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

INTRODUCTION 3classmates have been in doctoral programs for nearly a decade, butby the end of just one year, my confreres were asking when I wouldbe finishing my dissertation! So I hastened my program as much asI could, thereby taking courses out of their proper sequence.So it happened that in my second year, I appeared in a dissertationmethodology class, quite ahead of schedule, in an attempt tofinish my course work early. Madame Professor walked in, eyed usall dubiously, and announced: “This class is only for advancedgraduate students preparing their dissertations or proposals forfieldwork” (read “ethnographic fieldwork,” that year-long, intensive,participant-observation, cultural research for which anthropologyis famous). She went on to say: “If you do not have a dissertationtopic, and if you have not already compiled a bibliographyand completed a considerable amount of research, please leave theclass now!”I sat there motionlessly, suspended between two conflictingpoles of authority. Before my face, my professor said “Leave!” Inmy mind, my abbot said, “Hurry up your course work; stay!” I hesitatedlong enough for the professor to assume my compliance withher command. She looked about and said, “Fine. We’re all stillhere.” Then, looking straight at me, she said, “You, for instance,what is your topic?”Without thinking, I blurted out, “Egypt. I shall investigate theCoptic people of Egypt.”“Oh!” she exclaimed in utter disbelief. “Really! Tell me aboutthem.”In fact, I knew almost nothing of what I spoke! I had consideredno dissertation topic and had done no research. But as “fate” wouldhave it, that very morning, as I surveyed the pastor’s antique collectionof National Geographic magazines while sipping a cup of coffee,I happened to pick up an issue featuring the wonders of the Nile.Somewhere deep in the text, I noted a small picture of a ChristianCopt. A little blurb stated that these people number about ten percentof the population in Egypt; that there are still monasteriesthere dating back to the beginnings of monasticism; and that theCopts still practice their ancient form of Orthodox religion. I readthe article with little interest, put the journal back in its place, andwent to class.This is what popped into my head when the professor asked formy dissertation topic. I had read the works of the Desert Fathers in