A poem by Peter Menkin, done with pictures by Terry Peck, turned into a movie video.

Friend of Man



Peter Menkin - May 21, 2005



 

For a long time
weeks,
day by day,
a month,
years...
I set out to be
friend of God.



There is darkness now,
at this hour.
The night tells me,
who chooses. Even if
I await
the morning and call
daystar, Oh, Lord,
this is a day you made,
I realize now
my temerity and ignorance.




You choose, and You are
the friend
to me, man.
Humility recognized. God is all.

 
The poet reads in audio the poem, here:

A Grace of God...(revise)
by Peter Menkin
________________________________________

Inner life
aware of soothing Spirit.
Waiting.
Grace that underlines
living.
Ask for waters
that spring from abundance.
Quenches.

Speak to my Heart
By Peter Menkin
January 25, 2010
(written in the wee hours of the morning)

I have waited on the Lord,
In the stillness of my mind.
In the music of a hymn,
In a conversation with a friend.

It is in the loveliness of a flower,
And the color of the light of day
Lost in a prayer from the prayer book,
I have waited on the Lord.

My friend, it is the pleasure of life,
The knowledge in simplicity of knowing
One another, and even the times that come looming
To the psyche of trials and fears in a tunnel
Where confinement of spirit and mind

Make the soul weep and wonder
That there is comfort in knowing you
Lord. Speak to my heart.

Your question: Where is God?

I assume yours is a religious question. There are two easy answers: Come and see, as in attend Church and there you will find God; God is present whether you know it or not, which is to say we are not always aware of God. But where you may be is where God is.

Should you gain some feeling and belief, you may find God in your heart, on your lips, and in your mind. Nonetheless, God is the other. "My ways are not your ways," says God, and he remains somewhat a mystery. Your question is a point of departure, and the beginning of a journey.

There are theologians who believe God is in heaven and that life of heaven is also present on earth. "Your kingdom come," is a familiar phrase in the Creeds, and one worth meditating on if for no other reason to gather oneself in quiet. God is found in the quiet. He is not in the lightning, as the phrase goes from Isaiah. "Be silent and know that I am God," is a well known phrase.

God is revealed and found in Jesus Christ, who points the way and is an entry way to God. God is goodness, and where goodness is found, there you have evidence of God. Creation is good. Most people find good in creation. "Thank you God for my creation," is a good prayer of praise and thanksgiving. It offers gratitude and evidences the same. That is an affirmative statement, and helps on the way.

There are so many answers to your question, Where is God, and it isn't the number of answers but the many facets of the Almighty: the way of Christ in his journey tells us what we need to do to get closer to God. The Bible tells us about God, and in both the Old and New Testament the works are illuminated. They are, "The word of God." Even the "Word" is a way of saying God for the "Word" is the wisdom that is Jesus Christ, and it is in wisdom literature and living that one finds a way to live with God. He is too great to grasp, too awesome to behold, too beyond mankind in conception to understand, he is the other; He is spirit.

"Seek and ye shall find." "Ask and it shall be given." There are so many ways to God in Christ, that the daily work and living is part of the God experience. "I am the vine, and you are the branches." Shortened as these readings may be, they are departure points for the inquirer and seeker. Without doubt, God is an ambiquity, and matter of wrestling with life and Him, of even giving up ones life to find God in Christ. A wise man told me, "Live the questions."

So to know how to find Christ is the answer, to find God and with the Holy Spirit's help, to seek and live in the unknowing and the knowing is where God can be found.

--Peter Menkin, Pentecost 2008 (August)

Photo: "Water Buckets Filling," by Henry Worthy, London (Camaldoli Oblate).

