Journey Back to Eden.pdf - St Mark Coptic Orthodox Church Chicago

PREFACEWhile in Egypt, I did not intend to keep a spiritual journal. Myimmediate, practical goal was to spend a year doing ethnographicfieldwork in order to write a dissertation for a doctorate in anthropology.My abbot had commissioned me to this end so that I couldteach at the college affiliated with my Benedictine monastery. Myacademic mission and scholastic zeal precluded the writing of elaboratespiritual reflections in those days.But in spite of myself, the intensity of the faith of those amongwhom I lived and traveled compelled me to scribble little notes inthe margins, or as parentheses in my ethnographic notes, or tomake unexpected excursions into religious meditations while otherwisedoing my “social science.”Some years ago, my colleague in pastoral publication, SisterMichele Ransil, C.D.P., urged me to distill a desert journal frommy notebooks for the readers of our earlier books. Half-heartedly Iagreed, but once I began editing my notes, I had to relive experiencesthat were still painful, as I had never really come to termswith the loss of those days. So, I gave up on the enterprise. However,as time went on, people who regularly attend the retreats Ioffer began to pressure me to once again take up the task of journal-making.Here, then, after two years of sporadic labor, is the result.Compiled together, this gives the appearance of being a coherenttext. But that is not the case. No such journal as this existed on myperson, or in my possessions, when I returned from Egypt. It hasbeen gleaned from haphazardly written comments, letters retrievedfrom my family, stories of my desert sojourn recorded during retreats,footnotes from early drafts of my dissertation, and archivedinterviews. Some of my notebooks contain efforts at recording impressionsin Arabic. Using a tape recorder, I translated these notesix