Holy the Firm

Dillard is hesitant to make any concrete claims about the nature of physical reality and at times goes so far as to dismiss the notion that the material world is real or even worth caring about (23). Despite these hesitations, Dillard continually depicts the physical world as infused with gods. From the idea that “Every day is a god, each day is a god” (11) to the idea that the world is only God’s “flimsiest dreams” (44), Dillard’s world is permeated by a god who seems at once to create and organize the world. Dillard’s world is so alive, in fact, that her depiction of it can slip into animism, or the belief that all objects and creatures possess a spiritual essence.

It is unclear whether Dillard consciously attempts to merge animism with Christian practice or whether the two are joined, as if by accident, by Dillard’s conclusion that “the world is immanation” of God’s mind (69). The world as a product of an active divine imagination is both completely illusory and completely suffused with God; as Dillard postulates earlier in the narrative, “God is spirit and worlds his flimsiest dreams: but the illusions are almost perfect” (44).