The Way of the Hermit: My 40 years in the Scottish wilderness

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At first sight the lives of hermits, living in solitude and committed to a life of prayer and contemplation seems to be a world apart of the active practice of interfaith dialogue. Yet, there is a long tradition of seeking the divine together and thus making a contribution to better mutual understanding and an active contribution to peace between Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism in India. Dialogue in silence; speaking without words; this complex book explores the possibility of connection between faiths in the sacred space that silence allows and is a useful addition to the growing literature on interfaith dialogue. Could you leave behind the bustle of modern society and spend your days immersed in nature? In The Way of the Hermit, seventy-four-year-old Ken Smith recounts a life he has chosen to spend alone with the wilderness. The Reverend Dr Peniel Jesudason Rufus Rajkumar, Programme Executive, Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation, World Council of Churches, Switzerland Gene: Which leads to my last quote in this section which says - “Nor let him have any alliance with those theorists who… are wiser than Heaven; (and) know the aims and purposes of the Deity, and can see a short and more direct means of attaining them, than it pleases Him to employ: who would have no discords in the great harmony of the Universe… but equal distribution of property, no subjection of one man to the will of another, no compulsory labor, and still no starvation, nor destitution, nor pauperism.”

Gene: It’s the Pillars of Mercy and Severity again, with you as the Middle Pillar trying to maintain equilibrium. What about you, what’s your takeaway? Gene: That’s a good point. Another thing is that the “Seven Laws” are a prototype for the “Ten Commandments”, later revealed to Moses. But you might say that Noah is “laying down the law” really for the first time… and by that I mean writing them down. God’s words written in stone, metaphorically, or I guess according to myth, literally. Gene: So, in a nutshell, if you’re talking about someone, you’re supposed to focus on the positive, and leave it to someone else to list all the negative, because everyone has both.

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Born in Derbyshire, Smith left school aged 15 in 1963, and went to work for the Forestry Commission at Bridge of Gaur in Perthshire, planting trees. It was not an entirely pleasant experience: “The lads I lived with were merciless bullies, especially to newcomers or people they marked out as a bit different from the rest.” For a few years, Smith drifted from job to job – until October 14 1974, when he was 26, and his life changed forever. He was leaving a disco in Ripley when he was set upon by a gang of skinheads who, for no good reason, threw him through a window and beat him mercilessly. After two weeks in a coma and four operations, Smith returned to work, where he promptly fell onto some steel spikes, just missing his vital organs – and then his mother died. Gene: Yeah. Tell me about it. But it’s just saying that any utopia you can imagine, most likely doesn’t materialize like you expect. David: And this is the bridge period between the pre-diluvian and the post-diluvian world, before and after the flood. New rules for a new world.

Understandably, these events led him to re-evaluate his life. He decided that none of the usual coping mechanisms would work: no “booze, gambling, junk food, drugs or smoking, all just to mask the tedium, while accelerating us closer to the grave”. Instead, he went to Canada. Once he was in the Yukon, living in the wild, he started to feel more at peace and at home. After six months he returned to England and scraped by, but after another trip to Canada, he had a choice to make, to “accept my predestined place in the lifelong tradition of earning little while giving over my body, mind and most of my time to paying rent and bills – or… replicate that new-found way of life.” Seventy-four-year-old Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands. He lives alone, with no electricity or running water. His home is a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as ‘the lonely loch’, where he lives off the land: he fishes for his supper, chops his own wood, and even brews his own tipple. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a hermit… The Way of the Hermitis a humourous, transcendant and life-affirming memoir.” PanMacmillan Gene: Could be. But anyway, at the turn of the century there were about 3000 “Moon Lodges in the U.S. but by the 1950’s there were only about 500, and now there are supposedly only about 129. Set a small routine of prayer and meditation for your daily life, start and keep to it. Do not read about it, or talk too much about it, just do it! And the Absolute will be waiting for you. Gene: Yeah, that’s Matthew 7:2 - “... with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”David: That quote continues with “A thousand presses, flooding the country with their evanescent leaves, are busily and incessantly engaged in maligning the motives and conduct of men and parties, and in making one man think worse of another; while, alas, scarcely one is found that ever, even accidentally, labors to make man think better of his Fellow. Slander and calumny were never so insolently licentious in any country as they are this day in ours. The most retiring disposition, the most unobtrusive demeanor, is no shield against their poisoned arrows.” To write The Way of The Hermit, Will spent a year travelling to and from Ken’s cabin in a remote corner of the Scottish Highlands. Interviewing him long into the night and meticulously scouring his extraordinary diaries for stories of his adventurous life very well lived – this book represented one of his greatest challenges as a writer; drawing on all his skills, including those wrought in expeditions overseas, and ultimately changing him profoundly as a person.

Gene: Exactly. They were basically an appeal of last resort. Here’s another quote - “Accusations were made mysteriously, often by nailing a notice up to a tree, and failure to appear for trial was punished by death. The possible trial verdicts were death, banishment or acquittal.” David: At Pentecost, the disciples “spoke in tongues” and could understand all the languages, so basically a reversal of how God smote people at the Tower. David: Yeah, I hear you Walter. But it just makes me think that you don’t know where that line is until you step over it and get smited. David: So, you’re sworn in and the trial commences. Does the Count deny that he has abused his power?Will Millard] is a master wordsmith and his first book is a joyful testament to that’ Heat Magazine David: You know, if you think about it, resentment is like a mind cancer. It grows and feeds on itself… and saps your energy, that could be used for something positive. But the interesting part, and the part that pertains to this Degree, is that the harsh judgment you make, which is the “crime”, if you want to call it that, carries its own punishment. A wonderfully fluent account of how the strange magic of water, and the beings that inhabit it, can enchant and intoxicate” Chris Yates There are fascinating tracts in here about the role of hermits in past societies and lots of practical advice – how to shape cabin poles, catch trout and build fires using techniques Smith learnt from Indigenous Canadians – but it feels as though there’s something more important lingering here, too, a kernel of kindness and an idea for a society built on warm, good-natured reciprocity with each other and all the beings among whom we live. Smith seems to stand like a shy, modest trailblazer and perhaps the most unlikely of life coaches, just nodding encouragingly from his woodpile, saying, ‘Go on, why not give it a go?’ Gene: Well, silence was referred to in two very different ways in this Degree. On the one hand, you had the silent judgment of the “Holy Vehm” tribunal, and on the other, we were lectured to keep silent about the faults of others.

Gene: Just that it mentions being out under the stars, and that the ritual is linked to the mysteries of Ceres and Isis.The book explores how living a life of silence and contemplation can contribute to interfaith dialogue. Could you explain how this is so? The lives and hopes of all human beings are very similar as the Dalai Lama would reiterate. Thus, I have found a deep communion and friendship with others who seek the Absolute in India and Chile. Particularly in India I have met over the years Buddhist monks, Hindu Sadhus and Sikh scholars with whom we have shared not intellectual thoughts but our very souls, eating together, chanting, and laughing about the joys of being together. I must confess that I have found that many people who live a religious commitment tend to be sad, I do not understand that. On returning to see others at the Golden Temple or in the bathing areas of Varanasi I have always found a warm hand and a ready smile. God has given us a journey and it is great to do it with others even when in silence. Feature article on encountering a diamond mine during RGS/Radio 4 Journey of a Lifetime Geographical Magazine May 2014 BBC Radio 4/RGS Journey of a Lifetime: ‘Surviving malaria on the Mano River’ for BBC News online Sept 2013 Pre-descent column on first descent of the Moro in Salone/Liberia for the Daily Telegraph April 2013