Peter Menkin has 9 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 6 narrators. The most-rated is Report on Christ Church, Savannah, GA and its Breakway from the Episcopal Church.
Commentary and Report: 'Is Marriage Worth Defending?'
Summary
This is a comprehensive and well-researched paper that should encourage those working to preserve marriage as an institution that strengthens our society. Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago The paper on marriage written by Alan Wisdom titled, "Is Marriage Worth Defending," has been on my own interest-screen since January, 2011. This likeable and readable paper of some note and considerable interest on the subject of traditional marriage, with a section on Gay Marriage, was originally produced in 2009 by Institute on Religion and Democracy as one of its Mt. Nebo papers. The Institute, a conservative think-tank, produces a few papers and offers thoughts, press releases, and talks to groups and the press about religious issues like marriage - the traditional kind. Surprisingly, as this writer spent some time talking via email and in person with others on the subject of marriage, it came to pass that most were obsessed with the subject of Gay Marriage, and they turned to that as their subject in conversations, ignoring the more traditional kind. This is so even if they themselves were married in a Church, under vows and the part of which offered their relationship as a couple reamains in the eyes of Christ, even in Christ Himself, as well as in their Christian Church.
©2011 Peter A Menkin (P)2013 Peter A Menkin
The New Pope Francis
Summary
Two interviews with Yale Professors about the New Pope Francis. In a phone conversation with Sister Janet Ruffing, Professor at Yale University along with an exchange of emails, she commented on the New Pope Francis. As a Roman Catholic Sister, she says, "The Sisters, our whole lives, were affected by Vatican II and we are very hopeful...[that the Pope will be] someone who will focus on the Gospel." This book draws on case material from her (and another scholar's) experience with directees and students for many years as well as postmodern understandings of the narrative creating self.
©2013 Peter A. Menkin (P)2013 Peter A. Menkin
Film Review: Unique and Beautiful Statement of History as Portrayed by Art
Summary
How can I laud this film I liked so much, and enjoyed? Let me try a number of ways. For this is a movie that asks for many things of its audience. This film is a work of art. Called the wisest philosopher among painters, "Pieter Bruegel’s epic masterpiece "The Way To Calvary" depicts the story of Christ’s Passion set in Flanders under brutal Spanish occupation in the year 1564, the very year Bruegel created his painting. From among the more than 500 figures that fill Bruegel’s remarkable canvas, The Mill & The Cross focuses on a dozen characters whose life stories unfold and intertwine in a panoramic landscape populated by villagers and red-caped horsemen. Among them are Bruegel himself (played by Rutger Hauer), his friend and art collector Nicholas Jonghelinck (Michael York), and the Virgin Mary (Charlotte Rampling).” So says the distributor about the film they distribute, Kino Loberer of New York City. Before going further with some remarks on the film as a work itself and its credits, note that the part played by Rutger Hauer is done with dignity and offers a stoic painterly attitude of heroic disengagement with the large scene he paints. A handsome man, the character played by Rutger Hauer, Bruegel himself does as the other actors do: plays the role with a balance of speaking and silence, with emphasis on the silence. Quiet in dialogue, that is silent moments, is a notable feature of the playing style in The Mill & The Cross. Here is a well chosen means of conveying meaning as audience members become attuned to the rhythm of acting style performed by not only this excellent player, but all the competent and experienced main players in their parts. There is a shadow and light to the acting sensibility, not in literal use of cinema and play of film, but a kind of sensibility of both knowing and not knowing. But it is Rutger Hauer’s character who appears as a man who has eyes to see and a distance in objectivity in mind to patiently portray what his eye sees, if one grasps the painting as shown in the style of the cinema itself.
©2011 Peter A. Menkin (P)2014 Peter A. Menkin
Interview: Night Ministery in San Francisco
Summary
During a photo show, held in the Gallery 1055 in San Francisco, and a Gallery created by The Rt. Reverend Marc Andrus for display of religious and spiritual work relevant to the Diocese and its ministry, the author spoke with The Night Minister himself. Later this writer interviewed The Reverend Lyle Beckman in November, 2010 by phone in the evening on two separate evenings. This intriguing interview that tells so much of his work, and the work of others in Night Ministry.
