Gilead

by

Marilynne Robinson

John’s father was also named the Reverend John Ames, and he, too, was a minister. He was married to Martha Turner Ames. He had a contentious relationship with his own father, John’s grandfather, and their last words to each other were spoken in anger. John’s father was always uncomfortable with his own father’s focus on visions and the miraculous; he preferred to see such things as a reflection of his father’s era and not something to worry about in the present day. After the Civil War, disgusted by his own father’s preaching in support of the war, John attended a Quaker gathering for a while. Even after that, he remained a committed pacifist, and John dearly respected him and his preaching. John’s father had a strained relationship with his son Edward due to the latter’s atheism, but he seems to have grown more sympathetic to Edward in time. In retirement he moved to the Gulf Coast and, after John took over his position at the church, tried to persuade John to leave Gilead, too, to seek broader horizons. John implies that he and his father became estranged after he refused to leave Gilead.

John’s Father Quotes in Gilead

The Gilead quotes below are all either spoken by John’s Father or refer to John’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Life, Death, and Beauty Theme Icon
).
Pages 5-8 Quotes

Well, see and see but do not perceive, hear and hear but do not understand, as the Lord says. I can’t claim to understand that saying, as many times as I’ve heard it, and even preached on it. It simply states a deeply mysterious fact. You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 46-50 Quotes

To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear. I have a lot of respect for that view. When I spoke to my father about the vision he had described to me, my father just nodded and said, “It was the times.” He himself never claimed any such experience, and he seemed to want to assure me I need not fear that the Lord would come to me with His sorrows. And I took comfort in the assurance. That is a remarkable thing to consider.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 86-94 Quotes

I believe that the old man did indeed have far too narrow an idea of what a vision might be. He may, so to speak, have been too dazzled by the great light of his experience to realize that an impressive sun shines on us all. Perhaps that is the one thing I wish to tell you. Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. For example, whenever I take a child into my arms to be baptized, I am, so to speak, comprehended in the experience more fully, having seen more of life, knowing better what it means to affirm the sacredness of the human creature. I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect. That’s the pulpit speaking, but it’s telling the truth.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Related Symbols: Water, Fire and Light
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 94-99 Quotes

My point here is that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience. Or perhaps it has no fixed and certain nature. I remember my father down on his heels in the rain, water dripping from his hat, feeding me biscuit from his scorched hand, with that old blackened wreck of a church behind him and steam rising where the rain fell on embers, the rain falling in gusts and the women singing “The Old Rugged Cross” while they saw to things, moving so gently, as if they were dancing to the hymn, almost. […] I mention it again because it seems to me much of my life was comprehended in that moment. Grief itself has often returned me to that morning, when I took communion from my father’s hand. I remember it as communion, and I believe that’s what it was.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father
Related Symbols: Water, Fire and Light
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 110-115 Quotes

And I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, sheltered and parochial. In every sense, unless it really is a universal and transcendent life, unless the bread is the bread and the cup is the cup everywhere, in all circumstances, […] It all means more than I can tell you. So you must not judge what I know by what I find words for. If I could only give you what my father gave me. No, what the Lord has given me and must also give you. But I hope you will put yourself in the way of the gift.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 173-179 Quotes

So my advice is this—don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. […]

I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather, Edward Ames
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 237-244 Quotes

As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father’s house—even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that’s all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis:
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Gilead PDF

John’s Father Quotes in Gilead

The Gilead quotes below are all either spoken by John’s Father or refer to John’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Life, Death, and Beauty Theme Icon
).
Pages 5-8 Quotes

Well, see and see but do not perceive, hear and hear but do not understand, as the Lord says. I can’t claim to understand that saying, as many times as I’ve heard it, and even preached on it. It simply states a deeply mysterious fact. You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 46-50 Quotes

To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear. I have a lot of respect for that view. When I spoke to my father about the vision he had described to me, my father just nodded and said, “It was the times.” He himself never claimed any such experience, and he seemed to want to assure me I need not fear that the Lord would come to me with His sorrows. And I took comfort in the assurance. That is a remarkable thing to consider.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 86-94 Quotes

I believe that the old man did indeed have far too narrow an idea of what a vision might be. He may, so to speak, have been too dazzled by the great light of his experience to realize that an impressive sun shines on us all. Perhaps that is the one thing I wish to tell you. Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. For example, whenever I take a child into my arms to be baptized, I am, so to speak, comprehended in the experience more fully, having seen more of life, knowing better what it means to affirm the sacredness of the human creature. I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect. That’s the pulpit speaking, but it’s telling the truth.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather
Related Symbols: Water, Fire and Light
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 94-99 Quotes

My point here is that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience. Or perhaps it has no fixed and certain nature. I remember my father down on his heels in the rain, water dripping from his hat, feeding me biscuit from his scorched hand, with that old blackened wreck of a church behind him and steam rising where the rain fell on embers, the rain falling in gusts and the women singing “The Old Rugged Cross” while they saw to things, moving so gently, as if they were dancing to the hymn, almost. […] I mention it again because it seems to me much of my life was comprehended in that moment. Grief itself has often returned me to that morning, when I took communion from my father’s hand. I remember it as communion, and I believe that’s what it was.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father
Related Symbols: Water, Fire and Light
Page Number: 95-96
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 110-115 Quotes

And I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, sheltered and parochial. In every sense, unless it really is a universal and transcendent life, unless the bread is the bread and the cup is the cup everywhere, in all circumstances, […] It all means more than I can tell you. So you must not judge what I know by what I find words for. If I could only give you what my father gave me. No, what the Lord has given me and must also give you. But I hope you will put yourself in the way of the gift.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father
Page Number: 114
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 173-179 Quotes

So my advice is this—don’t look for proofs. Don’t bother with them at all. They are never sufficient to the question, and they’re always a little impertinent, I think, because they claim for God a place within our conceptual grasp. And they will likely sound wrong to you even if you convince someone else with them. That is very unsettling over the long term. […]

I’m not saying never doubt or question. The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I’m saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, John’s Grandfather, Edward Ames
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Pages 237-244 Quotes

As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father’s house—even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that’s all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality.

Related Characters: Rev. John Ames (speaker), John’s Son (The Boy), John’s Father, Jack (John Ames) Boughton, Rev. Robert Boughton
Page Number: 238
Explanation and Analysis: