Our Father

Our Father who art in heaven...

(Who art? Or which art? Who knows! It's kinda sad though, none of us really use the word 'art' in that way any more... Maybe if I can ever have children and I have a son, I'll name him Arthur so he can be Art for short.) 

Hallowed be thy name... 

(I know, I know, cue a million terrible and imprecise explanations of how 'hallowed' means holy and set apart, blah blah blah. It's just funny that in my mind it always winds up as hello-ed be your name, which I think is equally nice in a strange sort of way.)

Thy kingdom come... 

(Yes, some theologians basically think JC came to usher in a socialist paradise for all, but in general, I feel kinda lost in this phrase... Kingdom for me invokes all those big, abstract, remote concepts of governance and jurisdiction, and a strange old person I've never met talking to me from the telly at Christmas... I know I'd prefer your political rule to any other I'm ever going to experience, and all those other lofty thoughts are probably good, but the sense of the remote is interesting...)

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...

(Again, juggling difficult concepts here, of a separation between the physical earth I experience every day and 'heaven' as, what, another physical space? Or another way of referring to your kingly rule? A physical space that has not yet come into being? Or a strange, parallel dimension Sheldon Cooper would be fascinated to investigate?! And beside the concept juggling is the stressful walk along the tightrope between joyful, free obedience of your will and fatalistic automatism (is that even a word??!). Your planning-type will? Your moral will? All of the above?)

Give us this day our daily bread...

(Easy for me to spiritualise when I'm not starving... 'Nuff said.)

Forgive us our sins... 

(Oh, I am so happy to plead for this right now! Not even grasping the depth of my personal offences, you've restored enough of my senses to perceive the blackness there in the glimpses you give me...)

As we forgive those who sin against us...

(I just really have to hope that 'as we' doesn't mean 'in the same way' or, 'to the same extent', cos if it does, I'm screwed.)

Lead us not into temptation...

(Because I'm recklessly hopeless, and can't resist the bad very strongly. In fact, between the devil's schemes and my weakness, it's a wrestle to ignore the final TimTam let alone obey your good, pleasing and perfect will all the time!)

But deliver us from evil... 

(On every level please, global, social, physical and personal.)

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, both now and forever...

(Again with the weird remote other-ness... The reaching out into eternal spaces that I'm to small and distracted to fathom... Forever and ever. Forever and ever...

The breadth and depth of what I've just said are beyond me, and I've said this so often I've forgotten... 

And, to cap it all off, I can only pray this to you because of our brother who art in heaven, and that's only because in speaking of Him I'm not praying for the dead, cos He's alive...!

Holy crap!)

Amen.