©2010 Peter A. Menkin (P)2013 Peter A. Menkin
"Let the Church Say Amen"
Summary
They dance. They sing. They speak in tongues and shout - so the Reverend Bobby Perkins elicits. Dauntless, a stand-up Christian, Reverend Bobby Perkins preaches in the subways of Washington, D.C. where he has a heart for the drug addicts. His church members preach on the streets and speak to the lowly; real conversation goes on in this documentary. These are real people, and you may not have met them before. Can one call what is done in his church, "Performance Preaching," as in "Performance Poetry?" His work is a performance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, as those in the pews are moved and moving to the Holy Spirit. This is certainly a life of following the dictum. The movie directed by David Petersen is a moving and extraordinary documentary in an oft verite style, both in color and black and white. Message gets through to the audience in this film, as does action, attitude, and scenery of places in Washington, D.C. that are known for store front churches - like Pastor Perkins' in the neighborhood where his is on a corner. There are other churches like his in their neighborhood. Not solely a religion film about a church, the movie, "Let the Church say Amen," is David Petersen and friends' vision of a life in the poor, black neighborhood of forgotten people and streets with crime, drugs, and just ugly nastiness. There is more than the message of church, religion, and community alone here. There is a cinematic depiction of what is in the genre of drama and artful realism.
©2012 Peter A. Menkin (P)2013 Peter A. Menkin
Interview: Shari Karney, Esq. Comments on Child Molesting, Churches and Other Institutions
Summary
In this interview with Shari Karney, Esq., the attorney and commentator discusses her opinions on the subject of child molesting, specifically referencing the recent Sandusky trial. There is increasing American national attention on the often secret subject of child molesting and child molesters. Attorney Shari Karney of Santa Monica, California, has been working on these kinds of cases with others in the United States and especially California - almost as a crusade, as revealed in this interview.
©2012 Peter A. Menkin (P)2013 Peter A. Menkin
Visit to San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum: 'Are We There Yet?'
Summary
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco recently offered and continues to offer a unique show that explores (in audio alone) a question with a question: "Are We There Yet?" In an effort to find out about this uniquely special, creative museum, which is known in San Francisco but not even as far away as Los Angeles, let alone the rest of the world, this writer asked a Jewish law legal expert what is meant by asking a question with a question. Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, who is an adjunct teacher, made these remarks (paraphrased): The Talmud has been a kind of constitution of Jewish living...and the Talmud is neither a code nor a commentary on the Bible. It is a combination of both, including lots of argumentation in support of different views. Very often in the Talmud, you may get a question answered with a question. Is "A" not true; what do you think? There are good questions and not so good questions. When someone asks a question, Talmud study requires that everything be a good question, not a shot in the dark - a way of questioning the seriousness of a question. Answering a question with a question is meant as an analysis of very sophisticated legal thinking. Atlanta Jewish Life magazine called the rabbi "the go-to guy for the media...looking for a sane Orthodox voice for comment". His reasoned approach to issues of faith and life qualify him to be the director of interfaith affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and of Project Next Step at Yeshiva of Los Angeles. He holds the Sydney M. Irmas chair in Jewish law and ethics at Loyola Law School and serves as a faculty member at Yeshiva of Los Angeles in its secondary education program. [Answering a question with a question is] meant as an analysis of very sophisticated legal thinking. In Orthodox life, Talmud study is important and usually starts at an early age.
©2012 Peter Menkin (P)2016 Peter Menkin
Poem by Peter Menkin: Apophatic Prayer
Summary
This work was originally a set of transcription notes from a talk given by Father Michael Fish, monk, New Camaldole of Big Sur, at Incarnation Monastery, Berkeley. Father Michael spoke of his life in contemplative prayer as a Benedictine living in Big Sur at Immaculate Heart Hermitage. In an effort to catch the poetic sensibility of his long talk of more than an hour, held in the urban monastery chapel, I distilled the notes from the talk I attended as a poem: 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.
©2000 Peter A. Menkin (P)2016 Peter A. Menkin
Report on Christ Church, Savannah, GA and its Breakway from the Episcopal Church
Summary
This article-interview covers the property dispute between the Episcopal Church and Christ Church, Savannah regarding the breakaway Christ Church leaving that Communion and joining the Anglican Church in North America. This writer had the privilege of talking with a number of key people. Included in this group of people with whom the writer spoke was the Reverend Jim Elliott, an attorney who is Chancellor of the Diocese of Georgia (Episcopal Church). Reverend Jim is the lead attorney in the case before the State of Georgia Supreme Court asking for the Episcopal Church Communion's property back. The breakaway Communion and the two Christ Church, Savannah claimants have a conflict of belief, so Christ Church, Savannah, who holds the property says.
©2011 Peter A. Menkin (P)2013 Peter A. Menkin