{"id":6066,"date":"2014-08-31T10:15:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-31T16:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6066"},"modified":"2014-08-31T10:15:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T16:15:02","slug":"what-does-one-ask-a-hermit-on-mount-athos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6066","title":{"rendered":"What does one ask a hermit on Mount Athos?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/nonfiction\/the-road-to-the-holy-mountain\">Martin Puchner:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I still don\u2019t know. Fermor didn\u2019t encounter any hermits, though he passed a hermit\u2019s hut, wryly observing that it was the most desolate sight he had ever seen. Perhaps being a hermit was one step too far for the convivial Fermor. Despite his skepticism, I\u2019m sure he would have known what to say: it would have been the ultimate test for this gifted conversationalist.<\/p>\n<p>Periodically the monasteries on Athos crack down on the hermits, accusing them of encouraging personality cults. They undoubtedly do. But I think there is another reason for the crackdowns: the hermits capture a truth about Athos. Having set itself apart, the island lays in waiting for pilgrims and travelers, waiting for our questions, fears and desires, a Christian oracle speaking in voices that are not of this world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Martin Puchner: I still don\u2019t know. Fermor didn\u2019t encounter any hermits, though he passed a hermit\u2019s hut, wryly observing that it was the most desolate sight he had ever seen. Perhaps being a hermit was one step too far for the convivial Fermor. Despite his skepticism, I\u2019m sure he would have known what to say: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6067,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6066\/revisions\/6067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}