Our Father
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. In America, as it is in heaven.
Bandage our wounds. Apply salve to each sore. Balm to each injury. Ointment to each bruise. Antiseptic to our bleeding lacerations, and medicine to our open gashes.
Undamage us. Or better yet, teach us to undamage ourselves. Show us how to heal.
Teach us the language of kindness, a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Show us how to talk to one another again. Without bias. Without agenda. With words of understanding. With sentiments of peace.
And, most importantly, teach us to listen. Teach us to hear without judgement. Teach us to speak without decision. Teach us to see without partiality.
Teach us prudence. Teach us rationality. Teach us non-assumption. Teach us fairness, reluctance, and restraint. Teach us composure.
Show us how to be gentle, we cannot do it on our own. In fact, evidently, we cannot do it at all. Not without help.
Namely, because we are angry with everything right now. Angry with each other. Angry with people we’ve never met. Angry with things that don’t even exist.
Angry with systems. Angry with ideologies. Angry with foolhardiness, selfishness, and the inability to reason. Angry with idiocy in general.
Help us to love one another. Help us to find beauty in each fellow human being. Beauty within each soul who crosses our path today. Teach us to find beauty in our enemies.
Open our eyes, so that we may see each person’s intrinsic loveliness, instantly. No matter how different from us this person might be. No matter which group this person belongs to.
Teach us to put others’ needs above our own. Teach us to be considerate. Teach us to show our children how valuable they are. Teach us to give, even when it hurts. Teach us to love like we’ve never been hurt.
Above all, teach us to be humble. By whatever means necessary. Not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less.
Help us to be free from pretense. Make us perpetual students, always learning, constantly aware that there are things, many things, GAZILLIONS of things, that we don’t know.
Guide us in the way of meekness. Of peacemaking. Teach us compassion. Give us opportunities to practice patience.
Deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. Forever.
Amen.
Some have said that The Lord’s Prayer —the “Our Father” — is an “index prayer”: In other words, each line is a category, a topic, and we are invited to personalize it according to our needs. For example, my needed “daily bread” today may be extra funds for the heating bill, or ideas for stretching the grocery money to feed unexpected guests.
You have given us a beautiful example of using the format Jesus taught His disciples to articulate our heart-felt cries for this nation.
There will be wars, rumours of wars
and there will be more pain
and you will have to bear with scars
until Christ comes again.
There will be trouble and travail
for this is not a world of peace.
When the Father ends this tale,
only then will come release,
so in His patience you must wait,
and in your faith abide,
and in the waiting don't equate
His Wisdom with your pride;
in haughtiness you'll be as wrong
as His Love and Grace are strong.