A Walk in San Francisco: God, Bishop, Man, Church:
Diocese of California Celebration--July 17, 1999
(a meditation and report; some notes on a public spiritual walk with observations and side comments)

By Peter Menkin
(written July 17, 1999)


Starting in the Morning
Some months (now years) have passed since the walk occurred, and a moment of reflection on the event makes me want to continue in prayer. I believe that there can be a silence in our emptying of our mind, in a Zen fashion. Doing this allows the Triune God to enter in, and it allows the archetype to whisper, and the speaking of our past lives to bring new impressions of reality to bring in our day.

When we gather together as a Church, or a Diocese, and walk among the Shepard, and are ourselves the people who as children of light seek to let that light come in, there is a Springtime of Easter where we can be receptive and allow the promise of his presence to bring us to that beating heart of our body to be Christ.

The morning is a difficult time, for we await the light, we await the waking of the world, the birds to sing, the everyday working life to begin its struggle and toil, its very labor as Job would in his exceptional relationship enter into another waking oblation in complaint, love, and observation with the Lord. This commentary, no stranger to the children of Abraham, is a Biblical time and I recommend the reading of Acts, and at this time of year for our Easter Luke.

Wondering is good, but the quiet of the Sunday is really the joy of measure that brings us closer to ascend and discern, to be and to contemplate. May we find someone who is suffering and in need, who is a good soul, and a genuinely gifted person as the Tibetan Nun in China who suffers so greatly at the hands of her torturers. To be in prayer and solitude with her is the silence that is the Zen moment. There is to know another who is a great distance, and to walk with them in the spirit on a journey that is an immensity of the times and in the world. I ask your prayers. God grant us grace to walk among the creatures that we have been given, and to maintain our selves in stability, in the love of our Lord, as we come to know the inevitability of the mystery of the resurrection. This we do when we walk together as Church, as Christian, in seeking our God, and knowing God who is a great and wonderful thing as a force for entry the narrow way. Oh, light, bring us this morning. This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad in it.

What's Right In the World
There is a comfort in knowing the presence of God, and eventually one may find that this kind of willingness to travel with a restful attempt to remain in the presence of the almighty is refreshing. The most unusual thing about this Saturday walk with clergy and church members was it reminded me of the importance to be aware in preparation for Sunday. If it hadn't been for the others along the way, I would have had a very much difficult time climbing the hill to the Cathedral.

By our all climbing that hill together, like followers, like disciples, like strugglers, like penitents, like lovers, and as friends, my own journey was made easier. How glad I was along with the others for those who shepherded us on to worship. This Saturday morning of July 17, 1999 the entire group of people who attend the Episcopal Church in my area of San Francisco, started gathering in the morning for a walk up California Street. I arrived early from a sense of desire to participate in an early morning time in the City. One of the nearer towns to the Cathedral, where our journey in pilgrimage together was taking us, is in Mill Valley in Marin County.

Others came from Contra Costa County, and some from South of San Francisco like Christ's Church located near Stanford University. Our Saviour was the group I started looking for in the morning, and was happy to find a Reverend Gwen, a Deacon, who also arrived early to begin sheparding us along. She had a map showing the way up the California Street Hill, and our places to gather together for the walk. There was a woman Priest named Gloria who was on one corner of the congruent point of arrival.

Beginning at a Crossroads
We began at a crossroads. She was dressed in a long coat, since the morning was cool and the fog had lifted. The Reverend Gloria speaks Spanish. Across from her, to the West towards the Ocean side of the Bay, was another small gathering of Church members. They held the first lone banner, to be joined by others with banners to lead their small groups. Love called us. So it does as we listen when we walk for that bidding of love, the love that is offered to us in friends and others.

There is a treasure for us to be enjoyed in a walk, by ourselves in solitude or with others as I am describing to you here. By the time the morning had risen for us to greet the arrival of the leaders, we were pretty well organized and happy to continue up the walk. Later the St. Gregory's Church community waved us along, refreshing us, as we sent the way through the middle of the street. They are a joyous group.

