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

A TIME OF CELEBRATION 99Abuna Elia told me some time ago that the desert has thepower to empty us out. It draws out of us everything that is withinus, not because we project into it, but because it drains us, it impoverishesus. In that sense, there’s a certain kind of immersionthat happens, a baptism. As the children of Israel had to learn to bebaptized in water, which was for them a symbol of death, so, accordingto Abuna Elia, we must be immersed into the desert tolearn our helplessness before the God who called us here. Thedesert imposes on us the iconography of his power.Surely for the monk who lives in the desert, these meditationsare spontaneous and daily affairs. So spontaneous, so natural arethey that they make it possible for him to take a walk in the desertevery day. For him, there is no gratification beyond the sentimentsby which he enjoys the love of God, even in emptiness, even inpoverty. Love for love’s sake, rather than for the benefits which aregained: a walk through the desert, rather than a garden.JANUARY 26, MONDAYInvisible God,Blessed may you be forever for your eternal presence! Yourineffable purity and wordless love never strives nor strains.You are Rest without weariness, Peace without tension, Lovewithout need, Truth without division. Oh, that I could seeyou, that I could behold you for a moment! But I know that Icould not endure it, that my senses would not be able to bearthe impression of the face of my heart’s deepest longing. Createdthings wound me; human faces confound my sight. Howcould I then behold your glory?Here in this desert, I perceive you better than before. By agreat drama, you have “passed by” the world and shownyourself in a mode of revelation that at once is fully true andforthcoming but, at the same time, is gentle and humble sothat the witness of it can heal us, even as it wrenches.I perceive the Gospel now afresh: the babe in a manger;the teacher amid his friends; the innocent man suffering condemnation;the groom bereft and abandoned at the altar. Youin your perfect rest are now submerged in our fruitless labor;you in your pure truth are tangled in our web of lies; you in