Strange Days, part 2

This is part 2 of a series on The Lord's Prayer.  It will make more sense if you read Part 1...

Give us this day our daily bread

I pause to think about those who will go hungry today because we as a species still have not figured out how to distribute food equitably and humanely.  I hope my prayer helps at least one person find a good meal, or sets some better process into motion in that “butterfly effect” kind of way.

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

This reminds me that as we forgive, so are we forgiven.  I take a moment to loosen the grudges that have a stranglehold on my heart.  I make a silent request for forgiveness from those I have wronged.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors

Oh, do we have debts to pay.  We are accumulating an energy debt as we rob the Earth of natural resources and create environmental disasters that require years of recovery.  The United States loans money to developing nations, and does so under policies structures to prevent these nations from ever rising out of poverty.  And I personally am accruing some debt for school.  I take a brief moment to remember the times I have loaned money never to have been repaid, and I forgive that debt.  I hold a thought that “forgiveness of debts” can be set into motion somehow and the looming global problems that scare me (and I bet you too) can begin to unravel with this forgiveness.  You may say I’m a dreamer…

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

It is easy to get distracted from the beauty of life on Earth, and to forget how fragile it is and also that we are charged with loving care of this Garden of Eden.  It is easy to get distracted from the inherent worth and dignity of each and every person, including ourselves.  It's easy to forget to love one another.  The "evil" of consumerism, with its attendant problems, results from this forgetting.  We shop and spend to fill the void caused by forgetting who we really are.  We forget the real cost of these things we're buying, costs such as greenhouse gas emissions, sweatshop labor, animal testing.  I pray to be led from the temptation of distraction, and to grow in my ability to bring my full presence to each moment.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory

Another reminder that I am a very tiny party of the Universe, life is much bigger than I am, and I shouldn’t take myself so seriously.  And also, an invitation to trust that “all shall be well” as St. Julian says (much more on her later this week—I love her).

Forever and ever

Amen

May it be so.  Let it be so that we end racial, religious, gender, ethnic, economic, and sexual oppression because injustice isn’t sustainable.  And besides, love is much more fun.

It has been a strange thing to do, saying the Lord’s prayer.  I say it slowly, pausing with each phrase to breathe and meditate more deeply on how to make this a prayer of compassion similar to the Buddhist prayer “may we be free from suffering and the root of all suffering, may we know happiness and the root of all happiness.”   I’m certain the world at large hasn’t noticed a visible difference yet, but I feel better—happier, more grounded, freer, and more authentic.  That has to help me engage more positively with the world.  And maybe if you join me in praying fifteen minutes a day—any prayer of compassion at all—maybe people will notice.

Blessings, love and light,

Shelley