I woke up this morning thinking of the Lord's Prayer and how important it is to the healing of all oppression and conflict, whether we are talking about Libya, the protests in my home state of Wisconsin, or personal struggles.
Oppression seems to be about fear of limited power. Its extreme forms must come from an extreme fear that power is limited to only a select number of people. Fear of losing power is one side of the coin and feeling powerless is the other side. The whole coin needs to be tossed aside. When we pray, we recognize only one power, infinite God, and that prayer can unify men and nations.
I took the Lord’s Prayer and its spiritual interpretation as found in Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and used that as my guide. The Lord’s Prayer is considered the most succinct prayer that Christ Jesus gave us, and covers all human needs. Mary Baker Eddy also said of this prayer “Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin, can we reach the heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord’s Prayer and which instantaneously heals the sick.”
Here are my thoughts that ran parallel to the Lord's Prayer.
Our Father-Mother God, whose nature is all good, the source of Truth, the place of Love and the origin of all Life.
All that is sacred and all that animates life is found in You.
The blueprint for justice comes out of Your design for all of Your creation. The signs and the seeds of justice, mercy, honor, dignity and peace are everywhere.
We can trust Your supremacy to guide all our actions, all our thoughts in times of joy and in times of strife. Truth is inevitable and has the only power there is. Your law of order and calm is pervasive and supreme.
Your grace feeds our hungering hearts. We are fed with the assurance of seeing Your design of Love demonstrated in our present day experiences.
Our forgiveness melts and gives way to blessing. We drop the burden of anger and offensiveness and Love is revealed. Your love for Your creation blossoms into brotherly love. We forgive and are forgiven and harmony prevails.
We are no longer tempted to indulge in appetites of revenge, disorder, fear and hatred but are naturally compelled to the freedom of finding and the hope of discovering infinite ways to bless mankind. Love leads us to solutions.
In the final analysis, Truth is always the victor and Love never fails. God’s justice and mercy trump all. God’s justice, mercy, Truth and Love are everything.
Note: Here is the full Lord's Prayer and its spiritual interpretation (in italics) given by Mary Baker Eddy:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Adorable One.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Enable us to know, — as in heaven, so on earth, — God is omnipotent, supreme.
Give us this day our daily bread;
Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections;
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love;
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.
*speaking Truth to power is a phrase attributed to the American Friends Service Committee in Speak Truth to Power : A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence (1955)
2 comments:
Kim – thanks for sharing your helpful ideas. It is important to recognize that feelings of powerlessness are ALWAYS indicative of a misunderstanding of the real and only source of power – God. Our prayers for the rest of the world help to raise our own consciousness of the nature of power in our own lives, and lead us to more loving, more hopeful and less fearful and less abusive.
this is very helpful! Thank you! Love Isobel
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