A Stone for a Pillow

1. Rejecting a Forensic View of God

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.

God is not a judge. Madeleine L'Engle, reflecting on her jury duty experience, challenges the common "forensic" view of God—one focused on crime, punishment, and proving innocence. This perspective, she argues, misrepresents God as an angry Zeus-figure, demanding placation and sacrifice before offering forgiveness. Such a view is unscriptural and contradicts the American justice system's presumption of innocence.

Love, not anger. Instead, L'Engle emphasizes that God is love, not anger. God's nature is to welcome us back when we stray, not to punish. The Incarnation of Jesus was an act of love, not a means to appease a bad-tempered Father.

• Teenagers often describe God as a "furious old Zeus-figure."
• This forensic view implies Jesus died to satisfy divine anger, not out of love.
• Hosea 11:8-9: "All my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger... for I am God, not man."

God's unchanging nature. God's nature is constant: Creator, Rejoicer, Celebrator, who calls all creation "good." This understanding frees us from the burden of proving our virtue and allows us to accept God's unqualified love.

2. Embracing Unqualified Love and Imperfection

The glorious message of Scripture is that we do not have to be perfect for our Maker to love us.

Love for the imperfect. Scripture consistently shows God lavishing love on visibly imperfect people, like Jacob, a notorious liar and cheat. God loves us in our "complex isness," not because we achieve a state of moral perfection. This unqualified love allows us to accept ourselves and extend love to others, even those who hurt or confuse us.

Beyond self-conscious virtue. L'Engle cautions against "self-conscious virtue," which often leads to judgmentalism and a "crime-and-punishment theology." The Pharisees, though morally upright, were criticized by Jesus for their separation from sinners and their insistence on law over mercy.

• Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners.
• He said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."
• He sought "mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6).

Love transforms. Accepting God's unqualified love enables us to turn our demands for fairness into love, even for those who wrong us. This perspective is essential for personal and cosmic healing, aligning with the interconnectedness of all things.

3. The Interdependence of All Creation: The Butterfly Effect

If a butterfly winging over the fields around Crosswicks should be hurt, the effect would be felt in galaxies thousands of light years away.

Cosmic interconnectedness. L'Engle introduces the "butterfly effect" from physics to illustrate the profound interdependence of all creation. Every action, no matter how small, has far-reaching consequences across the universe. This means that separation—"dis-aster"—from each other, from nature, or from God, leads to suffering for all.

Consequences of separation: When we are separated from the stars, the sea, or each other, we risk separation from God. This manifests in various ways:

• Environmental degradation: "When we abuse the planet overmuch, it will turn on us."
• Social fragmentation: Churches separating from the poor, other denominations.
• Personal isolation: "Me, myself, and I"-ism leading to callousness.

Unity is essential. Just as cancer cells insist on independence and become malignant, so too can individuals or groups become destructive when they separate themselves. The message of Scripture, when read holistically, is one of unity and interdependence, urging us to move beyond tribalism.

• Dr. Paul Brand notes that only cancer cells insist on being autonomous.
• "Us" versus "them" violates the nature of Creation.
• "Not one sparrow could fall to the ground without the Father’s knowledge."

4. Reading Scripture as Living Story and Myth

I take the Bible far too seriously to take it literally.

Beyond literalism. L'Engle advocates reading the Bible as a living book, full of poetry, song, fantasy, paradox, and mystery, rather than a static, literal historical account. Literalism, she argues, can be a "clever device of Satan" that limits our understanding of God and closes us off from revelation.

• Literal interpretations can justify slavery, stoning women, or slaughtering "heathen natives."
• "The pagans are the people that don’t quarrel about God."
• Taking fragments out of context can prove almost anything.

Myth as truth. Myth, in its deepest sense, is a vehicle of truth, like Jesus' parables. It expresses the longings and aspirations of the human race and enlarges our perception of human encounters with God. This approach demands more of us, pushing us beyond the known and explainable into mystery.

• Fairy tales, like biblical myths, are not superficial but spring from human depths.
• The story of Job wrestles with deep spiritual questions, not dry facts.
• Ezekiel's "glorious wheels" are poetic, not literal UFOs.

Openness to change. Our understanding of God should be dynamic, growing with new discoveries and revelations. The Bible urges us to go beyond its pages, not to stop with what we have read, allowing our concept of God to remain open to change.

5. The Power of Blessing and Letting Go of Grudges

Oh, God, bless the bastard.

