Public Debate

The loud public debate on atheism, sounds of which occasionally reach me by way of posts on various philosophical sites, reminds me that the borderzone’s a region of solitude. And the sounds then, in turn, remind me: that word, hermit, comes from the Greek word eremites, which (as the Online Etymology Dictionary tells me) literally means a “person of the desert.” That word is fashioned from eremia, desert, solitude. The picture in my mind is of a great stadium packed with many thousands. A championship game is taking place. The crowds roar their joy or rage. But I’m in a little shaded park quite some distance from the stadium, sitting on a bench, reading a book—but close enough so that I can still occasionally hear the crowd. Now, of course, we don’t originate in deserts but issue from communities. It’s a slow, hard, gradual trip out into the deserts of understanding. Memories remain of time when our passions flared with heat; we had our favorites we desperately wished would win. But comes a time when we have learned enough to sooth that partisan impulse rising reflexively. Past that. Forget it. The sun shines. The trees above cause dappled patterns of shade and light to move over the pages of the open book as a breeze blows. Distantly the masses roar, subside…