When the disciples of Jesus asked for help with prayer, Jesus, so the tradition goes, gave them a model prayer.\u00a0 Simone Weil claimed that this familiar set of six petitions includes everything that any true prayer includes.
\n(\u201c. . . we cannot conceive of any prayer not already contained within it.\u201d \u2013\u00a0from the last paragraph of\u00a0 her essay \u201cConcerning the Our Father\u201d)<\/p>\n
These opening words indicate to whom we are praying.\u00a0 We are addressing the sire of our existence,\u00a0 the womb of our origin,\u00a0 the beyond of the beyond of the beyond.\u00a0 That Jesus chose the metaphor \u201cfather\u201d rather than \u201cmother\u201d does not mean a contempt of women.\u00a0 It means that he lived in the first Century, not the twenty-first.\u00a0 Also, Jesus did not think of God as a human-built model of human values.\u00a0 God was sheer Mystery \u2013\u00a0 the Unknowable Unknown without beard or penis, breasts or vagina.\u00a0 For this enigmatic Source of our existence, Jesus used the word \u201cPapa\u201d rather than \u201csire\u201d or \u201cwomb\u201d or \u201cenigma,\u201d not because he knew\u00a0 something\u00a0 about\u00a0 the\u00a0 nature\u00a0 of\u00a0 God,\u00a0 but because\u00a0 his relationship with this Final Source was familial.\u00a0 He trusted this Final Source of everything to be for him.\u00a0 He considered himself offspring of\u00a0 this Ultimate Parenting.\u00a0 He gave up his right to judge this Final Source and assumed that all that came toward\u00a0 him\u00a0 from that Source\u00a0 was\u00a0 good\u00a0 for\u00a0 him and for everyone.\u00a0 \u201cPapa\u201d (abba) was a devotional word, not a description of God.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All that we or Jesus or anyone know for certain about this Final Source is that it is mysterious beyond all measure.\u00a0 The name given us is \u201cHallowed,\u201d which is another word for Awesomeness, Mysteriousness, or Wonderment. That is, we have no name at all.\u00a0 We do not have a name that defines God.\u00a0 Rather this God of Moses and the prophets is the Mysterious Actuality that defines us.\u00a0 When in the story about the bush, Moses asked for a name, \u201cNO NAME\u201d was the answer he got.\u00a0 \u201cI AM THAT I AM\u201d\u00a0 means \u201cstop asking for a name!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When we say \u201cHallowed be Thy name,\u201d we affirm that Wonder or\u00a0 \u201cNamelessness\u201d is the only name we have for this Thou to whom we are to pray.<\/p>\n
We are instructed with this first of six model petitions to hallow this already hallowed Final Reality.\u00a0 This Hallowed Otherness does not need our hallowing.\u00a0 It is we who need to hallow the Hallowed.\u00a0 Our hallowing means opening in trust to those here and now moments in which we are confronting this Hallowedness, this Awesomeness \u2013 this Mystery that never ceases to be mysterious.<\/p>\n
This second model petition concerns the future. The future is the surprise that happens to us as we are expecting something else.\u00a0 The future we have constructed from our experiences of the past is a prediction that is never entirely true. The actual future contains elements that are always unpredictable.\u00a0 We tend to be closed to whatever is unfamiliar.\u00a0 We tend to want life to continue in whatever familiar rut we have constructed for it.\u00a0 Sometimes our self-constructed expectations are optimistic, overly sentimental, less grim than life usually turns out to be.\u00a0 At other times our self-constructed expectations are pessimistic, overly glum, less glorious or joyous or innovative than life turns out to be.\u00a0 We do not know what the future will bring. This model petition is saying, \u201cLet it come!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Openness to the actual future is the quality implied in this petition.\u00a0 If loss of everything I hold dear is my future, let it come.\u00a0 If gains that taunt all my pessimism is my future, let it come. Thy, not my, kingdom come.<\/p>\n
