Faith is a relative concept to many people. Whether they see it as simply an action to participate in or a way of life, it dictates what they do. Through various literary devices, Meditation 17 by John Donne, How I Found Religion at a Baseball Game by Robert Fink, and An American Childhood by Annie Dillard all effect the reader and makes them think deeply about what the author is saying while utilizing various methods to do so. One similar aspect of the three essays is the author’s idea and opinion of God. Their views of God and their faith may have been different, but the main idea and concept of God remains the same. They all acknowledge how God is in some way, shape, or form involved in everybody’s life and has great power. Donne believes everyone is connected to God through …show more content…
Again, giving God authority and power. Finally there is Dillard. Dillard went to church but did not truly know God. By the end of the excerpt she recognizes this fact. She believed in God and his power but she did not feel or know him on a personal level. Dillard says, “I left Pittsburg before I had a grain of sense. Who is my neighbor? I never learned what the strangers around me had known and felt in their lives- those little, sarcastic boys in the balcony, those expensive men and women in the pews below- but it was more than I knew after all”(128). She knew the power that God had to influence the people around her, she personally felt different about this fact compared to the people she went to church with. Donne, Fink, and Dillard all acknowledged God’s power and presence but they did not share the same view of God and faith. Donne viewed God as the end all. God was the author of every individual’s book and what he “wrote” was what happened. There may have been varying ways of how the book turned out but it always leads to the same ending. He says, “All mankind is of one author, and is of one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into