7 The Hermit refuses to Run Away
The popular notion of the hermit life is that the hermit has run away, and I guess the popular notion in Egypt was that the children of Israel had run away. Obviously, if they’ve taken off into the wilderness they’ve run away from the reality of brick-building and so on. But I think it’s the other way round: he who stays put in his own ideas, his own ways, those caught up in the search for comfort and security are the ones who are evading the realities of life, they are enslaved to yesterday, when life is about movement, about growth and change. If you refuse the wilderness you can say that is evading reality, because you’ve refused to answer the call. In the wilderness, in the silence, there is a lot of room and nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide – you can’t hide in a desert, it’s a big open place. You can hide in a city, in busy-ness, but not in a desert.
There should be no illusions about the desert, no romantic ideas as to what it’s about, you should know that the desert is before you, which means that the truth about your own radical poverty is before you. But if you trust in God, and make this journey, then just as Israel was formed as a nation, so you too will be formed as an individual.
I like to make this distinction between an individual and a person; the word person in English comes from the Latin persona, and it means someone who wears a mask, someone who plays a role in the theatre. If you are wearing a mask you are divided, because there is the role you are playing to please the crowd, and there is the reality of yourself that you know when you are backstage – the appearance is one thing and the reality is another. Now the word individual means someone who is undivided, and if you can see the totality of yourself without fear then you are not divided against yourself, and hence there is no conflict. If you are divided in yourself then there has got to be conflict in your life, and you dissipate energy trying to appear one thing while the reality is another. If you put an end to this conflict perhaps there will be enough energy to actually deal with your problems. You see even to know what is happening in your mind requires so much sensitivity and so much energy.