St. Antony's Monastery

Here is a really amazing video of St. Antony's monastery in Egypt, featuring a former Australian Marxist athiest professor who became a Christian and a monk after his mother died of cancer. It's so neat to see how out of the same seed, God's people have grown and flourished into such varying branches of the same faith!



If you enjoy this one, there is also a part 2 on youtube.
For a trick in downloading the film press pause right after it begins and let the lighter red bar move entirely across the screen while you check your emails or do other things on the computer. Then when it's done, press play for uninterrupted viewing.

Naguib Mahfouz

Yesterday, I went back to the bookstore Shakespeare and Co. in the fifth arrondissement to sell the book I just finished - Marilynne Robinson's Home (which was really good) and to buy a new book. It seemed like divine providence that I stumbled upon a Nobel Prize winning Egyptian author, Naguib Mahfouz. When he was still in secondary school he began sending in articles to get published to the journal al-Majalla al-jadida, "The New Review." By the time he was twenty-seven the magazine proprietor helped him publish his first book, Khufu's Wisdom, a novel of ancient Egypt! So, I am excited to begin this new book that fits in so well with my Egyptian studies! Here is a link to an article written in the New York Times about Mahfouz when he died: Naguib Mahfouz, Chronicler of Arab Life, Dies at 94. At the site, there are also links to other articles written about him and his books.