God (or creator) as Light or Darkness

A major theme that Dillard explicitly explored is God as lightness or darkness. At times she avoids using the endearment God and simply says “creator.” The book is divided into two halves with “The Flood” serving as the bisector. The first half of the book looks at the wondrous intricacy and abundance in the world. Dillard talks a lot about light and feeling the abundance of God, of feeling divine intelligence in the natural world.

At a roadside gas station she has a transcendental moment in when she feels she is part of something more than this world or this moment and that these moments must belong to a higher creator. Again and again as she is walking beside Tinker Creek fascinated at the abundance of life she recalls the moment when she is patting the puppy and feeling something larger than...