people would like”

“We are finite, and the Lord is infinite. We cannot comprehend the Creator any more than the darkness can comprehend the light”

““It’s unscriptural. I’m sorry. I can’t sign it.” I read him point three, which was one of the two points out of six that I could not sign. “Because of the Fall we are in such a state of sin and depravity that we are justly under God’s wrath and condemnation.” Point four said that the only way God could forgive us for all this sin and depravity was for Jesus to come and get crucified. “What this is saying,” I told the dean, “is that Jesus had to come save us from God the Father. I don’t believe that Jesus had to come save us from God the Father. Scripture says, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. The birth of Jesus showed God’s love, not God’s anger. This is what the Bible says, and this is what I believe.””

“My friend the theologian said that if we die, and Jesus looks at us with love and we respond to that look with love, then we are in heaven. But if Jesus looks at us with love and we respond with fear or hate or anger, then we are in hell. It is the same look, but it is we who make it heaven or hell. Surely we begin to make our own heaven or hell in our daily lives, with our responses of love or fear or anger.”

“the forgiveness of the heart comes from God, not from me. My part in it is to be willing to accept it.”

“God is still with us even when we are not with God, even when we have turned to alien gods, pride, greed, lust, God is still with us in the midst of our troubles.”

“that’s what it’s all about: God’s love. God’s unmerited, unqualified love, waiting for us. We don’t have to deserve that love which is ours, ours whether we want it or not. If we don’t want it, that love can be terrible indeed. But if we reach out for God with love, God’s love will surround us. God made us, made us in love, and that love will never falter. Wherever we are, whatever we do, God’s love for us is there, firm, steadfast, forever, and shown us in the love that came to us in Jesus Christ, in whose resurrection we are all newly born and fully alive.”

“Draw a circle and put a line down the middle. The left half of the circle is marked C, for complication. The right side of the circle is marked R, for resolution. Now surround the circle with another circle. The left side of this outside circle is marked D, for discovery, and the right side P, for peripety. C: In every great work there is a complication. The resolution is embedded in the complication”

“The Bible is not objective. Its stories are passionate, searching for truth (rather than fact), and searching most deeply in story”

“James Carroll, in The Communion of Saints, writes, “The very act of story-telling, of arranging memory and invention according to the structure of the narrative, is by definition holy….We tell stories because we can’t help it. We tell stories because we love to entertain and hope to edify. We tell stories because they fill the silence death imposes. We tell stories because they save us.””

“it is the child within us who is able to recognize the truth of story—the mysterious, the numinous, the unexplainable—and the grown-up within us who accepts these qualities with joy but understands that we also have responsibilities, that a promise is to be kept”

“I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.”

“The less vocabulary we have, the more limited our words, the more frightening the imagination becomes.”

“Story helps us with the questions that have no answers.”

“be brave enough to acknowledge that there are questions which, during our mortal lives, are not going to be answered”

“Too many answers lead to smug self-righteousness and—even worse—to human beings, rather than God, deciding who is and who is not loved by the Maker. Can’t we trust God?”

“The novelist’s first task is to make us see.”

“R: In the great storytelling there is usually an indication of the resolution in the first sentence.”

“D: The discovery is an event that does far more than foreshadow the resolution. It makes the resolution inevitable”

“P: Peripety is an unforeseen event that precipitates the denouement. It is unforeseen, but probable. It is not a coincidence. According to the dictionary it is a reversal.”

“It is interesting in this Trinitarian world how often the great storytellers do things in threes”

“What is the difference between those who attack me, and me, myself? Perhaps the main difference is that my faith is not seriously threatened because it is not literal but remains open to question and revelation. It is not always a comfortable faith; it prods and pushes me.”

“I do not feel that I need to protect God as the attackers that night in Wheaton seemed to feel the need to do.”

“a dialogue between God and the archangel Raphael, the physician of God. Raphael is very pleased with Abraham’s response to God’s demand, and begins extolling Abraham’s virtues to God. And God is not enthusiastic. The more Raphael praises Abraham, the less enthusiastic God gets. Finally Raphael says, “But God, you put Abraham to the test and he passed.” God replies, “He did not pass. He failed. He chose law over love.””

“In the scriptural story we see Saul disintegrate further into madness, self-pity, rage, even accusing Jonathan of conspiring against him. It is a sad story of the decay of a man who could have been great, but who was threatened by greatness. David, unlike Saul, was not self-conscious about God’s call to him.”

“God was All in All. God filled every single human need, be it for father, mother, lover, sister, brother, friend.”

