Failed to understand " that which ". What does it mean?

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

Quote:

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

Let's replace 'that' with some other possibilities and see if that helps you, Ori.

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence those things which we have asked to leave.

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence the very things which we have asked to leave.

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence all those things which we have asked to leave.

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that group of things which we have asked to leave.

But I still haven't got the whole sentence:

Prolem one: the exact meaning of "to recall to our presence;"
Problem two: the exact meaning of " we have asked to leave."

If a thing was the one we have asked to leave, it would be, for example, an immoral or evil one. Am I on the right track?

It is difficult to undo our own damage and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.

Quote:

But I still haven't got the whole sentence:

Prolem one: the exact meaning of "to recall to our presence;"
Problem two: the exact meaning of " we have asked to leave."

If a thing was the one we have asked to leave, it would be, for example, an immoral or evil one. Am I on the right track?

And neither have I, Ori, got the whole sentence that is. I could speculate on the meaning and I might end up being accurate or not. Perhaps a larger context/more actual surrounding text would help.

I. Annie Dillard

It is difficult to undo our own damage, and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave. It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. Did the wind use to cry, and hills shout forth praise? Now speech has perished from among the lifeless things of earth, and living things say very little to very few. Birds may crank out sweet gibberish and monkeys howl; horses neigh and pigs say, as you recall, oink oink. But so do cobbles rumble when a wave recedes, and thunders break the air in lightning storms. I call these noises silence. It could be that wherever there is motion there is noise, as when a whale breaches and smacks the water — and wherever there is stillness there is the still small voice, God's speaking from the whirlwind, nature's old song and dance, the show we drove from town. At any rate, now it is all we can do, and among our best efforts, to try to teach a given human language, English, to chimpanzees.

In the forties an American psychologist and his wife tried to teach a chimp actually to speak. At the end of three years the creature could pronounce, in a hoarse whisper, the words "mama," "papa," and "cup." After another three years of training she could whisper, with difficulty, still only "mama," "papa," and "cup." The more recent successes at teaching chimpanzees American Sign Language are well known. Just the other day a chimp told us, if we can believe that we truly share a vocabulary, that she had been sad in the morning. I'm sorry we asked.

What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.

"Teaching a Stone to Talk" (excerpt)
from Teaching a Stone to Talk; expeditions and encounters
Copyright 1982 by Annie Dillard. Reprinted by permission of Russell & Volkening.

Even though I understand the words and the grammar, I might not fully understand Annie's meaning, but I'll give it a go, Ori.

It is difficult to undo our own damage,

I believe she refers to the damage we humans have caused to the environment

and to recall to our presence that which we have asked to leave.

to remember the things we have caused to become extinct

It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind.

After we bulldoze/destroy a grove of trees, we can't go back to where we were.