The first of the Ten Commandments

A few years ago I began work on the Ten Commandments, which I have paid attention to as a series of Ten poems from time to time. One book I read on the subject of the Ten Commandments noted that the first set of ten brought down from the mountain were shattered and lost, gone in a way but also still available as spirit in the world. For some people, that may be too mystical, and I agree it is an unusual idea. But this first of the Ten Commandments, about which I write as a poem, is the actual First Commandment brought to the people of Israel. There is mystery about these Ten Commandments, for clear as they may be they are the subject of wonderful discussions.

In Thunder and stone
By Peter Menkin

To be set free by stones:

Have no other Gods

but me.

Could the thunder

on Mount Sinai have

said something when

Moses came down?

I am your friend,

you are my people.

Did trumpets sound?

Light was there around Moses.

Let me say the words,

Friend of God.

Living words.

Second Commandment: Make no Idols

Confessions and conceits are not enough when it comes to the Ten Commandments. I will spare you my own idol making, or even that of people I know like my father who eschewed what he called, "That bitch Goddess success." Living with God is a struggle, if I may be so ambitious to say something profound. Each of us in our way makes peace with ourselves, and peace with God. That is part of what living is about, coming to a better or right relationship with God. In fact, I go so far as to say that is all that living is about. May the peace of the Lord be with you.

Man makes idols in the stars and below...

By Peter Menkin

The personal side

of the Second Commandment:

Man is near the stars,

(how far we fly)

but really by God's grace;

we admire this creation

(and make gods of our efforts)

celestial-the stars.

(Where is a height so admired?)

The word of God.

(My mind cannot grasp.)

This is God's work, as are the efforts

of man at his labor.

Third Commandment: Do not take the name of the Lord in vain

God asks us for reverence and respect. In my Church, we take communion on Sundays and it is a reverent experience. With reverence congregants prepare for communion. With reverence congregants approach the table. With reverence congregants take the body and blood of Christ. This is a holy time set aside for worship and God, as is the Sunday worship experience.

Part of this experience in the Christian faith is remembering Christ, it is a memorial of his death and resurrection. Communion in my Church is a source of entering into and receiving God's love. A difficult experience to communicate, this Sunday communion, these words by Thomas Merton are a help.

Thomas Merton writes of a first Communion experience:
For now I had entered into the everlasting movement of the gravitation which is the very life and spirit of God. God's own gravitation towards the depths of His own infinite nature. His goodness without end. And God, that center Who is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, finding me, through incorporation with Christ, incorporated into this immense and tremendous gravitational movement which is love, which is the Holy Spirit, loved me.

From The Seven Storey Mountain: An Autobiography of Faith by Thomas Merton, p. 246.

Third Commandment
By Peter Menkin

Entertaining the mystery of God:

Doing as prayer says,

Hallowed be thy name.

Examined by the Ten Commandments.

This is some of the way.

Oh, Third Commandment of mystery and cloud,

so says the Lord,

You Shall not take the Name of the Lord in vain.

So direct; yet we contemplate

the many spiritual dimensions that light the way

to know the will of God brought by Moses.

Fourth Commandment: Day of Rest

In a film trailer, I noticed a clip of President Bush talking with a citizen. The woman said she had three jobs. President Bush said in so many words, this is American enterprise. I do not think he was thinking of the Sabbath, or commenting on it, so much as remarking on how much Americans work --and the President saying it is good. I don't think it is good to work that hard.

Now that I've gone deeper into the subject than I planned, it is my opinion that people should not work so hard to make ends meet. I think it is important to set aside a time of rest. The Ten Commandments allow us space to decide how we will interpret them, and live by them. The purpose of the Ten Commandments is to bring one closer to God.

Most of us in some ways violate the Ten Commandments. We are all difficult people to someone, and difficult people to God. Praying for each other is helpful in keeping neighbor and friend, difficult people, too. Prayer needs to bring people who are evil towards God, and people who are good.. This quote from Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, July August 2007:

"But praying for difficult people confuses us--do I want this person to be blessed? Did I want my daughter's wayward boyfriend to make money so he could finance her life on the streets? In these cases, we can borrow from the best, using ideas from the saints. For example, Jesus and the Apostle Paul used the following phrases:

"that [Christ] would be in them and they in [Christ] (John 17:23)

"that they may become completely one with others who love God (John 17:21, 23)

"that they be strengthened in their inner being with power through Christ's Spirit (Eph. 3:16)

"that they be rooted and grounded in love (Eph. 3:17)

"that they know (interactively) the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Eph. 3:19)

"that they would overflow with God's love and be full of discernment (Phil. 1:9-10)"

From "A Journey of Formation" by Jan Johnson in Weavings.

