The passing of Christopher Hitchens, however, has woken me from my slumber, however briefly. I met him in, I think, 2007 when he was on his book tour for "god Is Not Great." He engaged in a genial debate with Marvin Olasky, inventor of the phrase "compassionate conservativism" and a former Bush apparatchik. I say "genial" because Olasky's advocacy of the proposition "religion does more good than bad" was so tepid as to make me wonder whether he believed his own bullshit. I suspect he feared - knew - that were he to attempt an actual defense of the role of religion in Bush Administration debacles like pregnancy crisis centers, the war in Iraq, and other "faith-based initiatives," he would be eviscerated by Hitchens, who bantered good-naturedly with Olasky and moderator Evan Smith, but exuded a leonine alertness for opportunities to advance the thesis of his book's subtitle: "Religion Poisons Everything."
After the 'debate,' he signed books and chatted up the crowd. When I told him that I'd been a monk for ten years but was now somewhere between agnosticism and atheism, he was genuinely curious and spent about five minutes in conversation with me. I suspect he had many such conversations on his book tour.
Here's something else: when I was keeping this journal before, my goal was to be widely read. I hoped to publish ideas that were interesting enough, and frequently enough, that I would gain a readership. Now, I feel a little differently. The desire to write has been focused inward: to let me tell myself my own story. As I grow older, I find myself looking backwards more, wanting to recount the moments that formed me, wanting to tell the story of my life.
More on that soon. For now, I mourn the passing of a great intellect and fantastic writer.
