Holiness within us is waiting to be experienced

The Holy Man
by Susan Trott

Review by Lee Ambrose

What do you do when sleep eludes you? Many "count sheep" but, Susan Trott chose a different way to deal with her insomnia. She began to envision a "Holy Man" and the pilgrims who would make their trek to see him to gain wisdom and understanding. Woven with bits of Buddhist philosophy, this engaging little book is a set of thirty four vignettes—each depicting a different character flaw in mankind. Each character flaw in turn becomes the perfect springboard for a story of enlightenment.

Author Susan Trott has written several novels including The Housewife and the Assassin, Don't Tell Laura,Incognito, and Sightings to name just a few. Her work has received praise from The San Francisco Chronicle and The Bloomsbury Review. Her writing is published around the world. Some has been optioned for motion pictures.

Joe is a quiet soul. He lives with several other monks in a hermitage on a nameless mountain top. Every summer, he welcomes the many pilgrims who travel to the mountain top to see him. Every year, more pilgrims come and the wait to see The Holy Man becomes longer. During the waiting period, human nature being what it is, stories within the story unfold. Sometimes a pilgrim has already learned a valuable lesson by the time he or she arrives at the door of the hermitage to see Joe.

The grandmother who never receives thank you notes from grandchildren, the man whose jealousy is all-consuming, the alcoholic, the veteran who can't forgive himself for the loss of life he contributed to during the war, the impatient woman, the self-absorbed "famous person"—all of these characters and many more make up a cast of incredibly human individuals. Readers are sure to see a bit of themselves or someone they know within these brief chapters.

Each character's story and redemption is told in an engaging manner reminiscent of a fable. Human frailties are exposed, character flaws are mended, and pilgrims go back out into the world as changed beings because of their experiences along to path to The Holy Man. Everyday concerns are examined with gentle wit, profound wisdom, and simplicity.

When the days become shorter and the temperatures become too cold for people to wait for days and days to see The Holy Man, Joe begins his own period of silence, solitude and reflection. He envisions the people who passed through his home during the summer—he imagines the changed lives they are living and creating.

As Trott brings this delightful tale to a close, she leaves her reader with a sense that there just has to be a sequel in the making... and, in fact, she did write a sequel (The Holy Man's Journey) which was published in 1997. It too is an engaging little book—but that is a book review for another day! 

Excerpts from: "The Holy Man" by Susan Trott

There was a holy man who lived in a hermitage on a mountain. Although solitary, it was not strictly a hermitage because some monks lived there with him. Even before the world began to seek him out, he was rarely alone.
When word got out about him, people came to see him during the summer months when the hermitage was accessible, firs t a few people, then more and more until there was a long line climbing the steep mountain path single file - tens, hundreds, and then thousands, some of whom never made it to his door before the snows forced their return..........
When the door opened wide, the next pilgrim in line, waiting beyond the gate, would be summoned forth by a man in a wheat colored robe, a small, non-descript-looking person.

"Yes?" he would ask when the pilgrim reached the threshold.
"I have come to see the holy man."
"Follow me, please."
He or she would follow the small man through the house, along a hallway with doorways open to various rooms into which the pilgrim would peek hastily, but the monk ahead was already moving so very quickly through the house that the pilgrim couldn't linger but literally had to rush after him.
In no time at all they had passed through the entire first floor of the house and were at a large door similar to the one the pilgrim had entered. It was the back door. The monk opened it wide and said "Goodbye".
"But I have come to see the holy man!" said the visitor plaintively.
"You have seen me," he gently replied.
And the next thing the pilgrim knew he would be outside, the door solidly closed behind him.

This is why the line moved so rapidly and how the holy man got to see so many people - or so many people got to see him. The trip through the house was twenty seconds, add another twenty for greetings and partings, another twenty for returning to the front door, and what you have is a person a minute.
Most times the holy man would add, "If you look on everyone you meet as a holy person, you will be happy," which added seven seconds.
Rarely, but sometimes, which were happy times for him, he sat down and talked to a pilgrim. ...........

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What did pilgrims feel about being given such short shrift after their long inchworm trudge up the mountain? .....
.....even the nicest amongst them, when the door shut on their departure, felt some of these feelings: wronged, hurt, cheated, disappointed, betrayed, ill-used, angry.
But it was amazing how fleeting this letdown was, because, as they stood outside the door, somewhat dazed, feeling any or all of the above, they began to review their visit to the holy man and to understand. The door had been opened to them.

How many places would this happen in a world of peepholes, locks, bolts, and bars?
The door had been opened wide and the one-man reception committee had stood there, eyes alight, a small smile, saying, "Yes?" -a "how may I help you?" sort of yes.
Whereas the pilgrim had not greeted him at all, had not introduced himself, said hello, how are you, may I please come in, but, instead, full of his own importance, his own mission, had treated the door-opener as the lowliest servant, saying, "I've come to see the holy man."

And the door-opener, realizing the visitor's mission had already been accomplished, showed him out. Thinking this, the pilgrim felt very sorry about his behavior and vowed that he would come again next summer and do differently.

He tried to remember what the holy man looked like and couldn't, because he hadn't looked at him. He wouldn't recognize him if the same man opened the door next year, but no matter. He would be courteous and respectful to whoever opened the door. In fact, he would be gracious to everyone from now on, imagining that everyone was the holy man, that everyone indeed had holiness in him. This would be very hard. Still he would try. Because that was what he had learned from the holy man, and it was a huge, wonderful, staggering lesson.

And it meant, yes, it meant that even he himself was a holy person somewhat.