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River Dave – updates

New Hampshire hermit Dave Lidstone is in trouble, again. He had been evicted last August from the wooded acreage where he squatted in a cabin, and during his night in jail the cabin mysteriously burned down. But an outer building, a shed, did survive, and when let out of jail Dave made his way back to the property and took up residence in the shed. He was arrested again last December and was scheduled to appear in court in March but did not. So, he’s in trouble again. The judge issued a warrent for his arrest.

URL: https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-03-07/river-dave-a-no-show-in-court-on-trespassing-charge

River Dave trust dissolves: https://news.yahoo.com/river-dave-trust-dissolves-hermit-080700938.html

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Nicaragua hermit-sculptor

The United States Agency for Global Media offers a hermit story on its Latin America pages. Headlined: “The hermit who sculpts stones from the moluntains of Nicaragua.” The hermit, Alberto Gutiérrez, is nearly eighty years of age, and lives alone in the southwest of the country on an isolated farm. He has sculpted more than a thousand stone pieces scatttered about his grounds.

URL: https://www.vozdeamerica.com/a/en-fotos-el-ermitano-que-esculpe-las-piedras-de-las-montanas-de-nicaragua/6486163.html

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Ken Smith – update

STVNews reports that Scotland hermit Ken Smith, subject of the documentary film The Hermit of Treig, surprised attendees by personally appearing at the Glasgow Film Festival that featured the film about him. For an interview with the film director Lizzie MacKenzie (pictured, right), visit https://youtu.be/vSW5HlKl7Y0

URL: https://news.stv.tv/scotland/man-living-as-a-hermit-in-the-scottish-highlands-makes-surprise-appearance-at-glasgow-film-festival

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Vatican document on hermits

Aleteia notes that the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announces a new document regulating canonical and other Catholic hermits. The document titled “Ponam in Deserto Viam” was issued in September 2021 but is announced now in February 2022.

The document is not so much regulation as guidelines. It emphasizes the psychological status of the hermit, assuming the hermit’s religious motives. It counsels an organization of daily life, recommends work, regularity to food (versus extremes), and cautions that a life of solitude should not be “too isolated” from others. The hermitage should provide subsistance, and approximation to medical and other resources. The life of the hermit represents a radical vision, states the document, but one that silently demonstrates to others “that it is beautiful to dwell in God alone.”

URL: https://fr.aleteia.org/2022/02/22/pour-la-premiere-fois-rome-donne-des-orientations-aux-ermites/

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Choosing to Choose Company

The title of a recent Psychology Today article addresses the topic:”Why Being Forced to Socialize Can Be So Miserable.”The main points converge around the choice to be alone or with others, with the lowest degree of hapiness or satisfaction occurring when one is not in the company of others by choice. Among the source studies forthis article is a recent studiy published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

URL: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202203/why-being-forced-socialize-can-be-so-miserable