Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain - Hardcover

Merrill, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679463054 ISBN 13: 9780679463054

Publisher: Random House, 2005

Synopsis

“If I had learned anything during the war, it was that our walk in the sun is brief, and so I resolved to wander from monastery to monastery, a sojourner in the world of last things.”

So poet and journalist Christopher Merrill tells us near the beginning of this gripping account of the transforming pilgrimages he made to Mount Athos, in Greece, in the aftermath of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. “It was time for me to come to terms with the way my life had turned out: the love I had squandered, the misgivings I had about my vocation and my faith, the dread I felt at every turn.”

In despair and out of a longing to end his spiritual desolation, Merrill became one of a handful of visitors permitted entry to Mount Athos–a mysterious land that for more than a thousand years has been the secret heart of the Eastern Orthodox Church. There, amid the beautiful terrain, the ancient rhythms, and the spiritual rigor of this holy place, he found a haven in dramatic contrast to the rest of the world.

As Merrill’s story unfolds, we, too, hike the rough trails of Athos, exploring a place and a way of life scarcely altered since medieval times. We share encounters with monks, wolves, and spiritual seekers; visit Athos’s twenty monasteries, where exquisite art treasures are sequestered; make our way to lonely hermitages that clutch the cliffs above the sea. And like Merrill, we come to consider existence in a new and different light.

Part journal of personal discovery, part meditation upon the history and traditions of the contemplative life, Things of the Hidden God takes us where the temporal and the eternal intersect, where community and solitude coexist, and where centuries-old practices provide insight for how to live today.

About this title

About the Author:

CHRISTOPHER MERRILL’s books include four collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; translations; several edited volumes; and three books of nonfiction, The Grass of Another Country: A Journey Through the World of Soccer; The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of the Refugee; and Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars.

A literary critic and journalist, his work has been translated into sixteen languages. He has held the William H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, and now directs the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He and his wife, the violinist Lisa Gowdy-Merrill, have two daughters, Hannah and Abigail.

From Publishers Weekly:

For well over 1,000 years, Mount Athos, a small peninsula in the Aegean Sea, has been the center of Eastern Orthodox Christian monasticism. Once home to 10,000 monks, its 20 monasteries and countless hermitages continue to attract hikers and pilgrims (only men allowed), including Merrill, an exhausted poet and essayist: "My marriage was in tatters, war reporting had taken the place of poetry and I was of an age to realize that the resolution of my latest health crisis was just a temporary reprieve." Searching for grace, he made five visits to Mount Athos between Lent of 1998 and Easter of 2000. By book's end, his marriage has revived, he has a new job and he is writing again. This is not, however, a starry-eyed paean to the Holy Mountain: Merrill candidly describes frequent instances of grudging hospitality, rank anti-Semitism and rudeness. Nor is it so much a book about personal renewal—he offers little concrete information about his relational and vocational struggles—as it is an extended reflection on the common sources of faith and poetry. "Prayer and poetry alike depend upon the unknown, although the poet's explorations belong to the temporal order while the monk fights for eternity." Though some may get bogged down in his frequent excursuses into literature, history and theology, others will find illumination in his wide-ranging mystical quest. (Feb. 15)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Random House
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0679463054
• ISBN 13: 9780679463054
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304