I said it again today: "Everybody is crazy but me and you, and I have my doubts about you..." Seriously, what I said to my wife was, "Can't we just pull out, leave, check out, unplug, get a cabin in the mountains where I will have you, my books, a fireplace, a dog and a view. [...]
I see that the Suburban Hermit has been silent since the middle of February. Readers have asked, "What has happened to the Suburban Hermit? Have you closed that blog?" The answer is that I have been very busy and have been feeling for some time that my writing is going in a different direction, but I'm [...]
Thomas Merton was a hermit at the Trappist Monastery of Gethesamani in Kentucky. His autobiography The Seven Story Mountain is one of the best tales of God getting hold of a man and that man's true conversion. Merton's later life was controversial as he was caught up in the turmoil of the 1960s, but his writings are beautiful [...]
The hermits of Camaldoli were founded by St Romuald--a Benedictine monk-- in the mountains of central Italy in 1012. It is the home base of the Camaldolese Monastic order. I visited Camaldoli in the summer of 1987 during my hitch hiking pilgrimage from England to the Holy Land. It was a long hike up the mountain before [...]
Solitude is not loneliness and loneliness is not simply being alone. Loneliness is a condition of the heart, not the circumstances of life. When one is lonely there is a lack of knowing love in the depth of the human heart. Loneliness is a symptom of the yawning absence at the foundation level of each human [...]
Emily Dickinson's Home with her room illuminated A reminder that there are those with a hermit's heart who are not Catholic and have never taken vows. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Although part of a prominent family with strong ties to its [...]
The Holy Mountain - Mount Athos is the premier monastery--or collection of monasteries in the Eastern Orthodox faith. Located on a peninsula in Northeastern Greece... Mount Athos has been inhabited since the ancient times and is known for its nearly 1,800-year continuous Christian presence and its long historical monastic traditions, which date back to at least 800 A.D. and [...]
Skellig Michael The ancient Irish hermitages of Skellig Michael were used as a location for filming the new Star Wars movie. Skellig Michael (Irish: Sceilig Mhichíl), or Great Skellig (Irish: Sceilig Mhór) is the larger of the two Skellig Islands located 11.6 km west of the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland.[2] A Christian monastery was founded on the island at some point between the 6th and 8th [...]
Maxime the Stylite of Katskhi in Georgia lives here. Learn more.