“I took my grief to the Bible for healing. I cannot think of any human grief that is not expressed for us in the Bible, from the very beginning stories in Genesis.”

“The people of God are not all good and moral people. They do terrible things. But they know that they are utterly dependent on God, and if they do anything that is good, it is because God pushes them into it and helps them every inch of the way”

“In Matthew’s genealogy, four women are listed as being Jesus’ forebears, and all four break the accepted patterns of their society. Rahab the harlot: outside society. Tamar: Tamar gave birth to twins after she had lain with her father-in-law, completely breaking all societal rules. Ruth: Ruth was a Moabitess, and the Moabites descended from Lot’s daughters who, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, got their father drunk and slept with him in order to preserve his bloodline, an act that was and is abhorrent. Bathsheba: Bathsheba, the fourth, is referred to as the wife of Uriah, the man King David had killed after he and Bathsheba had committed adultery. All four of these women from whom Jesus came were outside society”

“God is constantly breaking human rules in order to offer the greater rule of love, speaking through people shunned by society”

“The stories in the Bible have nourished me all my life, as has the poetry, the long lists of laws, the history, and even the begats”

“If it’s there, it’s there for a reason, and I read it all, every bit of it.”

“An evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul. The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Does the Lord indeed do such things? Or do we blame the Lord rather than ourselves?”

“In my responsiveness to God I am the infant in the womb, totally nourished, fed, warmed, completely cared for, but with no image of the Caregiver.”

“David was not afraid of the truth, and so his love of God was both spontaneous and joyous, or anguished and penitent.”

“When I say my prayers at the end of the day, I am coming to terms with the events of the day, with the story of my da”

“Yes, I said, it is the most heavy-laden of all human words. None has become so soiled, so mutilated. Just for this reason I may not abandon it. Generations of men have laid the burdens of their anxious lives upon this word and weighed it to the ground; it lies in the dust and bears their whole burden.”

“But when all the madness and delusion fall to the dust, when they stand over against Him in the loneliest darkness, is it not the real God they implore?…Is it not He who hears them?”

“Heaven is wherever and whenever God is present; when he is present within us, then heaven is within us. If we do not begin to live in heaven now we will not be able to recognize it later”

“(sometimes with reluctance) end by saying, “However, God, do it your way. Not my way, your way. Please.””

“Give us this day our daily bread. Not mine, but ours—everybody’s. Our responsibility to the starving world is implicit in that sentence”

“In John’s Gospel it is pointed out that a lad came up and offered what he had, and this act of offering was essential for the miracle.”

“we should not be surprised that Jesus, despite his awareness of his own migrant condition and his need for solitude—for time to be alone with the Father—also had a close community of disciples and friends. He had no permanent address, appearing and disappearing with disconcerting suddenness. It is only when we are not rigid in our expectations of our communities and when our doors are wide open, that he may choose to come, with the stranger, into our midst.”

“, “You really seem to enjoy your faith.” She added, with a wry smile, “And that immediately makes you suspect.””

“I enjoy my faith, and enjoying my faith frees me to enjoy all the lovely legitimate pleasures of life. Indeed, enjoying my faith helps me to discern which pleasures are legitimate and which are not.”

“love that knows when to say No rather than Yes. I have slowly learned that when God says No to my most earnest prayer, that No may well be the prelude to a wonderful Yes I couldn’t even have begun to predict. If I am to enjoy my faith I have to trust the No comes from love, not anger.”

“When we try to define and over-define and narrow down we lose the story the Maker of the Universe is telling us in the Gospels. I do not want to explain the Gospels; I want to enjoy them.”

“Jesus was accused of all kinds of behavior that went against the law, but mostly he turned anger away softly rather than falling into the same trap as his accusers.”

“Unhealthy grief usually has qualities of resentment. Or self-pity. Or sullenness”

“I have a hunch that anyone with a strong and lively faith is not immune to the anger which is the first reaction to injustice, but the anger when worked through will not be destructive but will lead to healthy grieving and accepting.”

“refusing to look at our whole selves, to read our whole story. If we edit and revise, then we are able to rationalize our anger, our vindictiveness, our vengefulness instead of accepting that these feelings are within us, but do not have to be acted on, and can, with God’s help, be overcome and forgiven”

“Too much concern about Christian art can be destructive both to art and to Christianity. I cannot consciously try to write a Christian story. My own life and my own faith will determine whether or not my stories are Christian”

“When we write a story, we must write to the absolute best of our ability. That is the job, first and foremost. If we are truly Christian, that will be evident, no matter what the topic”

“God is calling me away from sin and depravity, both of which kill the creative element in us”

“Story is seldom true if we try to control it, manipulate it, make it go where we want it to go, rather than where the story itself wants to go”

“Literalism kills the stories of Jesus, and comes close to killing us. Literalism makes no demands of us, asks of us no faith, does not cause us to grow”

“God pushes, and often pushes through story.”

