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

96 JANUARYI find myself in the unusual condition of being unable to cryout against the discomforts around me. Everyone here is experiencingthem in more or less the same way, and I would feel foolish,even ridiculous, complaining about them. Besides, the complaintwould get me nowhere; there are no solutions to these problems.This situation is unfamiliar to me and it is humbling. It is also unusualfor me to live in the company of people who don’t cry outand who don’t complain, but who quietly and almost withoutthought accept these conditions.Maybe one of the reasons my generation feels itself at such adistance from the generations that have gone before is because wedon’t occupy the world in the same way. We don’t even occupy ourskin in the same way. We are able to obtain more immediate consolationsand comforts, and we deal less and less patiently with theeventualities afforded by nature.But here, now, I consider that anything that brings me to agreater resignation, a greater submission to forces I cannot change,is also an opportunity for me to come into the presence of Godwhom I cannot control, and to acknowledge his sovereignty. I exerciseno mastery over the will of God, but must come to a simplesubmission to it, a complete and peaceful acceptance of it. I caneven extend this beyond the teachings of my own Faith to Judaismwhich certainly acknowledges a submission to God. Even the name“Israel” means the surrendering of oneself wholly and entirely toGod’s will. The name “Islam,” likewise, has a similar meaning;Moslems also assert the value of submission to the will of God.Now as I live in this Near-Eastern desert environment, I beginto taste something of the seasonal and climatic atmosphere inwhich Judaism and Islam, as well as Christianity, came to know thesovereignty of God, the almighty hand of God exercised throughcreation. Creation itself is a sign of the divine authority over all theheavens and the earth, the exercise of divine love by which heavenand earth came to be.JANUARY 22, THURSDAYHidden Lord,My crying out is to you, O God, to you! The prayer of mygreatest needs rises up from the deepest place within me. How