Blessing, not cursing. L'Engle shares her personal struggle with being falsely accused, highlighting the human tendency to seek justice and vindication. However, she argues that true healing comes from letting go of anger and grudges, and choosing to bless, even those who have caused pain. This is a difficult, often ungracious act, but it is essential for freedom and for participating in God's love.

Forgiveness as renewal. Carrying a grudge means living in the past, in "illusionary worlds" of what was or what never was. Forgiveness, on the other hand, revitalizes the present and allows for rebirth of relationships. Esau, despite being tricked by Jacob, did not hold grudges, teaching us the power of letting go.

• "To carry a grudge is to live in the past."
• Esau's willingness to forgive Jacob for his treachery.
• Jacob's terror of Esau's revenge was self-punishment.

God's non-forensic judgment. God's judgment is not forensic punishment but a call to celebration and at-one-ment. It is a "refiner's fire" that purges us, not to condemn, but to transform. This means blessing even terrorists, rapists, and those who seem furthest from God's image, knowing that God's love can redeem all.

• Pope John Paul II talked lovingly with his would-be assassin.
• Saint Stephen prayed for his murderers.
• "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness." (Psalm 103:8)

6. God's Immanent Presence: Not "Out There," but "In Here"

For if I cannot find God here, within, how can I find el anywhere else?

God within Creation. L'Engle challenges the idea of God as being "Out There," remote and separate from creation. Instead, she emphasizes God's immanence—God is in and part of all creation, every galaxy, every quantum, every human being. This understanding means we cannot hold ourselves "out there" either, but must participate in everything that happens.

Intimacy with the Creator. Scripturally, God is always intimately involved:

• Walking and talking with Adam and Eve.
• Taking Abraham out to see the stars.
• Wrestling with Jacob.
• Most gloriously, coming to us in Jesus of Nazareth, fully participating in human life and death.

Hallowing our createdness. This "terrible closeness" of God hallows our createdness and reveals wonder in the most ordinary things. It means that wherever we call upon our Maker is God's house, whether in a jury room, on a beach, or in the quiet corner of our home.

• Lancelot Andrewes' prayer: "Be, O Lord, within me to strengthen me / Without me to guard me / Over me to shelter me."
• Jacob's stone pillow becoming an altar, a "house of God."
• The "uncovenanted bounty" of wild strawberries.

7. Angels and Unexpected Messengers in Daily Life

We are called on to be angels not by God Out There, but by God In Here, with us, Emmanuel.

God's messengers. L'Engle suggests that we are all called to be "angels"—messengers of God—often unaware of our role. God sends angels in unexpected and mysterious ways, working through ordinary people and events without coercion. This calls us to be open to God's promptings and to take risks for love.

Examples of angelic action:

• Jerome Hines, the opera singer, praying for Khrushchev and changing his performance of Boris Godounov, which L'Engle links to the Cuban Missile Crisis resolution.
• The old man by the river who missed God's help in the form of a jeep, a rowboat, and a helicopter.
• The community of friends who supported L'Engle after her broken shoulder.

Courage and vulnerability. Being an "angel" means being a "universe-disturber," willing to make waves and upset establishments, like Gandhi or Sadat. It requires courage to act on what we prayerfully believe is right, even when it means being vulnerable and facing punishment from those who resist change.

• "If we refuse to take the risk of being vulnerable we are already half-dead."
• The butterfly, a small creature, affects galaxies.
• God uses us "wherever we are, in whatever we do."

8. Transforming Tribalism into Universal Community

Tribalism must be transformed into community.

Beyond "us vs. them." L'Engle observes that a "wariness of 'the others'" has always been part of human nature, leading to tribalism and conflict. However, modern knowledge from astrophysics and particle physics reveals that all creation exists in interdependence and unity, making "us versus them" a "violation of Creation." We must move beyond old tribalism to a way of life where warfare is no longer possible.

Challenges to unity:

• Religious divisions: Christians fighting Muslims, Protestants fighting Catholics.
• Denominational pride: Insisting one's own group has "the truth."
• Cultural prejudice: Abraham not wanting Isaac to marry a foreigner.

The call to love. As Christians, our responsibility is to love one another, extending that love to all "Samaritans and Canaanites and unbelievers." This means seeking unity, not division, and recognizing that God's concern is for all people, not just a select few.

• Jesus spoke with Samaritans, making a Samaritan woman a protagonist.
• "Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7-8)
• The "battered bride" of Christ is divided by internal conflict.

9. Redeeming Symbols and Language for Deeper Truth

I pray that my symbols were referring to the original good.

