I have a published a novel titled Neo-Kemet. It is a cyberpunk novel exploring Coptic Orthodox Christian identity in specific, and Orthodox Christian identity in general.

From the back cover:

“In the future where the Church faces an unprecedented wave of persecution, Christians grapple with their very identity. Amidst this turmoil, four young Copts are called into Neo-Kemet, a virtual reality version of Egypt where past and present collide. As they navigate this vivid and immersive world, they uncover hidden secrets of the Coptic and broader Christian heritage, embarking on a thrilling journey of discovery and faith.

As readers progress through this captivating cyberpunk narrative, they are confronted with the profound implications of our evolving relationship with technology. Neo-Kemet becomes a beacon for Christians, guiding them through the uncharted territory of a tech-driven future. This gripping tale offers a timely exploration of faith, identity, and the essence of our shared humanity.”

I would like to thank the Priest of the Oriental Church for being an inspiration to contribute a literary creation to a uniquely Diasporan Coptic literature, and for our discussions on the meaning of a true literature, and how we write such, and the process of literary and poetic inspiration itself, and for the edification. He has paved the way showing us what a Coptic diasporan literature looks like.

I would like to thank the Coptic Inklings for their friendship and discussion and encouragement throughout all our literary endeavors, especially when we began brainstorming heavily in the Summer of 2023 about what types of genres would carry well Coptic identity in literature. Prepare for several literary works coming from them over the next few years. I especially want to shout out Jean-Paul Markos; his heart for service is rare in this generation; his heart for people, even rarer.

I would like to thank Samuel Khalil, Peter Ibrahim, Michael Ragheb, and Katie McBratney for reviewing the novel in full during the review phase and providing detailed, constructive feedback. I would also like to thank Vanessa Dotinga for her professional work in thoroughly editing and carefully reading my novel and giving constructive feedback. Any remaining errors are solely my own.

I would also like to thank St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press and Catholic University of America Press for granting me to use excerpts of patristic texts in my novel free of charge. Their only request was to send them a copy of my novel. I would also like to thank Paulist Press for granting me use of another patristic text.

And of course, I would like to thank Hany Takla and Saad Michael Saad, for their work in preserving and educating the masses about Coptic Orthodox Christianity and the Coptic language. The years that I have known both, they have made available resources and knowledge, and communicated the ethnic Coptic way of seeing, and more importantly, the Coptic Orthodox Christian way of believing, but more than all of this, they have lived it and given us all a model of such a life. This material is what was fermenting in my mind as I wrote this novel.

I recorded an episode on my podcast The Mind of the Early Church announcing the release of my novel with Joshua Williams and having a discussion about early Christian literature and the role of literature in our lives.

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Some have heard of a purpose-driven life; others a passion-driven life. But what do we make of those who have a fear-driven life?  Interestingly enough, look no further than Star Wars.

After I began to seriously engage with classical education, I started to think that popular movie series like the Star Wars saga and the Marvel Cinematic Universe were little more than the human equivalent of lasers being shined to get the attention of a cat. (I’m sure you’ve all seen videos or have done so with cats yourselves). I had once enjoyed these films and would go to theaters on opening weekend in order to avoid hearing spoilers. I thought I would not like them much due to seeing the larger literary world through classical education. However, I began to change my mind regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe after artificial intelligence came to the forefront due to the rise of ChatGPT.  I realized that Avengers: Age of Ultron is a serious exploration of the topic.  I also began to change my mind about Star Wars after watching the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Why is that? I came to know an individual who was mostly driven to do things in life out of fear.  If you can’t understand how this can be, then let me explain further.  The normal person befriends others because he or she likes the others and finds some affinity with them.  They enjoy being around them and talking to them.  The normal person also seeks a job out of excitement and enthusiasm (if not for the work itself, at least for the money).  And when a normal person enters into a romantic relationship, it is out of love.

But I came to know a person for whom all of these were distorted. The fear-driven person befriends people out of fear of being alone; the fear-driven person seeks a job out of fear of poverty; the fear-driven person enters into a romantic relationship out of fear of being alone on an intimate level. This was odd to me, and I never quite knew a person like this before.

