Our life is a faint tracing on the surface of mystery, like the idle curved tunnels of leaf miners on the face of a leaf. We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise.
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

As humans, we’ve always been master wailers, raising our fists and sending our cries into the swaddling band of darkness. And it goes without saying that we’ve always had much to wail about. The human condition pits us against forces that seem indifferent at best and hostile at worst. We’re hungry, we’re cold, we’re frightened, we’re unhappy, we’re alone, we’re unable to control our own destinies. At best, our wailings have fueled–and continue to fuel–some of the greatest writing, speech, and art the world has known. As readers, listeners, and viewers, we take solace in others’ wailing and find comfort in the awareness that we’re not entirely alone.

Yet, Dillard suggests that we must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it. To consider only our wailings is myopic. Best known as a nature writer, she, like American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, takes to the woods to write. In The Atlantic article, “Where Have You Gone, Annie Dillard?” William Deresiewicz writes that Dillard scrutinizes nature with monastic patience and a microscopic eye. Along the banks of Tinker Creek, she writes about the flora and fauna, about her experiences and revelations there. And she writes brilliantly, wisely, and always reverently. As I read her work, I want to be her, to give magnificent voice to the flora and fauna in my own part of the world.

Deresiewicz contends, however, that for all Dillard’s brilliance as a nature writer, nature isn’t finally her subject. He believes that she is always looking for God and offers his insights into how she takes a wider view:

She is not a naturalist, not an environmentalist; she’s a theologian—a pilgrim. Her field notes on the physical world are recorded as researches toward the fundamental metaphysical conundra: Why is there something rather than nothing, and what on Earth are we doing here? What, in other words—with crayfish and copperheads and giant biting bugs, with creeks and stars and human beings with their sense of beauty—does God have in mind?

For Dillard, to wail the right questions and to choir the proper praise requires a look at the whole landscape–the natural and the spiritual landscape–with keen eyes and minds. Those who really see, then, are pilgrims, like Dillard, devoted to the spiritual quest. This type of seeing, she explains, is another kind of seeing that involves a letting go. Deresiewicz elaborates on this:

You do not seek, you wait. It isn’t prayer; it is grace. The visions come to you, and they come from out of the blue.

Dillard’s seeing–the letting go and the waiting–is intensely spiritual. It’s directed toward God, the creator and giver of grace. God, she suggests, should direct the wider view.

I think most of us believe that we see, wail, and praise just fine. We justify our wailings because the world looks as though it’s going to hell in a handbasket: people are tearing each other apart at school board meetings and in the halls of Congress, the supply chain has stalled, and gas prices are going up. If we’re not looking into the swaddling band of darkness these days, what would you call it?

And we do offer praise as we celebrate the good and the beautiful in our midst: the generosity and heroism of others, the gifts of music and art, the sunrises and sunsets that give us pause. To peer into the darkness and to celebrate the light–isn’t this taking the wider view into the whole landscape?

I think Dillard would respond with some serious questions: To whom or what are you directing your sorrow and your joy? When you look to the hills, from where does your help come? The wider view, she’d say, is a world view. That is, it’s the way you explain why there is something rather than nothing and what on Earth are we doing here. Wailing to nothing is much different than wailing to a suffering God. Facing the swaddling band of darkness utterly alone isn’t the same as walking through the valley of the shadow of death with the God who will one day wipe every tear away. And lifting our praise to nothing is a far cry from lifting our praise to God, the creator.

Of course, these are questions and differences in worldviews that theologians and philosphers have long explored. We expect no less from them, for this is their job. But most of us in the cheap seats struggle with the scholarship and wisdom of such individuals. So, when a naturalist, like Annie Dillard, or a poet, like Mary Oliver, helps us see from the wider view, we’re grateful. We’re familiar with their crayfish and creeks, fawns and flowers. When Dillard and Oliver reverently offer this familiar natural world, they give us eyes to see the supernatural, if we will but use them, and a leg-up into the sacred.

The world would be a much poorer place without Annie Dillard, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Oliver, Aldo Leopold, Marianne Williamson, Bono, Roma Downey, Kurt Warner, and so many other non-theologians whose worldview is founded on God. Through nonfiction, poetry, music, political and social activism, movies, and athletics, they keep the wider view alive–inside and outside of church walls. They call our attention to a sacred audience of One.

The Gift
Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
       --Mary Oliver, Felicity, 2015