Second-tier prayer?

While there are a couple of dozen denominational expressions of Christianity, there are exponentially more available when we consider states and stages of development. Given that, we can easily find ourselves wondering, like the disciples in Luke 11, how we should pray. I think the answer Jesus gave them is the answer for us. The Pater noster, “Our Father” or the Lord’s Prayer is common to nearly all denominations and can be prayed from almost every stage of development. And I’d like to offer a version that may help with a common snag.

People practicing Christianity who can see from a turquoise or teal altitude are likely just praying the version that is most commonly used in their ecclesial community because of two stances: first, they are more closely resonating with what the words signify than with the words themselves. Secondly, they are in their communities more focused on pouring themselves out for others than they are there seeking to make others like themselves. They have become the openness in the community that would not otherwise be there.

At earlier levels, the prayer is memorized because it is evidence of one’s identify as a member of the community or because it has effective qualities, or because it is scripturally and traditionally sanctioned. The prayer may still hold value for those at later amber and orange stages if they have done their own work of reflecting on the meaning, history and context of the prayer.

But there is often a snag at late orange through greener Conjunctive, individualistic, pluralistic stages. How does a person pray the words “Our Father…” with any integrity at this stage? If a person has not done their own rational theological wrestling, how does the phrase “…on earth as it is in heaven…” hold any meaning? Similarly, what do we make of an all-loving Presence that needs to be asked not to lead us into temptation?

If you find yourself in conversation with our sisters and brothers asking these questions, I offer a response that has worked well for me. Most churches have not been up to the task of supporting the rational exploration at the stage that typically comes before this. Those that have point out that if Jesus actually did speak any of these words, then he would have spoken them in some form of Aramaic, a set of Hebrew dialects. These are remarkably playful and poetic languages that defy one interpretation.

It is useful to bring back and expand the lost set of four lenses that Medieval Christian scholars used to approach a text – the four “senses of scripture”: the literal/historical, the allegorical, the tropological (or moral) and the anagogical (or unitive). The literal simply means that we look at the sequence of words on the page. No matter how much we might wish it, Jesus never mentions Buddha. However, if you go back to the Aramaic, Jesus also was far more likely to have opened the prayer from Mark and Luke with something that might sound about like “Abwoon d’bwashmaya…” Those words can be interpreted in a rich range of ways.

But so that we don’t get too far off track, we can look to the other senses of scripture. First, I find it helpful to consider how the tradition and scholars have made meaning from the life and teachings of Christ (the allegorical). Then we can consider what enduring values might be touched on in this prayer – the tropological sense. Finally, if we think about what unitive principles might be contained in this prayer, we can re-translate the Aramaic legitimately in a way that our greener friends and family can usefully reconsider the prayer.

One example, adapted from work done by Neil Douglas-Klotz, goes like this: “O Birther! Mother-Father of the Kosmos,
Focus your light within us – make it useful:
Let all wills move together in your vortex –

Your one yearning then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in sustenance and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,

as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.
Don’t let surface things or self-absorption delude us,
but free us from that which holds us back and from our own unripeness.
From you is born all fertile functions,
   the power and the life to do,

   the song that beautifies all,

   from age to age it renews.

Truly – power to these statements –

may they be the ground from which all

our actions are grown. Amen.”

Not bad for a 2,000 year old prayer. Of course, there are a host of new questions and theological enhancements to be made, but we have to take care not to over-infuse a 1st c. C.E. prayer with 21st c. sensibilities – the literal/historical sense helps prevent that. But the unitive principles must also be present now or they wouldn’t be truly unitive. With the skill and love that those of you reading this have, I’m confident that you will offer a path through the beauty of green that may be distracting some of our brothers and sisters in Christ.