Here is my consideration of a brief poem of waiting in a hospital emergency room.


by Peter Menkin (2000)



Here is my consideration

of a brief poem of waiting

in a hospital emergency room.



The man from the Veteran's Hospital

was late, and the baby cried happily.

Two children wore the doctor's bandages

in the waiting room. Earlier at evening tide

there was a quiet conference in the

education center. The man who tip toes

through the tulips was pulling his car to

the main door of Marin General when I

arrived. The beep, the bio feedback, the

numbers 106 over, 95 over, oxygen 96.



The heart is monitored by machines, the

ticking clock sweeps from the hours through

Evening Prayer, and the long explanation of

conversation with God in a description begins.



Our Father, who, art in Heaven where the Lord

lives. Hallowed is a joy to us in song and in the

majestry of golden walls. Be thy name, a mystery

unspeakable, a land and a place oh joy of hymn.



Thy kingdom, a tree where we abide and sing,

along the branches like those whose life is tended,

as the lily is beautiful so we are without anxiety in

your Kingdom where there is clothing that we neither



work nor labor and Come. Thy will, your will be done.



Me in thee and thee in me. On earth as it is in heaven,

the cherubim and the archangels sing a constant hymn

of song in worship and adoration in this holy spirit that

yours is. Give us this day, to begin and say this is the

day the lord has made, let us

be glad in it. our daily bread to eat as a manna from

heaven a promise of which we are not worthy, oh, I

have denied thee, and loved thee, for you are a rest

to me and a comfort. Forgive us as we ask this of you

in your grace of giving this question to us this evening

the hour turns towards nine o'clock and the doctor is

waiting the nurses are coming. I am thirsty, and listening

now in another room. As we forgive those who trespass



against, for this is a prayer against another, in the wrestling

that is our lives, in struggle and in toil, my heart beats,

breath and practice bio feedback.



Us, whom we think about. The us of the hospital, the patients,

the nurses, the paramedics who are in their blue uniforms.

Cool and so well waiting. Someone has died. I sense it,



for I practice discernment, Oh Lord of my life, my love in

testimony, I seek thee. Thou art here, where can I go from

thy presence. For thine is the kingdom, and the power.



I meditate upon this and contemplate the beep of the system,

the pressure on my arm, the woman with her husband, her

marriage in Christ, and the closeness of their concern in

love of waiting, the glory, oh, yes, thine is greater than the

cosmos of imagining. A creation beyond of goodness, a place

of beginning that is where the I am that I am for you have

come across me and the saints are living presences among



the waiting in the rooms curtained one from another. Forever

and ever. Amen. I ponder, I contemplate, I look for meditation,



the baby is a joy to everyone. Whose heart is this saint's? A

charity of visitation, a transfiguration of compassion, a



continuation



of a journey in prayer. The lady across the long room wants

me to say confession for her.

Yours sincerely.

 
 
 
Audio reading by poet of his work is here:

Gratefully Yours, poem by Peter Menkin

Did I not say gratefully yours
in my letter that I said that is a prayer
that I said
when I spoke to you in Church this evening
among my friends, others with whom I'd spoken
this same evening
that I said
gratefully yours, I love you Lord and give thanks
for the gifts you've given me. It's taken
so long to recognize
these gifts of love and friendship.
For I am gratefully yours,
and sorry I did not realize that I thank you
this day for my creation and preservation.

Audio reading by the poet is here:







My website is here:

http://www.petermenkin.com

Prayer as subject: Response to an email posting

This particular struggle of worship, how to approach and address God so one may be personal and intimate with the Creator depends, at least for me, on my need and posture of faith at the time of prayer.

Mondays for me and others is a time for Evening Prayer in the Church. And since I am Episcopalian (an Oblate of New Camaldoli through Charism of Friendship, and more), we use "The Book of Common Prayer." It has rubrics, or directions, for prayer usually followed throughout the world by various Anglicans who are engaged daily in this Work of the Lord. We Oblates are united in Prayer, as Father Robert points out. United with the monks, too, certainly and significantly.

Starting at 5 p.m. on Mondays, I prepare by prayer on my knees. At this particular service, which I lead on Mondays, and sometimes on Thursdays at my Parish, I find that Mondays I look for an informal and special more personal interpretation of kneeling.

So we get permission from the Rector to bend the Rules Mondays, an unusual thing which took some conversation on the why and how. Nonetheless, with his blessing by the Rector, on Monday Evenings only we are allowed to spend more time on our knees than the rubrics really call for, and perhaps even allow.

We stand for the Gospel, and the creeds, but otherwise almost the entire time is spent on our knees. Though this is not the "inspiration" for the start of this practice, I do remember that on my visits to Immaculate Heart Hermitage, the Rosarie is said on one's knees (unusual for Camaldoli, since the usual arrangment is sitting).

Mostly, when in contemplative prayer at home, and even in Church where I have done so, if only briefly, I sit. I find though, that contemplative practice spills over to the usual by the book prayer time in Church. And to go further with this discussion of to kneel or not, I find when listening to the sermon and at times like prayer, sitting or on my knees while Communion is given, I rest in the Lord and the prayers. This is probably the better and more important part for me. As I seek peace and pursue it.

I remember Father Robert saying that when first getting up in the morning, during that half awake, asleep time, pay attention in a meditative way to thoughts etc. I do this at the times just noted when listening to the Sermon, or waiting with others as Communion is taken. So it is on the knees or seated, I find prayer and relation to God in Christ.

