Holy the Firm

Holy the Firm’s third part takes place on November 20. Dillard opens her account of this day with much more sympathy toward God than she expressed on November 19. She has come to the conclusion that she knows “only enough of God to want to worship him, by any means ready to hand” (55). She considers it strange that the senses’ relationship to space feels so specific, and that it is through these particular spaces that God seems to operate. She then contrasts this with the experience of time.

Dillard considers the romantic notion that God reveals himself to people whose role in life can be easily summarized—the “sinners” and “the poor” who are earnest and live an existence free of contradictions (56). She contrasts these simple lives with the business and complexity of her contemporary life. She concludes that contemporary life might not be conducive to God’s revelations or to Christian practice as a whole but that there is now nobody else but flawed, over-busy people to participate in spiritual life. Dillard also questions the idea that past people did in fact live simple, uncomplicated lives.

The only place of worship on Dillard’s island is a Congregationalist church, which she attends every Sunday morning.