Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain

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 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. As Merrills 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 and spiritual seekers; visit Athoss twenty monasteries where exquisite art treasures are sequestered; make our way to lonely hermitages that clutch the cliffs above the sea. 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 offer insight for how to live today.