“Story makes us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving. Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has meaning”

“The life of Jesus has been called the greatest story ever told, and that is true, but one of Satan’s cleverest successes has been to make us distrust story”

“Another monster that would unName us is atheism. Olivier Clement says, What we must say to the atheist of today is that however deep may be the hell in which they find themselves, Christ is to be found still deeper. What we must say to all those who are wounded by the “terrorist” God is that basically what is asked of man is not virtue or merit, but a cry of trust and love from the depths of his hell; or, who knows, a moment of anguish and startlement in the enclosed immanence of his happiness. And never to fall into despair, but into God.”

“Or we can simply rejoice in a God who is beyond our comprehension but who comprehends us and cares about us.”

“True story calls us to be part of the universe as it heals us.”

“Who am I? is one of the most painful and penetrating questions.”

“Adam’s vocation as a son was to be a Namer; that was how he was to co-create with the Maker of the Universe. If you name somebody or something, you discover that the act of Naming is very closely connected with the act of loving”

“When we are unNamed, we are broken; all around us we see fragmented, mutilated people.”

“There is no possibility of contact with the Divine without running the risk of being destroyed by the demonic”

“When we are children it is hard for us to allow our parents to stop being extensions of our own needs and to become people with needs of their own. At the same time that we are clinging to them with a false dependency, we are also struggling to separate ourselves”

“if I stay in anger, justified or not, the decision to stay there moves me away from being the wise old woman and towards being the wicked witch.”

“The wise old woman knows who she is. And many of us do not, or do not want to, because we are afraid.”

“When we label a person a sinner, when we see only the monster, then we are unNaming, we are holding back that person from any hope of becoming whole, of becoming Named.”

“Privilege accepted should mean responsibility accepted.”

“Part of recognizing the monster-prince part of ourselves is accepting that we do not have to be worthy; it is remembering that God always works with unworthy people”

“despair is perhaps the most terrible of all the monsters, leading to apathy, indifference, what the medieval theologians called accidie, the sloth of the soul.”

“The seed that goes into the ground and dies does not look like the oak tree or the lilac bush or the snowdrop that comes up in the spring. But we will recognize each other, because our sight will have changed as much as our bodies: we will know each other in a deeper way than was ever possible in life, no matter how close and intimate our human bond has been.”

“We were bought with a price, and what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”

“When we accept forgiveness we accept ourselves as sinners”

“The search for grace, costly grace, involves the acceptance of pain and the creative grief which accompanies growth into maturity. Don’t be afraid the pain will destroy the wholeness. It leads, instead, to the kind of wholeness that rejoices in Resurrection”

“No one dares to grieve who does not dare to love”

“We cannot grieve in any healthy way in total isolation”

“Grief, like Christianity, is shared by the entire body”

“The times I have been closest to God I have been least conscious of my own self, yet these are the times I have been most fully myself”

“When we human creatures opened the heart of the atom we opened ourselves to the possibility of terrible destruction, but also—and we tend to forget this—to a vision of interrelatedness and unity that can provide a theology for us to live by”

“my faith is more a matter of joy than of security”

[Bailey T. Hurley]

Made it halfway and could not hear anymore. She is wise and has wonderful thoughts but it was like a diary of thoughts that never take me anywhere or provide much meat to the life of faith.

[Janet Cline]

This is a book I could read over and over and still get more out of it.

[Olivia Murphy]

L’Engle is a talented storyteller, but this one felt distracted. I still dog-eared many pages and appreciated her thoughts on the impact of story—especially as it pertains to the greatest Story—but I did not love this one. Her and I share some theological differences and some of those were hard to stomach in this book. If nothing else, it caused me to go to Scripture and think through some foundational truths, but I would not recommend this particular book. She has so many others that are wonderful!

[Hope]

The Rock that is Higher appears to be a book about storytelling, but half of it is a memoir detailing L’Engle’s slow recovery from a car crash at age 72. In her usually winsome way, she writes about how stories help to make us human. Those were the parts I loved best about the book.