It is in a kind of dreamy, meditative, waiting state that I spend this time of "unconscious exploration" prayer time once in a while. If only briefly so.

And as I say, this came from the experience of exploring the time of wakening in the morning. Again, it just came. I did not plan it. I hope it is an all right practice, for I like others look for direction on matters like this, like those of to kneel or sit.

Though not feeling divided on the issue, my general rule when visiting another Church, a not so often thing, but I do attend Saturday Catholic mass with my friend frequently, I do as the others. I follow the community practice. Almost entirely, I do so in my own Parish--of course, I say this.

But you can see, that for me the question arises, as it has for others given the recent postings here. Mostly, though, I find surrender the better of the focus in these matters. And also, I am pretty conventional, or so I think, and not given to various rebellions of kind. Not when it comes to these kind of matters, at least.

Afterall, I am led and taught. I like this. I even seek it. That I am is one reason I became an Oblate.

Peter Menkin, Obl Cam OSBMill Valley, CA USA
(north of San Francisco)

The Contemplative prayer Experience

I have found the practice of contemplative prayer soothing, peaceful, and prayer that offers affection. Thomas Keating recommends two 20 minute sessions daily. I practice one in the afternoon. Is this a struggle, contemplative prayer? Is this a wrestling match? It is hospitality, acceptance, reception of Christ. It is surrender.

Two poems, one an introduction to the other.

Affection Treasured...

by Peter Menkin

This yearning need,

by grace is affection treasured,

acceptance satisfying. I am a man of faults.

You enlarge my heart by presence,

moving me to accept the other. The other.

You Almighty are other.

Each day prayers are offered,

and study goes on: reading books on spiritual matters.

It is the prayer that helps, mostly.

The books instruct, in so many ways.

The connection is living the life in the Way.

Struggle sometimes to be friend to neighbor;

love brings me strength and a wisdom,

offering a perfection. You are love, known.

I lift up my heart to You.

I open my heart to you. I wait.

Silence. You are love, unknown.

Now I must hush. I must hush.

The ongoing Conversation
By Peter Menkin

God's presence,
communicates silence, making
things seen and unseen:
prayerful notices. These conversations
continue reverently.

How soothing to listen: the Yes.

Be awake in spirit and mind
during the engagement with God.
The fiery envelopment
elicited within, enjoined
to others in a rising embrace
by unknowable vastness.

A moment to be aware
of God's presence.

Thank you for taking the time to read these new poems. The second is a revise of an older poem from 2000. The first is brand new, hot off the press.

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

Apophatic Prayer: A Transcription (2000)

by Peter Menkin

Invited by God into
a wordless kind
of prayer--Cataphatic is opening
the Bible
and believing
the images of entering
into the wonder of the scene.

The same one invites us
into the apophatic spirituality.

Desert, stripping, pain, addiction.
loneliness. (Aloneness.)

Desert spirituality will be deeper,
and this is one.
Invitation to an all
new spirituality. This is the

monk's.
Birth at forty.
Forty to eighty.
Eighty to one-hundred twenty.

Moses was offering deliverance. (Acts.)
Settles into what is
the symbolic period
of 40 years~into the future.

After 40 years he was learned to,
as a child,
look at this strange sight,
"Why the bush is not burning."

Look hard in the desert
at 80 years of age of age.
This is a life as a child.
In the Hebrew: ~ I must go across and look.

This is a leaving of where
he was on a life
with the sheep
and have a look
at something
new.

He must leave this security
of the plain to be
confronted with the mystery.

How far the Lord wanted Abraham
to go as did Peter
in his early morning
as he waited for Christ. As did

Martha when she organized Christ,
or the Spirit.
Martha learns
something when Lazaraz
dies.

God knows when we are
in the desert when he calls
in the desertwhen he calls,
"Where is Moses."

It is in the Holy Fire
of God
when we take off our shoes,
as did Moses.
We do it
alone,
in solitude.

The very thing is the presence
of God
waiting for us.

I have heard the suffering
of my people. (Father Michael.)

God liberates Moses,
who in his
brokenness discovers his identity,
and in his~finds his mission.

Contemplation (from male spirituality):trust
in the insecurity of the painful
victoryby putting on the mind
of Christ. "Mercy."
reads an Oblate, "instead of sacrifice.
"went to the desert."
Moses meets God
in the inner Desert
and leads those in slavery
outside.

There are two deserts:
The invitation, the inside us
that is the other/Merton calls this
the great self within that is
the God within us. (The ineffable
now of truth.) Entailing
the creator,

we are in failure invited
into another truth,
the abandonment into the word.
For the Oblate (for me),
getting up early,

God very seldom comes as a
gentle invitation.
It comes as an assault on our invitation.

The Gospel only
makes sense
to the poor,
(the weakness of the poverty
of our humanity.)

We are
all struggling with the ideal
of our body, of a woman
and of a man.

The Little Book notates
poverty of spirit-- a Little Book:
New look at spirituality,
new look at being human,
new look at who God is.

The Little Book notates entering into
the dying and stripping
--stripped with everything and just being
left with the now.
A cup of wine becomes sacred.
A desert allows us

to find a meaning (a place)
in the sacred.
Cup of wine

a desert allows
burning bush
yes.
This flow is within us
and other people. There
is surrender here.
There is surrender there.

Without doing.
and not going against
the nature of things
we have to go
where we are fed by Christ.
God takes Moses
into the heart of God.

(Words & thoughts by Father Michael, OSB Cam;
poem & transcription by Peter Menkin Obl Cam OSB.)