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Monday, February 26, 2007


Coming back to the Lord in Lent...
by Peter Menkin

Quiet, listening to the silence
this Lent, aware of the largeness
of God, the short life of man and woman.
We frail creatures, loved as part of creation,

return to the Lord this season.
This is a great thing, and part of the Church
year--refreshing in its way,
but a road that is taken while observingon its route

the winter rain, the bare trees,
other days the light--the daily day offers time.
It is a surrounding

experience, penitence. Ever even so small an offer,
there is the reminder that we have time
to come back. To turn, to turn, to turn.


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Sunday, February 18, 2007


As we Enter Lent before Easter, a reflection and Poem on a Mystery I experienced.

Ash Wednesday and Lent itself are coming very soon. I look forward to being in Church, the ashes marked on my forehead, the acts of devotion and even penance in preparation for Easter. The poem posted is an older one you will find on my website, www.petermenkin.com . The story behind it is of an experience at All Souls Church in Berkeley, California USA. Berkeley is near San Francisco.

At All Souls there is a Chapel where communion is given. A friend of mine, Jan, who with her Guide Dog attends Eucharist there from time to time (atttending Eucharist three or four times a week and then on Sunday) likes to light a votive candle. I was with her, sitting nearby, waiting for communion to begin. As she lit the candle and prayed I noticed a new religious experience. This unusual, mystical experience came over me as I prayed and realized the prayer she offered through the flame spoke. I did not hear the words, but an ethos that was connected to the communion preparation. So this poem:

The lighted Candle
by Peter Menkin

Listening to the lighted
candle. The flame
communicates devotion,
prayerful notices.
These conversations
from vigil at Easter time remain.

An engagement with God,
fiery envelopment.
You Holy Spirit
elicit embrace of unknowable vastness.
First the flame listens;
later all week the heart be open,
love invites
on the road. Feed us;

in the breaking of bread.
Take the cup.
A moment and minutes
that love offers;
this is the sweet enduring spirit.
Continue
the ongoing conversation.


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In my lay work as an Oblate of New Camaldoli, and in my related licensed Lay Ministry Work from my parish in Mill Valley, California, I visit people bringing communion. I am moved by the intimacy of these private services offered with "The Book of Common Prayer," and communion with wine and wafer. These words from "Communion under Special Circumstances":

"Jesus said, 'abide in me, as I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love'" (John 15:4-5a, 8-9)

I am moved by these words every time I hear or say them. Perhaps you know them, too.

Monday, February 12, 2007

One more new review: Merton's "Thoughts in Solitude"...


Moved by this slim volume by Thomas Merton, I found "Thoughts in Solitude" to be worth a second read three years after the initial purchase and first reading. Call this an accidental second reading, and a good accident for I had not planned on revisiting the title. To my pleasure, the book is good if not better the second time around. For I was moved by the love this man holds for God, or held, since he is now many years dead. In this book, he lives, and he is as well as a man of God who sought God, but a writer who has the writer's gift of telling us some of the journey of getting closer to God. Or as he might say, God allowing someone to get closer to Him. That is good news.

Readable, and certainly quick going but the kind of book one goes through "easily," it is a book that allows for reflection. I wondered about humility, and I wondered how in the world could something like humility be available to a layman, especially one who has neither the desire for nor the means of holding and having solitude as did Thomas Merton.

I think Thomas Merton held solitude, as one embraces something, as one would embrace God. As a man or woman comes to Christ. Intangible as that may sound, the writer brings the reader to come with him on the inner journey and the journey of desire to be with God in quiet and solitude. Not alone, but in a solitude that is like a solidarity with the Almighty. This is the having solitude that I mention. Or so I understand it by the book.

But I did not come to the book, after reading a while, to admire Thomas Merton. Of course, I do. I did not come to the book to get secrets about God, but Thomas Merton says there are secrets available to those who read the scriptures. There is both the telling and the untelling of a relationship with God that explains to the reader, through inference and through his reflections, that solitude brings people to mystery. I want to believe that there is mystery in the relationship with Christ, that in God we find and feel things (called religious experience) that are not available to us other ways. Thomas Merton writes of religious experience in this book, and he does it very well.

I'm sure you have heard that this is the second of his books that critics cite as one of his two best. The other is, "The Seven Story Mountain." I read that book as the first of his books I read. I am glad I did. Here I stop a moment to tell you I am not doing justice to his writing, for in both books he is a spiritual master. Here he writes of the spiritual life, and for me it is the beginnings of thought on considering spiritual life:

"Spiritual life is not mental life. It is not thought alone. Nor is it, of course, a life of sensation, a life of feeling--'feeling" and experiencing the things of the spirit, and the things of God.

Nor does the spiritual life exclude thought and feeling. It needs both."

I like how he explains this explanation, saying, "Everything must be elevated and transformed by the action of God, in love and faith."

The end of the book is like a prayer, and the entire book has a prayer quality to it. The chapters are short. They are like arrows of writing. There is a warmth to the writing, and an inviting quality is evident because Thomas Merton wants his reader to know what it is to love God, and to recognize this is what a man or woman may have in his or her lifetime.

As I come to the end of this review, it is important to remark that a reader can take his affection, even his passionate humility tempered in a life of solitude, and find ways of understanding and coming closer to God. I grant his is a holy life, an easy thing to say, and I want to close with this quote:

"The solitary life is a life in which we cast our care upon the Lord and delight only in the help that comes from Him. Whatever He does is our joy. We reproduce His goodness in us by our gratitude. (Or--our gratitude is the reflection of His mercy. It is what makes us like Him.)

Peter Menkin, Epiphany