Tolkien, G. K. Chesteron and C.S. Lewis all wrote about Christianity being the “truest” myth. In their case they are not referring to myth as “an unfounded or false notion,” but as “sacred tales that explain the world and man’s experience.” L’Engle is firmly in their camp, but she goes much farther than they do in declaring that most of the Bible is not to be taken literally. On page 166 there is the cryptic sentence: “Do you believe in the literal fact of [Christ’s] resurrection? NO! I believe in the resurrection!”

She spends a large portion of the book defending God’s reputation, saying that the “tribal god” of the Old Testament was the result of the primitive view of God held by Old Testament writers. Any mention of God’s wrath is a misunderstanding of His true character, since, in her opinion, all wrath is necessarily vindictive and sinful. (She seems to forget that wrath is mentioned in the New Testament too.)

Although I disagree with her on many theological points, that does not mean I cannot appreciate her fine writing. I still consider her Wrinkle in Time trilogy to be a masterpiece of YA fiction.

[Tara]

This book was a delightful devotion on the ways that story communicates things that cannot be said in any other way - and how they are more true for being told, for being stori-fied. The stories we tell reveal what we believe about the world and shape our being in the world. They can even call us to ways of being in the world that no lesson or proverb ever could.

Do not prepare for a novel or a story told in these pages, however. These are meditations, reflections, and devotions. You need not even read the whole thing. I highly recommend Chapter 4: Story as Truth and Chapter 11: Story as Redemptive Act for the most original and powerful reflections.

I did get a chuckle out of the very 1990s context, which L'Engle appropriately references throughout the book, including responses to accusations of being too "New Age" to be a a Christian. Oh, how things change... and how they stay the same.

[Connie]

This book by Madeleine L’Engle is an incredible undertaking! Somehow she manages to take what appears to me to be extremely different genres and tie them all together into a well written book about the truth in story and myth. Her writing style is engaging as she shares with the reader her long held beliefs about religion. While I can’t say I’m completely on board with everything she wrote, I very much enjoyed reading this book and felt uplifted by many of the comparisons and observations she shared. I also loved how her joy from a lifetime of loving Jesus shines through on each and every page.

I feel this book is definitely worthy of 5 stars.

[Miss Clark]

3.5 - 4 stars

One of L' Engle's finest. Highly recommended!

PP. 56 - 57: Her description of meal time, this shared meal in so many times & various people - so beautiful and real.

PP. 106 - 107 - Complication and Peripety

"Don't we trust the Lord enough to tell him how we really feel? To question? To rail? But we must also accept that sometimes we don't hear answers."

[Rach]

A lovely reflection on Story, and how crucial it is to our growth, our formation, and inspiration for our lives. The main "inspiration" that L'Engle gave me here was a further prod to return to Scripture and deepen my knowledge of it.

[Apryl Anderson]

She doesn't so much "write" as "have a conversation"

[Alicia]

Last fall, my sister-in-law’s father drove off a straight road on a clear morning and rolled his car. It didn’t look like he made any attempts to stop. His phone alerted the police who sent paramedics to his location and took him to the hospital.

He went from joking with the police officers to emergency surgery to life support in the ICU within hours. There he remained for months. In the first month I visited, sitting in the ICU waiting room entertaining my niece, while my sister-in-law sat vigil by her father’s bed.

People came and left, many died, while her father slept. I watched families in the waiting room, saw them smile at my little niece as a distraction from their unimaginable grief.

I picked up snippets of conversation. Most people were there because of car accidents, more and more motorcycles accidents and one teenage girl had been shot by a boyfriend. Another young woman collapsed and no one knew why. The family was more confused than anything.

“We just need to know what happened,” they said.

In the middle of this waiting room place I remember Madeleine L’Engle’s account of the car accident that almost took her life. The truck that ran the red light, broke her bones and lacerated her organs.

Thus begin The Rock That is Higher, an account of healing and the things which heal us. Story is healing.

L’Engle explores story as she sits in her hospital bed, weaving together her personal journey, truths she’s found, stories she’s heard and Scripture. After reading The Rock That is Higher I find I’m consciously reading Scripture as healing narrative which rings more true than the ways I used to read. I find I’m seeing grief as narrative.

Last year was very difficult for my sister-in-law but her father’s entering the year in rehab with his own story of healing, of miracles and of truth. When I visited two weeks ago he said something very similar to L’Engle after her accident, “There’s still a lot left for me to do.”

L’Engle says, “Someone told me that the difference between happiness and joy is sorrow.” Story leads us into a much deeper, richer, more redemptive human experience, which often comes only after sorrow.