They walk in a bunch. The diversity of the Diocesan Episcopal Church USA group was described in a dispatch from the Church as: " Let It Shine, the procession, which included Chinese dragons, bagpipers and a sea of church banners, numbered more than 2,500 and stretched nearly four blocks." So wrote Dennis Delman the Church magazine.

There were people of all nationalities and colors in our group, and there is no singleness in Christ, nor a barrier to him or in the walk I am describing here. San Francisco is a diverse group of families from many places in the world, as are the people who were gathered in friendship.

Presiding Bishop Led the Way
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church was accompanied by his wife, and The Honorable Frank T. Griswold had this to say about the occasion, that is true for us as a spiritual direction in taking a walk up the hill wherever we may be: "'Be thankful,'" our reading from the Letter to the Colossians urges us, 'and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.' A spirit of gratitude opens the way for what is given to appear as gift, as the poet Stephen Mitche observes with regard to prayer.

Gratitude helps us to release our grasp on life: to be grateful is an act of non possession; it is a yielding of control which delivers us from the harsh and unforgiving judgments we so often direct against ourselves and others." The way we journeyed along together, this large community gathering in its spiritual exercise of shepherding to a place of worship, was by approaching the excitement with an acceptance in faith for the coming entry to the Cathedral.

This preparation for a feast inside, continued us along in a companionship of desire to be together, and to join in saying the very words that we as a community believed would bring us closer in faith, and know in love the source of the being that is the Triune God. We can bring this into our body, incarnate this for the good of our soul.

Italicized Comments: Expectations
Sometimes in retrospect, looking back just those short few weeks ago from today, I consider that the amazing coincidence of fate that brought so many together in joy for the festivities of banners, excitement, and experience to live in a more liturgical and spiritual manner together was joyful.

The power of the living word, so aptly and well said as a love to the lips in breathing just the clean air itself in this morning climb was preparation for us enough. When taking a walk, remember as others and I do, that this is a preparation for worship in your own Church. That God would be with someone alone, though, later, is another matter. God is with us, and this is the message that I want to leave with you as I recount what it is to take a walk in the country or the city. Look for him. I tell you this because it is not only what we brought in joy and anticipation, but in the expectation that we would return to our homes, families, and later in worship to our own Churches of the communion that made us happily able to walk.

So we came, friends, carrying in and enjoyment of banners and yes crosses, willing to carry them together with the clergy among and before and behind us.

Walking with God and Man
When I returned home, and in the days following I practiced reflecting on the way that I walk. When one walks with God, does one wonder as one walks, does one look for beauty and think of the glory of God, does one examine the earth and know that it is a soil of forgiveness and charity?

How does one walk, in the breathing silence that is the living presence of the Almighty?

Pondering these matters, I considered the Bible a source of the joy in which I might come to know a way that is Christ, and how I could remain more fruitful in a care for others. What is this manner that we or I can do with a friend in the expectation that God is in his willingness, and we are able in the necessity of our virtue to offer a simple prayer of pleasure in the living that he offers us. Ponder we did, I am sure, as the many who were there did, as a friend did who made the journey and was so specially blessed to be brought home refreshed, though drained. Another friend had been a singer in the Choir, and this for her was probably a remaining hymn for us as a living testament to the condition that this kind of prayerful or spiritual desire can offer by the experience we shared.

Peace was a theme of this celebration, and how aptly this message is given by the very nature of the worship. Even during the liturgy we offered to one another a time to say a peaceful word. This exercise in being a good neighbor, to be decent to another is worth reflecting on because that is the fruit of the spiritual walk.

I look towards a walk in the daytime, or at evening, in a way that is a journey towards friendship and in peace, despite my own travails and difficulties. This kind of desire can be difficult to maintain, since many people suffer seriously from unhappiness. Some say Christ brought the lame, the maimed, the halt, the forgiven, the sinner, and others to a satisfaction in the grace of living in this world.

