The Sunday feast of Communion, a personal and religious testimony...

Sunday Church is a feast with Communion, and here I mean not only the taking of Communion but the entire service. There is hospitality to this kind of celebration, and I find I cannot go on with my notes without adding that there is an immense pleasure in taking the bread and the wine. Perhaps you have noticed and enjoyed a similar experience.

My poem from 2001 is a personal statement on my experience of Communion and the Sunday Celebration, called a feast. I like being fed at the Lord's table, and while telling you, reader, of my own religious experience through this poem I hope to strike some common note. I have been told that the poem represents the religious sensibility.

The Hospitality of Communion
by Peter Menkin

In the poverty that lies
of my sorrow,I asked with the bended
knee of my heart
for gifts as Solomon
did when he asked of You
wisdom.

Wisdom day, I want to know
this rhythm living
with You.
Some wonderfully enter
into spectacular celebration
on Sundays that is a feast,
and I am waiting
to know some of this incredible
Word:

let my prayer rise like
a sweet savor,
incense that is happiness.

Discovery, you are the Vine,
and there is such celebration!
I called out in the Church,
Reveal Yourself, O my God!

I am needy and seek You.
In the quiet part of day,
towards sunset,hear me.
My sorrow brings
me a lowly heart. May

I know this lowly heart
in your poverty.
I have met You
in others.

They invite me
with an ache. Heart.
Mine. Give me
hospitality.
Accept me.

Reflection in August, 2000 about visiting the Clock by the Square...

The Clock by the square...(2000)
by Peter Menkin

By the clock in the square, across the way,
where lunch was taken at the Bus Stop Cafe, and children
Played by parents on the brick pattern square
Where are the happy people in the sunlight?
I stayed for a while on return from Church.
Outside the open tables in the downtown park:

The peaceful August scene was ordinary With pangs of growing in American study
To offer a community picture in clarity energetic.
From time to time I noticed
the remembrance of my father's death--engaged
me in a valley of sorrows.

These were among the enlarging elements,
the healthy business of a SundayMorning to and from Church, where
we stand in prayer and patience
To enjoin the mystery of binding celebration.
This pastoral telling is the week's recitation.
How we come for strength, as well as solace

Through the roads and walkways festooned
With morning strollers and boulevard company--Below
the mountain and the redwoods.
To discover the commonality of our differences,
That meld to the spiritual necessity.
Thank you for a few kind words.

We've taken time to know we are but grass.
A passing thing, even as the great leviathan
Or the moving wave to shore will
Grant the expansion of energy and time
In the waiting upon the Almighty these that
are a solemnity of intelligent vigor, spiced
With happiness and tasted with the everlasting
That touches us in this friendly universe.

What that I could grasp You, enraptured
With others, even strangers, desiring
to Know in the communion of the body.
What did, what do, what share we this day.
We have as Congregants the assembled prayer we

To entrust ourselves to immortalities.
To recognize and practice the word of God,
no idle tale, to
"avoid the unprofitable maze,"
coming to a sacrifice of praise

As a celebration on the morning these
The days of our lives. So endeavor we,
finding humility this morning.