When I revisited the Star Wars saga with the series Obi-Wan Kenobi, it made me realize that there was something deep (and something very human) in the portrayal of Anakin Skywalker and his descent to become Darth Vader.  It was an extended exploration about how fear and love interact. His was a fear-driven life. Then I realized, this may not be that odd after all.  Cigna, one of the largest healthcare insurance companies, commissioned a study that was published at the end of 2021 on the state of loneliness in the United States and found that 58% of adults feel lonely, with nearly 80% of 18-24 year olds feeling lonely.  Mind you, this is the most connected generation with smartphones and social media.  Ironic, isn’t it?

It made me realize that when people like Anakin Skywalker do things out of fear, it is for multiple reasons. It could be due to feelings of inadequacy, codependence, envy, jealousy, low self-esteem, and hatred (either of oneself or others).

The Origin and Destination of Fear

From where and to where does fear lead? A life driven by fear leads the fearful person to lie regularly, keep secrets, misportray themselves and the way things are especially with their life story, become torn between the different worlds they’ve created for themselves (this is known as fragmentation), have self-contradictory behavior (this leads to loss of self), loss of rationality, and taking refuge in darkness and self-hate (including intense feelings of guilt and low-self esteem).

Such was the person I knew, and such is Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga.

Anakin has trauma from his childhood by being sold into slavery and having only one close relative (his mother). His trauma is added to when he is freed and leaves her to become a Jedi while she remains a slave. (There is something theological here in that he is freed in body but is still enslaved in mind). Something good happened to him, but apparently, he was not able to accept that good thing. Ten years later, he begins having dreams about his mother (whom he has not seen or spoken to since he was freed) and begins suffering anxiety (the type that is clinical) over her.  Now, for those unfamiliar with Star Wars, the Jedi are like monks: no attachments (property or personal), no relationships (familial or intimate), pure detachment [there is a virtue by the same name in Christianity mentioned in The Ladder of Divine Ascent as Step 2, but its origin and goal are different], inner peace and peacemaking in the community at large. But Anakin has personal and familiar attachments (and actively seeks to develop them). One would think ten years would have washed away attachment, but with him it is the opposite. He obsesses. It goes to show that time does not heal all things nor does it cause one to let go of things, only God can do that.

Several years ago there was a challenge on social media where you posted your favorite Bible verse and tagged others so that they could continue the challenge.

I reflected on this for a moment.  I wondered the same question “What is your favorite Bible verse?” came up in the context of a visit or a hangout, would the same people be able to answer what their favorite Bible verses are?

I became suspicious when people participated in the challenge that many of them did not even have an actual favorite Bible verse, but they participated in the challenge using the following steps:

1. Thinking of a Biblical topic
2. Googling “Bible verses on [insert topic]”
3. Finding something at that moment (maybe something they half-remembered)
4. Posting it as one’s favorite verse

The reality was hidden. The same person would likely be unable to answer this question of their favorite verse in real life because it would require true contemplation on their part.  Years later it hit me!  This is the algorithm of fakeness.

It made me realize, this generation is characterized by fakeness.

Why is this the case?  This is because the traits that people developed by truly existing in community with one another have disappeared because real community has disappeared.  These traits include vulnerability, immediacy, and dialogue.  These traits have disappeared because when someone hides behind a profile or does not answer a text in a reasonable amount of time, people have become isolated, and isolation does not allow for vulnerability, immediacy, and dialogue.  The result of this hiding is that everyone also tries to be something they are not.  The people of this generation have become skilled actors while pretending to be real.

Image by Fauxels

From Pexels

Trait # 1: Vulnerability

The first trait that this generation lost due to the breakdown of community and the rise of social media and technology is that there is no more vulnerability in conversation.  When people call us, many times we’ll screen the call.  Other times, if they text, we think about when to return the text after spending many hours (or days) thinking about an answer to a question that would otherwise have been answered immediately and with authenticity and vulnerability if we were face to face.  This could be for many reasons.