Celebration & Love
God helps us we celebrate, and we remember in the story of a journey we take on a walk that we have homes and children with whom we can find a love and some ways to bring to one another a more cheerful and giving time in our lives. God helps us do these things. There are many who haven't these things in their lives, the less fortunate and the poor. By every step of the way, catching prayerful thoughts can be accomplished. This is one foot in front of another, and the whole body in quiet, in rhythm with the living God, and the light of others, along the way where there are buildings, or people, in streets, on a path in the woods or a garden, we see as we look to take our path that we are hastening towards our heavenly home.

Many of the parents who were with the clergy who shepherded us to this enjoyment were younger than I am, and this kind of presence of people who are so well prepared in their lives to offer us aid and support is a gratifying thing to know about.

That lesson of walking with others, or walking alone, helped me to continue my own path of spiritual awakening in the Church. This kind of journey that we find in an everyday event is refreshing. Thank God for the time we took in this joining together in assembly. Though we walk apart, we go forth in the harmony that the Lord is with us.

Conclusion
Say a prayer along the way. There are many subjects for prayer, and a prayer can be short like a brief moment in time as a still point. Like letting loose small pieces of folded paper into the air for others to know about, these prayers can be available to others as we offer them to God.

Falling in Love Again: Poem about God
by Peter Menkin

I fell in love with you
when I had a chance
in my soberness, in my faith, in my heart,
and I wondered if this love would go?

God as man,
God as spirit,
God as Father --all--
I fell in love with you again,

this day, and I reminded myself
you will not go, and thank you
for your willingness to love
one such as me.

Visit to the Veteran's Hospital: San Francisco

Just last year a friend from Church passed away at the Veteran's Hospital in San Francisco. I wrote this poem some years ago, after visiting "Fort Miley", San Francisco and seeing the sketches of soldiers on one hallway wall--in black ink by artists. I wanted to do something, too. So this poem which was originally workshopped on The Atlantic Monthly Writer's Workshop, which is no longer extant. That was around 2000.

I Visited the Veteran's Hospital Today, Oh Boy...
by Peter Menkin


The fog sits and lives by the City
Where men with their sketches made
by nursing friends to strangers, linger
on the walls and in the memories.

Anonymous lessons of Caesar campaigns,
and American victories of elegant tours,
in journeys from many armies
are adorned by men with injuries tended.

This on the caverns and hallways
punctuated by building clinic,
hospital, Nursing Home, Ambulatory Center
for Veterans in San Francisco by the Pacific.

Limbs, lives, bodies nurtured with
desparite routine in diversity,
of legions in regular staff to
administer the chapel of balm to war injured.

Oh, boy, I saw the men today
and the women when visiting
the line at the Veteran's Hospital, Oh Boy.
I heard the news today, saw the results.

Care and treatment offered:
Tender mercies given with discipline,
received with gratitude, politics,
and golden hearts with purple glory
in sketches of lines of color in living faces.
A kind of memorial to wounded.

These, Oh, Boy, I read the news today
of American faces mingling comraderies
in wounded attention, ministrations of,
Oh, Boy, the agony was apparent in the quiet.

The fog rolls through the Golden Gate
in the City where the houses in their
colored array sit cheek to jowl; the men
talk of Senators and Officers, wait for prosthetics.

Oh, Boy, there is God who is around
the corner, down the hall. I read
the news today in the vastness
and hub bub to display a sketch of tenderness.

"Talking to the Muse, Conversations with the Holy Spirit II" (Count Basie)

by Peter Menkin

My muse interrupted the reverie

this June day with the tune, "Pennies from Heaven"

awakening syncopating glee. Count Basie.

Decca Jazz.

We live on this food: along the path

I find myself fed by You.

It is a manna the Lord offers: a suitable meal --

traveling to liberty of soul in Triune God.

Manifold graces.

Piano plays, ratta-tat-honky-tonk swing,

refrain introduce jumpin' yes riddly-dit.

The horn blows responding,

like Priests out of 2 Chronicles. Swing it.

