Apophatic Prayer: a Transcription (2000) by Peter Menkin
by Peter Menkin The unusual poem about Apophatic Prayer is transcription, of sorts, of a talk given by Father Michael at Camaldoli Study House in Berkeley, California USA (Incarnation Monastery). Given during an Oblate's study day, the Benedictine talk on contemplation and the contemplative experience indicates that one may reach for God. This is a different poem, and this aspiring poet suggests the reader listen to the poem as read by the poet as he or she reads the work. Everyone will not do so, but it does help with the reading. Here is the link to the audio reading of the poem by the poet: http://www.archive.org/details/ApothaticPrayerATranscription2000revisions 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. Peter Menkin, an aspiring poet, lives in Mill Valley, CA USA where he writes poetry. He is an Oblate of Immaculate Heart Hermitage, Big Sur, CA and that means he is a Camaldoli Benedictine. He is 64 years of age as of 2010. Copyright Peter Menkin http://www.petermenkin.blogspot.com Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |
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