Annie Dillard, "The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure"

In August and September 2004, hurricanes that swept through Central Florida destroyed billions of dollars of property and displaced tens of thousands of residents. Fortunately, few people died as a consequence. But three months later, in the very last week of the year, a tsunami-a massive tidal wave-triggered by an earthquake on the floor of the Indian Ocean, left more than two hundred and fifty thousand people dead while destroying the homes and livelihoods of millions throughout South and Southeast Asia. How can humanity ever come to terms with the colossal natural forces that unleash such destruction routinely? Is it true, as Annie Dillard speculates, that "the might of the universe is arrayed against us"?

Dillard, a poet, essayist, novelist, and writing teacher, won a Pulitzer Prize for her book of naturalist reflections, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1973), when she was just twenty-nine years old. In this, her first book, Dillard describes the life she elected to live in a remote part of the Blue Ridge Mountains after she had survived a near-fatal bout of pneumonia. Weaving together observations of her surroundings with mystical longings and theological reflections on the violence and the beauty that coexist in the natural world, Dillard set out, in her own words, "to learn, or remember, how to live. . . . I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular . . . but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive."

In the many books that have followed, including Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982), her autobiographical musings in An American Childhood (1987), and her novel, The Living (1992), Dillard has continued to ruminate on the power of nature and to wonder about the place of humanity in the cosmos. For Dillard, the enduring appeal and importance of such a spiritual project is self-evident: "In nature I find grace tangled in a rapture with violence; I find an intricate landscape whose forms are fringed in death; I find mystery, newness, and a kind of exuberant, spendthrift energy."

"The Wreck of Time" includes passages that appear in For the Time Being (2000), Dillard's most recent effort to define a spiritual vision that embraces a cosmos where grace "is tangled in a rapture with violence." Although Dillard was raised a Presbyterian, she converted to Catholicism in her twenties and now describes herself as a "Hasidic Christian," her meditations on the natural world having led her to unite Jewish mysticism with Christian spirituality. "The world is as glorious as ever, and exalting," Dillard announces at the beginning of For the Time Being, "but for credibility's sake let's start with the bad news." If one starts with the bad news, as Dillard does in "The Wreck of Time," is it possible to recover a sense that "the world is as glorious as ever"? That the future is bright? These are the questions that Dillard wrestles with-and asks her readers to wrestle with, as well.

Dillard, Annie. "The Wreck of Time." Harper's. vol. 296, no. 1772. Jan. 1998. 51-56.
Digital image drawn from the New York Times' Featured Author series.
Quotations from Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, HarperPerennial, 1973; Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, Vintage Books, 2000; Annie Dillard's interview with Grace Suh The Yale Herald, Oct. 4, 1996.

Links to Explore:

Nature Girl: A Discussion of Annie Dillard's Career: this article by David Bowman of Salon.com provides an overview of Dillard's publishing career and a discussion of the major influences on her work. For additional interviews with Dillard, reviews of her work, and selections from For the Time Being, visit the New York Times Featured Author web site (requires free registration).

The Association for Religion and Intellectual Life: the home page for the publishers of CrossCurrents, a journal for "people of faith and intelligence who are committed to connecting the wisdom of the heart and the life of the mind." Includes an extended review of Dillard's work by Pamela Smith.

The Hubble Telescope: the home page for the Space Telescope Science Institute, this site provides access to the latest images from the Hubble Telescope.

54 Ways You Can Help the Homeless: this site, by Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, provides concrete ways to improve the lives of the homeless.

Questions for Learning:

• How would you characterize Bowman's treatment of Dillard in Nature Girl? What does he value about Dillard's work? Does his assessment of her writing help to shed light on the project of "The Wreck of Time"?
  
  
• The Association for Religion and Intellectual Life has published a series of essays on the topic "Nature as Thou." There is a review of Dillard's work in this collection of essays, along with discussions of how every major religion is engaged in rethinking the relationship between human society and the biosphere. After you've read Pamela Smith's review of Dillard's work, define what it means to be an "ecotheologist." What should the relationship be between religion and environmentalism?
  
  
• "Two galaxies, nine galaxies . . . sixty-nine suns, 100 billion suns. These astronomers are nickel-and-diming us to death." What is gained by studying astronomy? Why has the government invested so much time, energy, and money in launching and then maintaining The Hubble Telescope? What is gained by mapping the universe?
  
  
• Near the end of "The Wreck of Time," Dillard asks the following question: "One small town's soup kitchen, St. Mary's, serves 115 men a night. Why feed 115 individuals?" Does 54 Ways You Can Help the Homeless answer Dillard's question? In explaining how to help, does Rabbi Kroloff answer why one should or might help?

Questions for Connecting:

• At the end of "Does God Have a Future?" Karen Armstrong asserts, "Human beings cannot endure emptiness and desolation; they will fill the vacuum by creating a new focus of meaning." Does Annie Dillard do this? What philosophical, religious, or moral system emerges from the vision Dillard has provided in "The Wreck of Time"?

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