Like the prophets, Jesus views the God he prays to as King over the future.\u00a0\u00a0 So, the Kingdom of this Mysterious King will not be the kingdom I have imagined for myself or hope to build.\u00a0 God\u2019s Kingdom will not be built by me.\u00a0 God\u2019s Kingdom will come to me as a surprise, as unpredictable, as beyond my wildest dreams.\u00a0 If the term \u201ckingdom\u201d offends us, we need to remember that Jesus never heard of a democracy.\u00a0 And even if he had, Final Reality is not a democracy in which my vote determines the leadership of this kingdom.\u00a0 No, the leadership of Final Reality is beyond my control.\u00a0 That leadership, that King, will indeed grant me the freedom to make some difference and hold me accountable for the differences I make, but that will never mean that I tell this King how to behave. This King is King in a manner that makes me, for the most part, helpless in controlling the future.\u00a0 For me to pray, \u201cThy Kingdom come,\u201d means that I choose to be open to whatever comes. And that means that I choose to be detached from all \u201cmy kingdoms of expectation.\u201d\u00a0 It means that I am ready to be surprised. That is the second model petition on how to pray.<\/p>\n
This third model petition pertains to the past as well as to the present and future. Whatever has happened in the past is all we actually know about the Will of God. Whatever has happened is the Will of Final Reality; otherwise it would not have happened.\u00a0 God as Final Reality has already done God\u2019s will, is still doing God\u2019s Will, and will do God\u2019s Will in the future.\u00a0 This petition means that we are consenting to the Will that God (Final Reality) has already done, is doing, and will do.\u00a0 Concerning the past, we are consenting to let the past be the past.\u00a0 Whatever has happened has brought us to our one and only real moment.\u00a0 That past cannot be undone.\u00a0 Our current moment can now be nothing other than it is.\u00a0 This is it.\u00a0 This petition is saying \u201cSo be it.\u201d<\/p>\n
So be it here on Earth!\u00a0 We are not talking about some other realm.\u00a0 We are talking about the health or lack of health of our body.\u00a0 We are talking about the life or death of our companions.\u00a0 We are talking about the economic conditions of our community, nation, and globe.\u00a0 We are talking about the political structures we have and the leaders that we have to operate those structures.\u00a0 We are talking about the human-made cultures in which we live.\u00a0 The choices that we and humanity have made in the past have resulted in these consequences.\u00a0 Yet it was Final Reality, not humanity, that made the final determination about what these existing consequences would be.\u00a0 The past is God\u2019s will (that is, the real past is what Reality happened to happen).\u00a0 We cannot get the past back.\u00a0 We cannot do it over.\u00a0 It is done.\u00a0 \u201cThy will be done\u201d means that we consent to what has been done, we leave behind all pride, all shame, all guilt about the past.\u00a0 What is done is done.\u00a0 What is done belongs to God (Reality did it and now Reality owns it and won\u2019t give it back).\u00a0 Let it be.\u00a0 Thy will be done.<\/p>\n
In praying this petition we also \u201clet be\u201d the present. The present is a moment of decision between past and future.\u00a0 We cannot undo the past. We cannot have a different present.\u00a0 But we can choose with regard to the future.\u00a0 And it is God\u2019s will (that is, Reality\u2019s determination) that our choices will make a difference with regard to the next present we will have and the next past that will be our past.\u00a0 Our choices matter.\u00a0 This is God\u2019s will.\u00a0 An eternal weight of significance is placed upon our God-given freedom. How do we know that our freedom is God-given?\u00a0 Because it is given.\u00a0 Whatever is given is God-given, Reality-given.\u00a0 In some situations Freedom is not given.\u00a0 Perhaps we are still trapped in old habits that rob us of our Freedom.\u00a0 But old habits can be broken.\u00a0 Habits are just habits.\u00a0 Our Freedom constructed those habits and our Freedom can be rescued from those habits and be given power in the present moment to choose beyond those old habits and perhaps set different habits in motion.