It could be that we try to hide behind our devices in order not to show how empty or how weak we are because it is tough to realize that we may need to invest in ourselves.  When we are vulnerable, we grow as persons and learn how to exist with others.  But when we hide behind our devices, we take refuge in ourselves even if there are undesirable traits in us, even if we know and do not like these traits in ourselves.  We become powerless to change because of the inability to exist in the community.

Vulnerability leads to many other traits in us such as trustworthiness, reliability, and attentiveness.  These cannot be developed easily (and possibly not at all) behind a device.

Trait # 2: Immediacy

But a second issue after vulnerability arises, which we are more familiar with: we lose immediacy and thus we are never fully present in any setting.  We avoid having to be present with anyone or in any event unless we have an emotional high or enough energy to present ourselves as something we are not.

This again could be for many reasons, but I will digress for a moment.

Every single year I have taught, and in every single class I have had, at least 10% of the students were diagnosed with ADHD.  This is in line with the percentage of children diagnosed with ADHD in the population.  This percentage has doubled in the past 17 years.  The interesting thing is that ADHD is not actually a disorder of the attention, but is a disorder of executive functioning meaning that a person who has this condition has difficulty determining what is the most important thing to do at the moment when faced with many things to do.  On the flip side, if someone who has ADHD is interested in something, then a condition called “hyperfocus” manifests itself.  In hyperfocus, the person who has ADHD exhibits executive attention [the attention required to complete a task] better than any of us by canceling everything else out.

How is ADHD related to anything about community and the fakest generation? It’s because the increasing isolation and lack of community in this generation has aggravated people’s susceptibility to ADHD and made it much more pronounced.  If we all valued beyond any doubt that time spent with our families around the dinner table as the most important community event of the day and church attendance as the most important community event of the week, then I suspect that people who have ADHD would have less severe manifestations of “inattentiveness” because their executive functioning would work better because they will know what is most important to do at the moment.

I think it is actually a symptom of society’s problems that people who have ADHD are struggling more so these days than during the past.  The breakdown of values (and the hierarchy of values) in society has made executive functioning more difficult for those with ADHD.  I mean how can they determine what is most important when their parents are not together, or don’t model love between spouses, or attention to one another or to their children, and everyone’s idea of a good nighttime meal is eating chips on the couch watching Netflix and scrolling endlessly on their phones afterward?!  It’s enough to make the best people in society stop functioning!

People today have a very poor understanding of what it means to be human.  This is because in order to know what it means to be human two things are necessary: living life and hearing the wisdom of the ages reflecting upon our humanity.  Such wisdom comes from poetry, from hymns, from mythology, from drama (both tragedy and comedy), from philosophy, and from history.

When we shape our vision using these streams, then we have an idea of what humanity is.  It is at this point that we realize that the people who encountered Christ in the New Testament had a coming-to-reality moment with themselves.  Christ revealed to them who they were.

St. Ephrem the Syrian called Him the Mirror.  Christ was the Mirror showing us who we are.  Thus Christ reveals to us who we are.

Christ revealed to us the nature of humanity as it was meant to be and what it could become in Him.  This revelation began with what motherhood means.

Salus Populi Romani icon, 590 A.D.

housed in the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome

Christ’s Revealing Light into Motherhood

The light that the Incarnate Christ shined into the world began with the pregnancy and motherhood of St. Mary.

When He cried, she wiped His tears away.

When He was inconsolable, she was the one who held His hand and rocked Him.

She was the one who held His hands as He learned how to walk.

She was the one to whom He ran when He wanted safety and security.

She was the one from whom He picked up His speech.

She was the one who taught Him how to pray in his humanity.

She watched Him when He played so He wouldn’t wander.

She watched Him when He taught in the synagogues the words of God.

She was with Him when He slept in the manger.

She was with Him when He was laid in the tomb.

She was with John when he ran at the news of the empty tomb.

She did not run because she knew what happened.

If you can’t see anything in the relationship between St. Mary and Our Lord, then you are incapable of Christianity spirituality.  There’s just no way around it.  She is the closest person to our Lord Jesus Christ, and if you can’t learn anything from that closeness, what can you learn?

