Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers by Mark Gruber

The author is an American Benedictine monk who teaches anthropology at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. For his doctoral research, he spent a year or so visiting and living in Coptic monasteries in the Sahara desert. This wonderful book was the result. It is his log of his time in Egypt.

Personally, one of my great desires is to visit Egypt and at least see the types of ancient desert monasteries he writes about. He focuses on the liturgical life of the Coptic monks, their forms of piety, and some of their theological reflections on sin, temptation, and grace. He gives insights into their cycles of fasting and feasting, their austerity, and their tremendous joy under hardship. He noted that Coptic monks are quite a bit more rigorous than Western monks. For instance, they go to pray for up to six hours at a time, standing, singing the entire psalter every day. He tells of attending a Christmas Eve service that lasted from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m.

I have often been intrigued by the life of the Christian churches in Muslim countries. Christians in Egypt are a despised minority, though they probably fare somewhat better than in many other countries in the region.