Symbols as open windows. L'Engle, as a storyteller, lives by symbols, seeing them as "open windows" to deeper truth, not closed, deterministic worlds. She laments the desacralization and misuse of symbols, such as calling the crescent moon and stars "Satan's symbol," or reducing the cross to a mere ornament. True symbols stretch our minds, hearts, and souls.

Reclaiming meaning:

• The crescent moon and stars: Ancient symbols of the feminine, nature's rhythms, and God's creation, not Satan.
• The cross: An ancient symbol of continuity and hope, not exclusively Christian, but fulfilled in Christ.
• The butterfly: A symbol of metamorphosis and resurrection.

Language and brokenness. Our language, too, reflects our brokenness. Attempts to "fix" language, like using inconclusive inclusive pronouns, often miss the deeper issue of our separation from God and from our whole selves. True healing of language will follow spiritual healing.

• "Man, the image of God, male and female. Whole."
• "God so loved the world that he did not send a committee."
• The great mystics were "casual about the gender of God."

10. Embracing Paradox and Indeterminacy in Faith and Science

Thank God for indeterminacy!

Beyond either/or. L'Engle finds compatibility between the "indeterminacy" of quantum mechanics and the paradoxical nature of Scripture. Both challenge rigid, deterministic thinking, which she sees as a form of "spiritual terrorism" (e.g., predestination). A deterministic world leaves no room for free will or the unexpected.

Science and mystery:

• Quantum mechanics: Properties of matter have no real existence until measured; electron position is indeterminate.
• Biblical narrative: "Shifting causal concatenations, the ambiguity of a fiction made to resemble the uncertainties of life in history."
• God's name: "I will be what I will be." (Exodus 3:14)

The computer's limitations. L'Engle contrasts the computer's binary, either/or logic with the trinary (yes/no/mu) thinking needed for complex human and spiritual realities. "Mu" signifies that neither yes nor no is a workable answer, reflecting the paradoxes of life and faith.

• Jesus gave "mu answers" to direct questions (e.g., paying tribute to Caesar, "Help thou my unbelief").
• The computer is deterministic; it "does not ask questions."
• "The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than anything we can imagine." (J.B.S. Haldane)

11. The Cross as Ultimate At-One-Ment

For Jesus, at-one-ment was not being at-one only with the glory of the stars, or the first daffodil in the spring, or a baby’s laugh.

Oneness with all suffering. The cross, for L'Engle, is the ultimate symbol of "at-one-ment"—not a forensic act of appeasement, but Jesus' radical oneness with all creation, including all pain, suffering, and sin. This means being at one with the anguish of cancer, rape, war, and even the coldness of heart of perpetrators.

Beyond protection. God does not promise us protection from suffering, just as Jesus was not spared the cross. Instead, God offers the protection of His presence within our suffering. Satan offers mortal protection, but his mission is to fragment and separate. God's love, however, works to heal and reconcile all brokenness.

• Satan tempted Jesus with protection from suffering.
• "God is in it with us."
• "If one member suffers, all suffer together." (1 Corinthians 12:26)

Redemption of all things. The cross signifies the hope that all things, even Satan and the fallen angels, may ultimately be redeemed and returned to the "glorious liberty of the children of God." This is a "refiner's fire" that purges, transforming destroyers into light-bearers.

• "Every knee shall bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." (Philippians 2:10-11)
• The hope of turning malignant cancer cells back into normal, benign cells.
• "Bless the echthroi..."

12. The Gift of Vulnerability and Pain

We are promised not the absence of pain, but the blessed warning of pain.

Pain as a messenger. L'Engle, drawing from her own experiences with shingles and an aeromonas infection, and from Dr. Paul Brand's work with lepers, reinterprets pain not as a curse, but as a "blessed warning." Just as lepers suffer terrible injuries due to their inability to feel pain, so too does spiritual pain alert us to our need for healing and transformation.

Vulnerability, not protection. God does not promise protection from wounds or bleeding, but rather the gift of vulnerability. This vulnerability, shared with God, allows us to be "transfused" with love and grow strong.

• "I do not think that anyone, animal or human, ought to die without being held."
• Jacob was blessed with the "wound of love" after wrestling with the angel.
• God "made him vulnerable" by allowing Rachel's death in childbirth.

Healing through love. Grief, like physical pain, is a warning system. When we allow ourselves to grieve, rather than clinging to anger or self-pity, healing becomes possible through a "transfusion of love." This love is not sentimental but a powerful, purging force that transforms our ungracious prayers and helps us accept our own brokenness.

• Music and prayer can be as effective as narcotics in alleviating pain.
• The story of the cow healed by a painkiller.
• "God didn’t break your shoulder. He’s just using it."