Special thanks to M.H. for the reflection and discussion leading to this article.

Gratitude means “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

However, oftentimes two vices, which represent opposite extremes, get in the way of us practicing gratitude.  These extremes are envy and guilt.

Envy is when you go to the extreme of deficiency with respect to thanksgiving by having zero gratitude.

By guilt, I mean feelings of unworthiness.  Feeling unworthy is the opposite extreme, the extreme of excess, where one feels they do not deserve the grace they were shown, so it results in a diminished gratitude that takes away our focus from the gift-giver and turns it inward onto us.  This is a type of egoism.

The ideas of grace and gratitude are inherently connected.  In most of the languages I have studied, both grace and thanks are based on the same word. In the English language, the word “gratitude” comes from the word “grace.” Even in Greek the word grace is charis and gratitude is eucharistia.  In Coptic grace is ehmot and gratitude is shepehmot

Grace, by its nature, cannot be reciprocated, but only responded to.  The one who gives a gift (that is a grace) gives to one who has the choice to receive it or not.  When you choose to receive it, the response is to give grace back in the sense of expressing the disposition of your heart.  Gift-giving causes two things: first, the relationship between the gift-giver and recipient to grow, and secondly, it causes you to see the world, the other, and yourself in a different way.  It reveals something about reality.

I have a friend of mine, from Nigeria, who shared a story with me about his education. When he was a student, he had a teacher throughout middle and high school who taught him so many subjects.  Later, my friend immigrated to the West.  Decades later, he went back to visit Nigeria with his wife, and he tracked down his former teacher.  When he found him, he knocked on his door, and when his teacher opened, he prostrated himself on the threshold of the door of his teacher.  I asked him why, and he reflected that what his teacher gave him, he could never repay his teacher.

And I realized that teaching is an analogue for grace.  The teacher speaks and all at once enriches those hearing him, and forms those hearing him, and gives them a foundation to stand upon.  The students can never reciprocate this act of formation for their teacher, but they can respond with gratitude.  They can also pass it down to others, but more on that at the end of this article.

It is the same with God, the Church, and us.  But two things can get in the way of gratitude; two extremes: envy and feeling unworthy of grace.

Envy as Ingratitude

Envy as a type of ingratitude is portrayed in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20 and how that envy destroys gratitude and its effects.  In the Parable, a landowner hires laborers to come work on His vineyard and agrees to give them a denarius for their work at the end of that day.  Then he hires other workers at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours of the day due to the magnitude of the work.  He tells these newly hired workers that he will give them “Whatever is right” (Matthew 20:4, 7).

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard,

by Jacob Willemszoon de Wet

17th Century

When evening had come, that is the twelfth hour, the landowner summoned the hired laborers beginning with those whom he hired at the eleventh hour, and he gave them a denarius.  But when those hired at the first hour came, they thought they would receive more (because their eyes had turned to what their fellow laborers had received instead of what the landowner promised them), but they received a denarius like the others who came later.  They complained, but the landowner said,  ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ (Matthew 20:13-15).

And thus our Lord Jesus shows us something of gratitude.  The landowner, in his graciousness, gave to the workers who joined in the eleventh hour more than what they deserved out of his own goodness.  It was a totally free act on his part.  The workers of the eleventh hour did not show feelings of being unworthy but accepted their wages.

Feeling Unworthy as Diminishing Gratitude

The other vice that can affect our gratitude is feeling unworthy of the grace we were shown. In this case, it is a sort of guilt where one feels they have let the community down by receiving grace. This guilt diminishes our gratitude because we focus too much on ourselves and our current state, and it affects our relationship with the Gift-Giver and does not allow our vision to be transformed to see ourselves and the world in a different light due to grace.  It is a sort of feedback loop that causes stagnation in our spiritual and personal lives.

Feeling unworthy and or guilty is also a sort of inverted pride.  Instead of expressing itself externally in an explosive manner by some type of show of superiority, envy, or anger at seeing someone better than them, it instead expresses itself in an implosive manner, by doubting God’s grace.