Dance music to Honeysuckle Rose

some hymn to intro "Everytime it rains it rains pennies from heaven...

you'll find your fortune

falling all over town."

Book Review: Paul Tillich's "Dynamics of Faith"

Many years ago, about 35, I was talking on the phone to a friend who told me “God is love.” This shocked and surprised me so much that I had to get off the phone. The idea was new to me, a child of atheist parents. Now I find that Paul Tillich in his book, “Dynamics of Faith,” writes of the ultimate concern (God) in terms of love. Imagine that I was so unknowing and ignorant, in a way lost, and presently continue in my discoveries of God. And of love.

Paul Tillich is someone who will help a reader on the way to know and learn about what God is and who he is to mankind. This includes who he is to the individual man or woman. I have started at the end of the book to work my way to introduce the reader of this review to Paul Tillich’s wonderful book.

First, who was Paul Tillich. This from the Encyclopedia Brittanica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite (the Brittanica designed for the computer):

German-born U.S. theologian and philosopher whose discussions of God and faith illuminated and bound together the realms of traditional Christianity and modern culture. Some of his books, notably The Courage to Be (1952) and Dynamics of Faith (1957), reached a large public audience not usually concerned with religious matters. The three-volume Systematic Theology (1951–63) was the culmination of his rigorous examination of faith.

The writer is a man with a powerful way with words, imaginative gift of communicating theological ideas, and a teacher with a strong mind. His writing will strengthen the reader’s mind and provide means to approach ideas. He says there is “…the healing power of the state of the ultimate concern.” In the last chapter, “The Life of Faith,” he goes on, “The concern of faith is identical with the desire of love: reunion with that to which one belongs and from which one is estranged. In the great commandment of the Old Testament, confirmed by Jesus, the object of ultimate concern, and the object of unconditional love, is God.” This is a book for people who like ideas. We are, each of us, being reconciled to our ultimate concern throughout our lives. This is the dynamic.

Published in 1957 by Harper & Brothers Publishers of New York, this one of a series of books planned and edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen, is a first edition. I do not know what it is worth as such, perhaps a few dollars more than a new copy. I found mine in my Church library, an Episcopal Church. The book is a statement in favor of the Protestant way of faith. He is unabashed in his favor for this way of religion. It is even an argument for Protestantism. Catholics will find this an informative and useful book, even one required as reading in many seminaries. A woman friend who attended Nashota House told me she had to read it when she was a seminary student, though the seminary is Protestant it is part of the Episcopal Church catholic tradition.

The other books in this series by the publisher are part of what was called World Perspectives. I cannot speak to the other works, but this work remains contemporaneous, as you could guess by what I have written so far. Editors in that series: Niels Bohr, Richard Courant, Hu Shih, Ernest Jackh, Robert M. MacIver, J. Robert Oppenheimer, I.I. Rabi, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Alexander Sachs. Many of these names I know, but then these are more of my parent’s generation in some ways than mine (I was born after the Second World War). But though unchurched in their lifetime, my parents were educated people, if just by their own devices: intellectuals and artists.

You’ll find the book takes off right at the beginning. The first chapter is titled, “What Faith Is,” and the first sentence goes: “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned: the dynamics of faith are the dynamics of man’s ultimate concern. Man, like every living being, is concerned about many things, above all about those which condition his very existence, such as food and shelter.” Not the first to say it, nor the most important, I will add my voice to others and declare the writer writes so very well. It is a pleasure to read for the writing is so good.

This remarkable and brilliant book, I cannot go without praising it again, talks about courage. Paul Tillich finds courage an important ingredient to faith, the kind he explains and extols. He says it is in doubt that we find faith, for faith without doubt is static. We are all with some doubts, and from doubt we grow faith and renew our faith in the ultimate concern.

