“We are here to witness the creation and to abet it.”
The essays center on the magnificence of nature and identify aspects of the natural world that show God’s presence. In the essays, Dillard spends a significant amount of time describing natural phenomena that she subsequently deciphers. Thus, the statement expresses this aspect of appreciating the complexity and glory of nature, as we are a part of it as it is of us. Therefore Dillard implores the reader to bring out the beauty of the natural world by noticing its splendor.
“Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand—that of finding a workable compromise between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”
The quotation arises from the comparison Dillard attempts to make between the modern Catholic Church to the polar explorations. She illustrates how both go to the immense effort, though unprepared, for the inaccessible in order to seek the sublime conclusion. In the narrative, Dillard expresses the aspect of complete sacrifice or rather compromise of personal desires to reach the unknown. Thus, the statement highlights this dynamic that the church congregation and the polar explorers share.
“The silence is all there is. It is the alpha and the omega, it is God's brooding over the face of the waters; it is the blinded note of the ten thousand things, the whine of wings.
Frequently Dillard references the silence of nature as the voice of God hence the meaning of life is in this element. The eponymous essay affirms that God’s intentions were misunderstood when he spoke and Moses impelled Him not to speak, therefore the silence. She uses various imagery to suggest that the divine elements of nature live in the silence that is experienced in it. In that cosmic order does not need overt signals to attest to its existence rather it can be found inn the silence itself.
