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

178 MAYI’m staying at the house of the Kamal-Hannas in Heliopolis,enjoying a few days of feasting. Madame Juliet, the matron of thehouse, is extremely hospitable and treats every day in which a guestlives in her home as a day of celebration, a day of great generosity.I’m gaining weight, I think, from just a few days of being here. ItalianSunday dinners have nothing on the hospitality of the daily farehere!MAY 25, MONDAYO God Who Is,I miss you! You are with me in this place; your eye is onme and your hand is over me, but I cannot find you in the cityas I remember you in the desert. How wonderful and howstrange! When I lived there these past few months, I thoughtthat you were so transcendent, so totally other. You were theGod who lived infinitely above the arid earth. But I musthave been swimming in the pool of your presence there, anddid not know it then. Only now do I realize it in the loss, andI feel every bit the “fish out of water,” as the Desert Fathersdescribed the monk fallen back upon the habitation of men.“Holy ground,” you told Moses, “requires shoes to be removed.”How I delight to take off my shoes as do the Coptswhen they enter their churches. But I delighted no less to walkbarefoot on desert floors, understanding at last that the transcendenceof your nature has its reflected image in mine.Nowhere am I more at home than in the otherness of yourholy ground. We remove our shoes upon coming home as ahumble sign that we live in this world as your servants. Helpme to serve you in my loss of the home I had with you, and toaccept my commerce with all these people as a means of drawingnear to you again as you hide in them.