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Beautiful exploration of life and faith through a storyteller's lens.
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The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth
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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.
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.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,1993
This edition
- Format
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320 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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March 19, 2002 by Shaw Books
- ISBN
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9780877887263
- ASIN
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0877887268
- Language
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English
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Awesome book. Pls read!
She brings the Gospel to life so wonderfully in these sprawling chapters that each unpack what “story as truth” means in a different way. The gist is that faith lies beyond the language of provable fact — instead opening us up to the world of story. There’s no good way to summarize this book, y’all just gotta read it fr
“I give you my Word, God said, and I believe it.”
She brings the Gospel to life so wonderfully in these sprawling chapters that each unpack what “story as truth” means in a different way. The gist is that faith lies beyond the language of provable fact — instead opening us up to the world of story. There’s no good way to summarize this book, y’all just gotta read it fr
“I give you my Word, God said, and I believe it.”
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Writing about books, I try to talk about what I loved as well as the parts that I haven’t liked as much. But it’s one of those things where the squeaky wheel gets the grease: it’s the ways in which a book annoyed me, or disappointed me, that tend to stick in my head, especially when I start out with very high expectations for a book – as I didn’t with The Rock that is Higher. A dear friend recommended it to me, so I expected to love it. I think I expected it to be written just for me – to unfold perfectly before me, the way Letters to Malcolm (CS Lewis) did, or Grace Jantzen’s book on Julian of Norwich. L’Engle is a classic author, even if I hadn’t read any of her novels when I read The Rock that is Higher. She’s supposed to be the natural progression from C.S. Lewis, and you know what I think of him. And so I came to this book expecting a lot.
There are truly wonderful moments in this book. L’Engle’s discussion on the difference between Facts and Truth; the snippets you get of the novel she was writing at the same time that she was working on this book (n Certain Womenn, which unfortunately the local library doesn’t have).
But at the same time it seemed either dated, or written in a completely different world. She talks about the New Age movement as being the threat to the church, whereas to me, these days, (fifteen years after the book was published) that it’s militant atheists, and ‘our own’ fundamentalists. And as I complained while I was reading it, the most off-putting thing about the whole book was L’Engle’s certainty. It was a book of reflections that contained seemingly no doubts. She seemed never to have doubted God’s love for her, whereas I was reading it (and if I was re-reading it now, still would be) at a time when it took very little for me to doubt that God possibly loved me. She writes about her large family, and her life on a farm in Connecticut and an apartment in Manhattan not as though she has been incredibly fortunate, but as though this is what everyone strives for. It was a little like when I choose to read a Greeley book when I really shouldn’t: sometimes I can cope with ‘romantic love mirrors God’s love for us’ and sometimes my reaction is ‘well, where does leave those of us who have never experienced romantic love?’ The mood I was in when I read this book led me to read it as L’Engle shoving her husband and children and grandchildren in my face, so to speak. Shoving her wisdom and experience, her Episcopalian upbringing and her life at home as a writer and homemaker, and above all her certainty in my face, and saying “If this is not your life, you can’t be a good Christian, like me.”
I do think, despite my issues with the book, that it will become one of my annual-or-close-to-it reads. Like the Susan Howatch Starbridge books: something that I read when I want to be challenged, want to be drawn out of my comfortable understandings into something deeper. I might even re-read it again before the end of the year, and I’d definitely say that it’s a good book for other people to read. I just wish I could read it fresh, without the expectation that I would love it.
There are truly wonderful moments in this book. L’Engle’s discussion on the difference between Facts and Truth; the snippets you get of the novel she was writing at the same time that she was working on this book (n Certain Womenn, which unfortunately the local library doesn’t have).
But at the same time it seemed either dated, or written in a completely different world. She talks about the New Age movement as being the threat to the church, whereas to me, these days, (fifteen years after the book was published) that it’s militant atheists, and ‘our own’ fundamentalists. And as I complained while I was reading it, the most off-putting thing about the whole book was L’Engle’s certainty. It was a book of reflections that contained seemingly no doubts. She seemed never to have doubted God’s love for her, whereas I was reading it (and if I was re-reading it now, still would be) at a time when it took very little for me to doubt that God possibly loved me. She writes about her large family, and her life on a farm in Connecticut and an apartment in Manhattan not as though she has been incredibly fortunate, but as though this is what everyone strives for. It was a little like when I choose to read a Greeley book when I really shouldn’t: sometimes I can cope with ‘romantic love mirrors God’s love for us’ and sometimes my reaction is ‘well, where does leave those of us who have never experienced romantic love?’ The mood I was in when I read this book led me to read it as L’Engle shoving her husband and children and grandchildren in my face, so to speak. Shoving her wisdom and experience, her Episcopalian upbringing and her life at home as a writer and homemaker, and above all her certainty in my face, and saying “If this is not your life, you can’t be a good Christian, like me.”
I do think, despite my issues with the book, that it will become one of my annual-or-close-to-it reads. Like the Susan Howatch Starbridge books: something that I read when I want to be challenged, want to be drawn out of my comfortable understandings into something deeper. I might even re-read it again before the end of the year, and I’d definitely say that it’s a good book for other people to read. I just wish I could read it fresh, without the expectation that I would love it.
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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!
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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.
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Read this with my ears for book club. Almand performs with a formal voice and cadence, which suits the text and seems appropriate for L'Enlgle's theology, which is on full view here. Love the idea that for facts, Madeleine read nonfiction and for truth, she read fiction. Now I want to read this with my eyes in order to highlight the many superb snippets I’ll want to remember.
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I love so many of Madeleine L’Engle’s books — both her fiction and her explorations of her faith. This one was not one I loved. It had its moments, to be sure, and I wanted to love it, but…
In fairness, I think part of my hangup was the fact that the audiobook version was read by a performer I didn’t enjoy, so listening was irritating at times. However I also found some of it to be quite dated.
In fairness, I think part of my hangup was the fact that the audiobook version was read by a performer I didn’t enjoy, so listening was irritating at times. However I also found some of it to be quite dated.
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Beautiful. I resonate more strongly with L’Engle than maybe any other author. I love her memoirs and have collected them all. Her faith, her creativity, her imagination are all inspiring to me.
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