Back to front blog from the Holy mountain.

God looks down on the unfolding creation he has set in motion

We are back down from the Holy Mountain, back from a week in an extraordinarily preserved centre of continuous devotion.  All 25 pilgrims are safely down and facing the oddness of modernity.  Grandpa and I are in an hotel a few minutes from Cairo airport and our bedroom couldn't be more different from our last bedroom in the guesthouse of St Catherine's Monastery which we had come to love.  We are in a tidy could-be-anywhere hotel room with a tv and a mini bar.  We have just tipped the last of the vodka we took with us (in case of emergencies!) into some fizzy orange juice and unpacked our sandy socks and contemplated the immaculate bathroom.  We could be from another age, but with computers on, mobile phones giving us access to family and friends and life back home we are in what is called normality or is it? That is the question.  As it wasn't possible to write anything on the Sinai blog while we were there, I have decided to do it back to front, recollecting the days away in that holy place from the point of modern-day Egypt with airports, multi-cultural restaurants, swimming pools and hotels jostling with Pyramids and Ancient Coptic Churches, mosques and museums.  It is still fresh enough in my mind to feel the sweetness of ancient tradition, to recall the beauty of the icons, to hear the daily liturgy, still the same as it was in the 4th Century, to recollect the faces of the old and younger monks alight with devotion, to remember the kindness of the Bedouin who helped us all, young and old to climb right to the top of Mount Sinai and then lent us their arms as we tottered back down again.  As the days in that place dissolve into memories, I will try to bring them back to all of us, to introduce those who couldn't be there to Father Justin, to Father Nilus from Devon, to take you into the Church which glows with lamps lit for every service, to try to conjure up the sound of the old monks intoning the daily service and to show some of the icons and to try and tell you why they are still so powerful.  And I will try to bring them to Fay at Wind, Sand and Stars who has watched our progress via messages from Josh, our kind young companion and leader, and to Mary who couldn't come with us this time and to my beloved beloved family who were just a bit worried about sending Grandpa off with me to such a faraway place.  They shouldn't have worried because look who was looking after us!