With this man I stand[one of the legends surrounding Menas who died a martyr c. 303 AD]
The hermit's cavewas dark and bareand sparse to meet a robber's greed:a desert Father's wealth is love,his jewels are onlywisdom, peace and grace.
Returning homehe found a thiefclawing and cursing in the gloom,so old dry hands removed a stone,retrieved his cross of gold and chain,and placed its loop around the neckof Menas, scowling,mocking in his face.
The rough rapacious bandit,bent on blood and vengeance wild,at home in hills and wilderness,who saw life cheap, his to possess,rode out into the desert of his heartwhere cross of gold clung to his sweatand questioned life and dreams,his violence mad.
In camel's flight across the sands,in noon-day heat,the stench of death,and that cross, an irritant of soul:more questions cameand fears arose,but still he drove the camel on,pursuing tracksthrough inner wastesof haze and dustand dune and rock.
At lengthwith desperate boldness,wracked in mind and torn in soul,he staggered from the margins of his lifeinto Egypt's sanctuaryand craved death's water______[baptism]to slake his spirit's thirstfor life.
Recognised for who he was,Alexandria threw him out,and left stunned Menason the road,beside the church,dust in his mouthand heart.
But One approached him,vellum book in hand,to dust him down andhelp him to his feet.Then arm around him,faced the crowdof judgement and abuse:'With this man I stand!'was all was said,and deserts were baptised that day.
With wordand armand face of love,with eyes that read the heart,this figure strongstill stands with thosewho come at last to knock.
However wild,however dry,the desert times have been,the day can comeas cross strikes heartand soul responds in grief,our brother Christextends his armand brokenness is healed.
Robin Pryor was a Uniting Church minister who ran spirituality courses. His poems have appeared in Poetica Christi anthologies, Eremos and Earthsong, among others.