Coming back from the Monastery

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.

The wonders in the library and treasury

Mary sitting in front of a 5th Century icon

The tiny door, entrance to the Monastery

On the day we were all to visit the treasure house and the newly refurbished library, Father Justin came down to the guest area of the Monastery and met us.  We felt incredibly lucky that this Monk who has so many calls on his time at the moment should give us the whole morning.  Although the essence of a Monastic calling is to be apart from the world, it seems that  he wants people to know about the Monastery and what it represents, its history, its treasures and its tradition of prayer and contemplation.  He feels it is important today that all this is made available and we felt encompassed by his welcome and kindness.  We set off for the Monastery, going through the tiny door which was opened up fairly recently (if your history goes back to the 4th and 5th Century, recent can be in the hundreds of years!).  When the Sisters from

The Burning Bush?

Scotland came to Sinai searching for early Christian manuscripts, the door wasn't there, the books were lowered down in a basket and presumably the Monks too went up and down in the basket.  Father Justin showed us in and pointed out Moses well, the Burning Bush (is it the same one?) and the Church.  He then took us to the treasury where icons from the 5th Century are waiting for you to meet them or else just to look at them with interest.  Here are manuscripts and embroidered garments, manuscripts and gifts from Russia, Greece and a signed protection order for Mohammed himself.  Father Justin then took us to the newly renovated library.  Now this is no ordinary library, this library represents a collection of liturgical works second only to the Vatican library.  The whole space has been renewed with beautiful wooden furniture made by Greek carpenters who are still finishing off the last pieces, it has been modernised too with state of the art fire protection, beautiful modern steelwork.  The most important and oldest manuscripts are wrapped up waiting for their specially designed boxes and it was from amongst these that we were able to see, touch and marvel at the illustrations and the feeling that these had been touched and read by generations of Monks seeking wisdom.   

Entrance to the Treasury

Beautiful chapel of the Burning Bush

Can you feel yourself wanting to visit?  Well, you can come with us next year in April if you contact Wind, Sand and Stars. They will send you details of the next visit to the Monastery.  If you want to find the place where heaven and earth meet, this is a good place to start looking.

Climbing Mount Sinai

Camel dressed up for the climb!

Me on my camel 

 Of the whole 22 of us, 15 decided they were going to climb to the top of Mount Sinai.  We were not a young party but we were determined!  The fittest 6 climbed the whole way from the Monastery to the top, the other 9 of us rode camels up to the camel station which is about two thirds of the way but which still leaves the steepest 750 steps to the top.  Me, I was a camel rider and although getting on the camel and the camel then getting up to standing position is a bit of a challenge, it was worth it.  My camel was called Abdul and the boy leading Abdul, a young lad of about 11 or 12 was called Mustafa.  He was on his school holiday and had his younger brother Josef tagging alongside and helping with the camel behind.  Our camels had already been up to the midway station that morning and made it quite clear that they would rather be at home.  The boys pulled and pushed and smacked them and the camels just snorted and wobbled their camel bottom lips and went their own pace.  It takes about 2 hours to get to the camel station and I can say from experience that I was glad when Abdul sunk to the floor and I clambered off tottering slightly!  We had a little wait here which meant that we could have a drink and reconnect with our legs.  The walkers appeared about 30  minutes later and they mostly needed a rest before setting off for the summit.  We took this quite slowly because the steps are rough and steep and we needed to rest every so often.  No camels come up these steps, they gladly took their leave and went back down to their home just outside the Monastery.  We climb up about 100 steps and arrive at Elijah's garden where we see trees and a clearing with a hermitage and a small chapel.  Was Elijah really here?  We can't stop for long, we have another 600 or so steps to climb.  One member of our party who had been going to stay at Elijah's garden because of her three score years and more had decided she was going to make it to the top so we all held our breath at every stopping point to check she had made it too.  She did, she made it to the top and this is quite a climb with the steps being so high and irregular.  At the top, we could see all around mountains slightly smaller and one higher, we could see miles to right and left and we could see Moses cave where he hid from the terrible sight of God passing by.  There is a Church and a Mosque but we couldn't get in to either however, in my rucksack was all that we needed to have a Mass at the Summit, there was a silver goblet borrowed from my daughter, two clean white cloths and Father Laurence had brought the wafers which looked as if they might blow away in the wind.  We spoke the words of the service after him and then passed the wafers and then the wine in Rachel's christening goblet round and then held hands and wished that peace would fall on the world, on the warring factions, on families and communities.  One person climbed into Moses cave, I thought he might get stuck!  Then we all made our way down, back down the 750 steps to the camel stop where we had lunch and then down down down to the bottom.  My legs were very wobbly by the time I arrived back at the Monastery!  And they were very stiff and sore for the next two days.  I resolved to be fitter next year because for sure I will be going back there, back to the mountain where Moses saw the burning bush, where he hid from the terrible sight of God passing by, where he was given the tablets of stone to bring down passing Elijah's garden on the way, back down to the Children of Israel camped out on the Plain of Moses just below the Monastery.   Is it worth the climb?  Do you feel that it is where these great prophets and seers of old really were?  I conclude that only God knows but that it seems most likely to me and that it has an extraordinary drawing power for pilgrims like us.  Our oldest climber made it back too and was glad to have managed the climb.