Not so long a book, but 127 pages, I think a reader will find it edifying. Edifying is a good word for this work. We are destined to have faith, for the writer says we are a species with a spiritual nature and desire. “”Faith sees in a concrete piece of reality the ultimate ground and meaning of all reality. No piece of reality is excluded from the possibility of becoming a bearer of the holy; and almost every kind of reality has actually been considered as holy by acts of faith in groups and individuals”-- a graceful book.

--Peter Menkin, Easter 2007

This review was posted to Amazon.com under the same title.

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.

About a relationship with God

Here is an older poem, revised recently. It is about the morning. A friend recently asked, "How is your morning going?" Her question is a good one, and it started me thinking that there are many parts to my morning. I like to think it is mostly like the poem. Mostly, it is. In each of the seasons I have the company of God. This is comforting. "...(I)t is all too easy to concentrate on the human struggle..., and forget the primary role of God in all of this. What is more, all the way with God is with God," writes Terrence G. Kardong in "Benedict's Rule: A Translation and Commentary."

I have quoted the monk Kardong with a hand to address the relationship with God within the spirit of "with God's protection" from RB 73: That the Whole Fulfillment of Justice is not Laid Down in this Rule. Though my practice can be ascetical, to a small extent, his quotation is meant to address the larger practices. I think it fits, nonetheless.

Early morning (2000) (revise)...
Peter Menkin

Startling reminder, ray point of light (star):

come winter daytime,

bring early morning to awaken anew before

dawn, with life to arise.

Stretch pearl luster

and harken with children,

young parents, neighbors,

and babies unborn asleep,

resting in the womb

to come forth beginning.

The new day has intentions.

You Holy Spirit stir me,

health and hopefulness restore.

Here is a good reason to go to Church -- to find God...

Lately, and by that I mean the last six months, I have been reworking poems. Here is one I workshopped on Blueline Poetry. My visits there have been helpful. This poem is about wanting God in one's life. More so, it says "yearning." Advent and Christmas are good seasons for finding God. We ask that the Lord Christ be born in our heart at Christmas. Advent is the preparation for the birth of Christ.

A Man finds he Yearns for God

by Peter Menkin

Shall I be personal about it.

I have begged the holy spirit:

Lead me in reading the Bible.

For my hope is in the Lord.

Nothing matches for me

this hope of knowing God.

I have implored the spirit of truth.

Reveal to me the Word

of God in the Bible.

I yearn, this is a man's truth.

To live the life--

The promise I want

to have this language in my heart,

in my mind, on my lips. This is an earnest need:

yearn. God chooses us first.

We go to his call.

Exploring prayer time, a short poem about approaching the Lord...

Today I visited Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for Evening Prayer. On Thursdays, like today's Evening Prayer, the time is a choral Prayer time. Two friends went with me, and as usual everyone who has gone with me has enjoyed the prayer experience, and certainly the music of the choral group.

In this short poem posted today, the reader will find one sense of prayer, for here I outline the self approaching the Lord. It is a known issue for Christians that we are thankful for Christ's life, for his redeeming mankind. At some point, this becomes personal to the extent that the inner man, the self, the part of a man or woman who has an essence, still an observing self made stronger through succumbing to the knowledge that the persecuted Christ, the Christ of the Cross is able to evoke for us the sense of self that we are sinners. We pray through God's grace. In prayer one is received.

The part of the identity of a man or woman that is human, individual and universal, yearns for the peace and forgiveness that is part of the Christ one gets to know.

We want to grasp this eternity, what is there for us we do grasp through humility and the gift of grace that there is an essential part that is reached. So I have written about some of the matter of experiencing belief and faith in the Lord Jesus and in the continuing love and faithfulness of God the Father in this poem, making that word "self" broader and hopefully a more imaginative self.

Prayer Time...
by Peter Menkin

The afternoon comes,
Each day prayer time:
Being with You.
Quiet,
Silence my thoughts.

In the presence of God,
In Christ,
In the Spirit
My self approaches,
My self it waits,
To just be.