THE HOLY ORDINARY IN
MARILYNNE ROBINSON'S
HOME
Naomi Kim
“What does it mean to come home?” wonders
Glory, the youngest of the now grown Boughton
children. For Glory, coming home is a type of
failure, a disappointment: she has returned to the
small town of Gilead because her engagement
has been broken off. Gone are her dreams of
marriage, of a house and a family of her own.
Instead, Glory finds herself taking care of
the old Boughton house and her frail father,
the Presbyterian Reverend Robert Boughton.
Patio, Kristen Marchetti ‘22
But Glory is not the only Boughton who comes
home in Marilynne Robinson’s novel. Glory’s
older brother Jack, the misfit in his well-behaved
and pious family, also makes an unexpected
return to the family home. For years, Reverend
Boughton has prayed for his wayward son to
come home and to come to faith, while Jack has
spent his long absence from home falling into
various sorts of trouble. When he turns up on
the doorstep at last, he is a “thin, weary, unkempt
man…reluctant even to step through the door.”
Yet Jack is met with warmth and grace just as he
is, much as the prodigal son in Jesus’s parable is
met with his father’s unconditional love and joyous
welcome. The father in this parable embodies
the Christian idea of grace: the unearned love
and mercy that God freely bestows upon people.
22 Fall 2020