I went to a Trappistine monastery.
That must've been very interesting. Are they one of the forms of western monasticism which adhere to a vow of silence? Forgive me, but I can't remember which ones do and which don't. (And monasteries are generally fairly quiet anyway.)
The audience we’re addressing aren’t Copts. Nor have their parents subscribed to its teachings. You are glimpsing this from your perspective and that’s understandable.
Of course. The point is not to make everyone be Coptic people. I didn't magically become an Egyptian when I joined the Coptic Orthodox Church either, but if they can get something from the teachings anyway, then who really cares? Neither were all of the desert fathers or for that matter even the 'Coptic' popes ethnic Egyptians (consider Abba John the Persian, the great Roman fathers like Abba Arsanios, Abba Maximos, etc.), because that doesn't matter at all. Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy, whether you want to present it that explicitly or not. I believe everyone can benefit from a daily prayer rule, and this is the one of my particular Church and tradition.
But the likelihood the information was presented from a Coptic vantage point is slim at best. In your world it means one thing but that may not mirror the wider application. That’s the crux of the issue.
Again, everyone can benefit from a daily prayer rule, even more so than these children could benefit from contentless meditation. With respect, I think you may be making more than I intended of
the form. The Coptic practice of chanting or praying the Agpeya is but one ancient form of Christian prayer which encourages mindfulness. There are certainly others:
Benedictine
Indian Orthodox Syrian
Syriac Orthodox (Mesopotamian -- Iraq, Turkey, Syria, etc.)
Etc.
And all of these are fully adaptable and adapted to the local languages and cultures to the extent that they thus far have been so adapted (e.g., Syriac prayers in Malayalam in the Indian case, or Coptic prayers in Spanish for the Bolivian Coptic Church, etc.), as Christianity has always striven to be. So again, the matter is not
the form (all of these just come in particular forms precisely because of their adaptation by people in particular places and times; if Westerners don't have their own forms then it's just because they've forgotten them -- it's not like St. John Cassian or Benedict of Nursia cease having ever existed because modern day Westerners would rather watch Netflix than pray or something), so much as presenting deeply rooted and meaningful Christian alternatives to contentless, generically "Eastern" or "New Age" meditation, so that conservative Christians don't have to freak out about it, since they'd know that Christianity has both mindfulness
and content, in every place it has ever gone and among every people.
I tend to see this sort of thing as a defensive reaction among people who do not necessarily have or know that they have such roots in their own religion, and are afraid of losing their children to more "hip" and trendy things, like generic new age-y "Spiritual but not Religious" piffle. That's a real fear, for sure, but the answer is
not to rage about the piffle! The answer is to present the alternative which will resonate in your society or your community or your family (probably not at a public school, unless you want to make a big scene; though there is nothing that would stop your child from bringing a Psalm book to school and praying from it privately during the meditation time, I wouldn't imagine), whether it comes from here, there or anywhere. So long as it is orthodox, who can fear anything? Either God is with us or He isn't, and I believe He is.
Psalm 57 (56) in English, according to the Agpeya. How sweet it is. +
"O Sing Unto Him" -- Midnight Praise in English, another worthy, God-honoring alternative to the emptiness of the New Age