In order to be close to God, people will say you have to go to church along with follow all sorts of traditions. But Dickinson’s poem is suggesting that one doesn’t have to find God through the church, instead they can find him on their own means.
And she’s right. It’s true that many people need the church to help them understand God, and that’s fine. But their way of doing it isn’t necessarily the “right” way. No one really knows what the “right” way is since it’s not really known what God actually wants. Therefore it’s only right to let people decide how they go about their own faith.
“I keep it, staying at Home.” This is an important line. A lot of times a person can develop their faith in solitude and isolation rather than through a religious community.
In fact, “Anchorites” in religion are people who would completely isolate themselves from the world in the name of faith (it was mainly done during the middle ages). They serve as an example of people who have a relationship with God on their own without having to interact with society.
In a way, society holds a person back from reaching a full relationship with God, since it is so restrictive of people’s behavior.
It’s well known that Emily Dickinson was a very isolated person and she seemed to have a quarrelsome relationship with God. But with this poem it suggests she found what she needed to know about God through her own means, and in her own ‘home’.