The Church at the summit of Mount Sinai

Transcending the everyday alongside the everyday!

All the Saints on their Saints Days, what a lot there have been making their way from Monk to Sainthood over the years

Bedouin hospitality

 Father Laurence with Father Justin

There are levels and levels and layers and layers of creatures under our feet deep in the earth, some scuttling on the surface or sliding or jumping alongside people just like you and me. There are so many sorts of people too and nowhere is this more obvious than when you are somewhere new, an unfamiliar place where the sense of who you are is challenged and you wonder how everyone else fits in.  At this beautiful Monastery cradled in the mountains of South Sinai, the backdrop of barren rocks soaring upwards is home to small and large ants, scorpions, a few snakes, swallows and doves and small sparrows flitting from tree to tree. There are lots and lots of cats pursuing their feline life occasionally noticing the humans, there are dogs who don’t seem to have owners but are friendly enough and find shady spaces to lie around. There are the desert Bedouin, fine boned and enchanting children dressed in a mix of ethnic and Western clothes, their teenagers too trying for a quiff of hair, triumphant if they have a mobile phone as well as a quiff. The younger ones try their luck on the tourists asking for a dollar, a euro, a pound, a caramello. We are the alien species needing to be advised on what and when and what not and when not to give in. We get smarter about this and say no no no because we have a bag of things, pens and puzzles, crayons and notebooks, stickers, t-shirts and Arsenal socks for them but we pass them on through our guide who knows who really needs them. There are those who serve the Monastery, the cooks and cleaners, carpenters from Greece and the man running the coffee shop and the Monastery shop selling icons and postcards, silver rings of St Catherine and books. There are tourist wearing t shirts and orthodox pilgrims wearing their own brand of black garb and headgear.

A Romanian Nun with a beautiful hat!

There are monks with different functions in the Monastery, Father Daniel who supervises the locals who work there and then eats crisps after matins in the coffee shop behind the bar, Father Nilus looking after the Church tirelessly lighting and extinguishing the candles and lamps. There is the monk involved in conservation and one in construction and of course, Father Justin looking after the treasured manuscripts and scrolls and with his quiet Bedouin helper (the first to go to university from the village) is photographing manuscript after manuscript to load onto the hoped for safety of the internet. All the monks have chosen this life under direction and monastic discipline away from the pulls of the world (except for crisps perhaps), they give up the possibility of family life or career but offer whatever skill they have to the glory of the Monastery and God. The next level of being is seen when they go into the daily services where they all have different functions. Here, there is only one celebrating, only one being Priest. His part is mostly been taken by Father Justin. From the Church itself he is seen through the screen doors in the interior of the space where the altar is, he moves around it knowing all the times he has to speak or move towards us.  We know  we can’t go there but where he represents us all. His hands lift with books, icons are kissed, he bows and prays and turns to us and comes through with incense which he swings in a silver censor. We just watch not really knowing anything but somehow waiting with a sense of expectation. Once or twice or maybe more, one of us or more sees the extraordinary thing when as his hands are raised the light of the sun streams into the space where the mosaic of the transfiguration looks down and the whole scene becomes one glorious vision of nature showing its mystical magical supernatural self and we hold our breath full of a new joy. This is what we come to see, all the different levels and layers of beings drawn towards this new vision. We feel that we have touched the feet of those who touch the feet of the ones who KNOW without any doubt that transcendence is this.
But even the monks need the everyday things of life! This photograph of the new washing machine just delivered is just part of that everydayness of the rest of the day for them.

