He looks straight at you from the 5th Century and isn't old at all Christ Pantocrator, Saviour of the World |
You don't perhaps realise where you have been, not just physically but mentally and emotionally until you leave it. We all left early in the morning on the bus back to Sharm al Sheikh; we had enjoyed a splendid last evening with final goodbyes and ice cream which we had inadvertently bought by turning off the deep freeze when we had used the coffee shop for an evening talk and had found the buzzing a distraction! So, happy and fulfilled and packed up, we left our Monastery Retreat and headed home. The place and the programme of gentle meditation with Father Laurence Freeman our retreat leader, the visits to the Monastery and its treasures, the evening conversations with Father Justin and of course the visits to the services in the Church had somehow entered into us and softened our edges. We thought we were the same as before but of course, you are always changing and here we probably all changed a few of our ideas and grew together in such a short time as friends with a common purpose. Now we were all heading back to our different lives, to our homes and gardens with the different demands they make, to our families and friends, to our diaries demanding that we remember who we are and what we are meant to be doing. Me, I was tired, surprisingly so as there was no physical reason for tiredness but perhaps I had been stretched in my inner being and needed to learn to walk in my normal life anew. It was lovely and I will go back probably again and again until I have learned all the lessons which the place and the people can teach me. Thanks for reading about the time and journey and here is your invitation to join me next year or the year after. You will know if you want to come and it will be an irresistible call. The details of the next journey will shortly be on the Wind, Sand and Stars website.