In her essay, "An Expedition to the Pole," Annie Dillard approaches the tricky technique of
             symbolism and metaphysical images to portray her thoughts on religion, while avoiding the
             dangers of making it too confusing, or too preachy. Descriptions combined with the narration
             of the absurd are effectively used even without informing the reader that her material departs
             from their own expectations of what is real. Her writing is filled with specific, memorable,
             seemingly random thoughts that eventually develop deep metaphoric power.
             "On the whole," Dillard writes, " I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs,
             sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so
             blithely invoke?" This statement implies that institutionalized religion has somehow lessened the
             true emotions and freedoms of nature and experience. Perhaps the structure of an organized
             religion sometimes require us to hide our genuine feelings, and replace them with what we are
             suppose to be feeling, or following.
             Dillard writes in a sly witty commanding tone that shines a mystical light around ideas in
             the most straightforward prose. Even in the most surreal of sequences, we can still feel her
             confusion, anxiety, and frustration. She writes, " The churches are children playing on the floor
             with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning." Dillard, like her
             fellow church-goers have come to this church in pursuit of the sublime, but the existence of many
             banalities and contradictions seem to insult her sense of dignity. She seems to be saying that an
             individual would be willing to sacrifice education, reason, and dignity for the sake of a glimpse of
             the sacred and holy. It seems like the church should be projecting a
             ...