Saturday Commandment; Day of Rest
By Peter Menkin

The integral given

by the Lord

is rest the seventh day.

By this mankind may find

another way of living

a better, more fruitful

living life to God.

Pondering the meaning,

and examining my way of living

with a mighty God:

Alas, modern living in the 21st Century,

is not so friendly

to the God we know.

Fifth Commandment: Honor thy Father and Mother

More of the Ten Commandments: Each generation comes to peace with their father and mother, as if we are or were at war with them. Sometimes it seems that way during childhood and youth. Regardless, God has an opinion on the matter of what parents deserve in ones life.

Fifth Commandment
By Peter Menkin

We ponder wisdom. God

is on the childrens' side.

Hold my soul dear.

We are children all our lives-- to parents, and as adults;

God gives good advice:

Our mutual gifts embrace.

God's wisdom, man's understanding of living.

Do good, honor God, live in the land,

seek happiness. The path to friendship

with the Lord is written.

Special: remembrance and inner conversation.

Honor thy father and mother.

Moses was a special man, friend of God,

for he brought this simple lesson

from a mountain.

Thou Shalt do no Murder: Sixth Commandment

What to say about murder? The newspaper where I live, and the internet, tell of murders of various kinds. I am surprised that there are so many murders. It is frightening. This poem is part of the series on the Ten Commandments and says do not murder.

Sixth Command: Do no murder...

by Peter Menkin

Life, like a flame

gives light and burns:

a breath, the Holy Spirit,

gasped and known.

Honor and respect

this special gift, the Lord

says. Be a friend to life.

Blood may cry out, it does,

that murder, foul crime,

has ended life. We call

it awful, sin, evil. So many things

that tell us it is wrong.

For we think,

and know, not like brutes

but as mankind.

Let us cement our relationship

with the Lord, and say to ourselves,

each day: have I snuffed a life,

by giving pain, or stifled a flame?

For murder goes beyond the death;

death in many ways as in

spirit, or self.

A poem about: Seventh Commandment, Adultery

When Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the mountain, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery was the seventh of the Ten. For many people, this is a painful experience, to be on the end of adultery. That is an understatement.

Seventh Commandment
By Peter Menkin

Betrayal, and infidelity.

Evils

that some call sweet secret.

But a sin and blemish.

I know a man and a woman

who for twenty years were adulterous.

I know a woman who has been adulterous

all her married life, through four husbands.

So much unhappiness,

diminishment of spirit--lies of love, intimacy lost.

Thou Shalt Not Steal: Ten Commandments

The Eighth Commandment, a poem, continues the series on The Ten Commandments. All Ten Commandments will be covered, a poem for each. This series is a revision of an earlier series posted on this blog.

Eighth Commandment
By Peter Menkin
Robbery, theft, pilfering,
embezzlement, extortion--the list goes on of theft.

Ask the warden what it is
that brought the man to take what was anothers.

Something in the heart, the mind,
and many think
spirit. Man disobeys God.
Turned away.

Who has ears for the words of God?


This is the Commandment as published in "The Book of Common Prayer."
Thou shalt not steal.
Found on page 318, the Decalogue is complete with all Ten Commandments. Some readers will discover that the order found here does not agree with the order they know. The order used by me is the same as given in "The Book of Common Prayer"

The Ninth Commandment: Bear False Witness...

You will see all the Ten Commandments, again, on this blog. I posted one version of these Ten. This is the revised series.

The Ninth Commandment

By Peter Menkin
To say he did it,

when not at all.

God allows man to fail,

There is: evil.

How can there be a God,

if man does these things?

The falsely accused

face injustice, and cry.

Here it is again, the series on The Ten Commandments...

This series of revised poems on The Ten Commandments shows I am working on the great words of God. (Note that all three words, "The Ten Commandments" are capitalized. That was a problem with the first version. They were like The Ten Commandments themselves, didactic and no nonesense. I don't know if I've been able to get away from that, for God lays these down without much wiggle room.)

This is the Tenth Commandment, the one about coveting with a note about King David and the trouble he was into in wanting someone else's wife. God is strict with David, whom he loved and favored. His actions and predicament show how easily man falls prey to his weaknesses.

The Tenth Commandment: Coveting

by Peter Menkin


The other has it.

We want his wife, as David did his neighbor's.

We want his house, so big. Ours is not enough.

As the man with the field he coveted.


Driven by desires --misplaced,

man covets:

neighbor's wife, his servant, his maid, his ox, his ass.


You shall not covet,

the Tenth Commandment says,

for it makes ill of man.


We fall. Uphold us.