Personal Reflections
The Revd Barbara Heseltine writes. . .
Sand, silence and honeycakes
ON THE FIRST of February, a small band of slightly nervous travellers set off from Heathrow, bound for Cairo. Two weeks later, eight, rather giggly friends landed in London, sure that the intervening two weeks that they had spent together would mean that, always, there would be a corner of their hearts they would share with one another. How come?
Well, I think it was the desert. The desert does things to you which are very significant. Whether it is the deafening silence as one waits, perched on a rock, for the sun to rise, or the intimate closeness of the infinite stars forming their uncountable brilliant dome over our sleeping forms, or just the joy of sharing a blanket, talking, praying, listening as our Bedouin friends prepared our supper. I do not know. I only know that it happens.
After seven nights in the deserts and oases of Western Egypt, we arrived in Luxor. Here we visited the tombs and temples of the ancient pharaohs, some of us even waking early enough to be lifted, almost silently, into the dawn, to see those ancient ruins, side by side with farmers cutting sugar cane in the early light.
From Luxor we travelled north again, this time along the east bank of the Nile, and across to the Red Sea. Having paddled there - deciding not to try to cross it without a boat (or Moses) - we returned to Cairo, ready to make our flight home. It had been a wonderful journey, so wonderful that some of us can't wait to make it again. Would you like to join us?
In November, I am going to make the journey with a group of younger people, but in a purely non-religious way - although I challenge anybody not to be spiritually touched by the desert! Then in February 2011 we will again make the more religiously focussed journey.
If you are even only slightly interested in joining one of these trips, please contact me on 01872 870039, barbara.heseltine@tiscali.co.uk and I will give you more details of dates, itineraries and prices. Do join us.