The Truth that is Fiction

Excerpts from "A Circle of Quiet" by Madeline L'Engle

...There is a violent kind of truth in the most primitive myths, a truth we need today, because probably the most important thing those first storytellers did for their listeners back in the dim past in their tales of gods and giants and fabulous beasts was to affirm that the gods are not irrational, that there is structure and meaning in the universe, that God is responsible to his creation.

Truth happens in these myths. That is why they have lasted. If
they weren't expressions of truth they would have long been forgotten...(205)

And another:

It is an extraordinary and beautiful thing that God, in creation, uses precisely the same tools and rules as the artist; he works with the beauty of matter; the reality of things; the discoveries of the senses, all five of them; so that we, in turn, may hear the grass growing; see a face springing to life in love and laughter; feel another human hand or the velvet of a puppy's ear; taste food prepared and offered in love; smell-oh, so many things: food, sewers, each other, flowers, books, new-mown grass, dirt...

Here in the offerings of creation, the obligations of story and song, are our glimpses of truth. (206-207)