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

A TIME TO PRESS ONWARD 173to genuinely sleep at night. One needs to be moving, so standingand praying in the church is a way of coping with the extremity ofthe cold. Now, in the summer, one can’t really sleep at night either;it’s too hot. But being in the church is cooler than being in one’scell. In the chapel, at least, there is the social energy necessary toparticipate in the communal work of monastic prayer. So, thehours that are more bearable, more livable, both in winter and insummer, are dedicated to prayer in the middle of the night. In thesummertime, this frees the hottest hours of the afternoon for relativeinertia, as one is genuinely unable to physically work—or eventhink—effectively in the high temperatures.I personally feel guilty for obsessing about the weather somuch. I am just living my personal drama of a Sahara desert summerand what it means in my imagination, to my body. I shouldsimply attempt to experience my surroundings in the spirit of thosewho live here year after year, rather than to project onto that experiencewhat it means from my perspective. Besides that, in terms ofmy own spirituality and prayer life, my surrender to the presentwith all of its challenges, its blessings, as well as its hardships, ispart of my embrace of the Paschal Mysteries. Not to exaggerate itsburdens or its discomforts in order to make myself a victim in myown right, rather than one who shares in the blessing, the solidarityof the victimhood of Christ who is the victim, is my truest, mostessential right of all.MAY 14, THURSDAYO Light of the World,I lit a candle today in the monastery church, and almostlaughed at myself for the feeling that the pious gesture evokedin me. I dreaded adding the heat of a little flame to the alreadyhot atmosphere! I did not want to contribute anything tothe rising temperatures; my original purpose was to petitionyou for grace to bear it all better in these next few months.Would that I had such reluctance to add the slightest illwill by my words to the social atmosphere of uncharity in theworld from which I came! And would that I begged for suchdivine protection from the deadly climate of cynicism and spitewhich afflicts the culture to which I will one day return.