New and old together 

People from everywhere come here In waves

interior of Church at St Catherine's Monastery

Father Nilus  about him in the next post

There are waves of people coming here. Pilgrims of different types, Indian, Korean, Rumanian, Ukrainian, Bedouin, British, Greek, and Russian pilgrims. Some nuns and priests, some searching for the roots of their faith and culture, some new at it, some old. There are the very intense ones who know when to bob up and down and bow down to the Priest or icon, there are some who don’t know where they are in the service but follow the bobbers and bowers hoping to get it right and to be crossing themselves in the right direction at he right moment. When presented with the relics to venerate, some are naturally good at it and some try to kiss the priest’s hand too which he isn’t ready for! We are all here together with the Greek carpenters doing fine work in the library, with the people serving the Monastery, the guides, the postcard and icon sellers and the cooks as well as Father Justin’s helper who holds the camera as they photograph page after page of manuscript to put online. There are masses of scrawny cats whose night time squeals wake you up and then there are the haughty camels who will be carrying us pilgrims up the mountain tomorrow. Here the Cecil B de Mille film of Moses was partly filmed. Charlton Heston strode along the ridge at the summit of the mountain and was both Moses and the voice of God!  We are a group of 20 people led by a Benedictine Monk, Father Laurence Freeman who lives without the walls of a Monastery passing on the secret wisdom of meditation. We have come from Australia, Los Angeles, from Barbados, from Wales, Cambridgeshire and Islingon! Our leader Abi copes with our different natures, advises us wisely on hand washing and camel riding and Hadi from Egypt negotiates with the Egyptian speaking helpers and soldiers who incongruously point guns at the Monastery just in case of an attack. They look hot and a bit bored. Grandpa and I are here keeping up with all this and loving it. Rather this than golf and bridge and lying on a beach for us although possibly there is one of us who might prefer to be on a Scottish River casting an hopeful fly across those waters. Me, if it didn’t get so hot in the summer or so cold in the winter I think I wouldn’t mind spending much much longer here trying to find the silence and solitude which is so much loved.

Life in a desert Monastery

Father Justin

We, a group of 22 people are here for a mere 7 days and at the best possible time of year. The monks and their helpers are here all year (except when they travel maybe home to see an elderly or sick parent).  We go in to the services held three times a day for just this week, we try to absorb the atmosphere created by chanting and incense and processing monks but we can’t understand the words which maybe let’s them by pass our  minds. For the monks who start at 4.00 am and spend up to 9 hours there, the novelty factor might not be there although Father Justin tells us that even repeating the psalms (all of them every week) he gains new insights into what they are saying. He tells us about the aim of the Monastic life expressed by the desert fathers and by an early Abbot and Saint from here called St John Climacus who wrote the Ladder of Divine Ascent.  He told us how he, as a student in university in Texas came across the sayings of the Fathers of the Desert and really and truly wanted to become one.  He said he rather irritated his friends by always talking about the Desert Fathers. This would be in the 1960s when students turned to flower power and transcendental experimentation, perhaps turning away from the rather Bible based religion of their parents and grandparents. Father Justin was also seeking was to transcend by following a distinct path prescribed by the Saints of old.  What I found interesting about him was how nearly 50 years of combining his natural born self with this practice has made him a pure souled human being with a single goal of becoming like the Saints of old and their goal of becoming Christlike.  We all start somewhere and mostly get a bit careworn and grubby along the way until we meet an inspiring example which might make us see that everything we thought would bring us joy has a limit and eventually we might find a different but well trodden path opening up which we might just start moving towards. 

The ladder of Divine Ascent

From Sinai to Singapore

Hello baby Agnes in Singapore all the way from the foot of Mount Sinai where I have been waiting to hear of your safe arrival and to hear that you have met your sisters and your Mum and Dad. This place is the best possible place for me to hear the names you have been given because this is where people with your names are very specially loved.  Agnes means lamb and lambs are a sign of heaven’s favour to people.  There are people who say that this place, St Catherine’s Monastery is right between heaven and earth and it certainly has bits of both heaven and earth about it.

This picture is one which is here, it is called an icon not a picture because it shows something special to the person looking at it.  The gold background here is showing that the people in the picture come from heaven and are here to tell us about it.  The lady with the baby is Mary and her baby is Jesus who is also known as a Lamb of God and also known as a Shepherd for his sheep. Jesus came from heaven, He knew all about it and He left Messages and messengers to tell us how to make our way back there when we needed to go. Here at this Monastery there are millions of messages, some are in pictures, some in old old written books and long long scrolls which have to be rolled out to read and some messages are in the beautiful Monks who look after the treasures and also feed the people who visit from all round the world. Our special Monk is called Father Justin and when I told him you were born, he smiled for a long time because he knew you were going to be a special person, full of kindness and bright as a star.

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Back we go

Bedouin children

Peaks of Sinai

Father Nilus from Devon

St Catherine's Monastery

 What do you pack in your suitcase if you are going to spend a week in a Monastery guesthouse? Well, my very heavy suitcase has got a kettle, a hot water bottle, lots of bits and pieces for the Bedouin children, 2 boxes of chocolates for the monks, a jar of marmalade for Father Nilus, a kit for celebrating mass on the top of the mountain, blister plasters, paracetamol just in case, lots of socks and of course, the electric rollers!  So, you may be wondering what place vanity has in a retreat!  It doesn't!  It especially doesn't because round the Monastery, I will keep my head covered.  I will be with 21 other people and our own monk, Father Laurence Freeman OSB.  I will keep the blog updated unless there isn't enough coverage to post it.  Here are some photographs of where we will be so you can imagine yourself alongside us.

Father Justin, the librarian 

St Peter, looks so  modern but is over 1500 years old