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.