\u00a0 When we choose in this present moment to act beyond all our habits, we are creating an act out of that deep well of emptiness that is our Freedom.\u00a0 Freedom is an uncaused act.\u00a0 We opt it.\u00a0 Like God (the Ultimate Source), we can bring something out of nothing.\u00a0 We can opt to choose.\u00a0 We can opt to choose here on Earth in this moment toward a future that is unknown, but nevertheless impacted by our choosing.\u00a0 This moment of Freedom is God\u2019s Will.\u00a0 Reality gives us our Freedom and requires of us a choice.\u00a0 Thy Will be done!<\/p>\n
And the future is also God\u2019s will.\u00a0 Our choice will make its impact because it is the actuality of ACTUALITY for that to be so.\u00a0 (What will be will be different because we decide, even though that difference may be other than the future we expect.)\u00a0 The impact that our choice will make is beyond our control.\u00a0 God\/Reality will provide the future.\u00a0 It will be a surprise.\u00a0\u00a0 In praying \u201cThy will be done,\u201d we open to this surprise.\u00a0 And we will show up in that surprising future in a new present which again allows us choice.\u00a0 This new opportunity for further choice is also God\u2019s will.\u00a0 \u201cThy will be done\u201d means \u201clet dialogue with Reality continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Earth\u201d means \u201chere and now where we actually live.\u201d\u00a0 We do not wait for some other time or place to let God\u2019s will be done.\u00a0 \u201cAs it is in heaven\u201d means \u201cAs it is in the eternal essence of things.\u201d\u00a0 God\u2019s will is always being done and will be done eternally.\u00a0 Reality is Reality is Reality.\u00a0 It is we who are here and now on Earth who are instructed to pray \u201cThy will be done.\u201d This petition does not change the Eternal, it changes us and all our temporal doings.\u00a0 It means that we no longer rebel or flee the reality of our past, our present, or our potential future.\u00a0 Rather, we allow it; we open to it; we do it.\u00a0 In this third petition of the exemplary model for prayer, we choose realistic living.\u00a0 Thy will be done!<\/p>\n
This fourth model petition reminds me of the life of the birds who fly about our bird feeder.\u00a0 This seems to be their prayer, \u201cGive us this day our daily seeds.\u201d\u00a0 They do not pray for seeds for tomorrow. They only eat today. And they do not pray to Joyce and I about these seeds. They do not know who brings the seeds, nor do they care.\u00a0 They only care that seeds are somehow and somewhere provided.\u00a0 They do not know or try to know the mysteries of seed provision. They just eat. They seek seed and they eat.\u00a0 They do not bring all this to consciousness as we must do.\u00a0 It is we, not they, who are asked to pray, \u201cGive us this day our daily bread.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the ground floor level of living, humans are similar to the birds.\u00a0 We seek our food and other necessities of our bodily lives. We expect \u201cGod\/Reality\u201d to provide. We agree that it is appropriate to ask for this provision.\u00a0 We agree that it is appropriate for us to eat, drink, sleep, keep warm, keep cool, keep dry, wash off — our\u00a0\u00a0 primary needs.\u00a0 As we pray this for ourselves, we also pray this for all persons.\u00a0 We do not assume that we deserve to eat, and that others do not.\u00a0 We do not assume that we have entirely provided for ourselves and have no dependence on others and on the whole structure of the cosmos.\u00a0 No, Reality is providing.\u00a0 In petitioning Reality\/God to continue providing, we take responsibility to share in the structures of that providing.\u00a0 We notice that we are participating in a network of providing that provides for every human and every living being.\u00a0 We can receive and we can enhance the receiving for ourselves and others.<\/p>\n
None of us actually deserves to receive our lives and our food.\u00a0\u00a0 What an amazingly rare and good fortune it is to have shown up on such a generous planet.\u00a0 No other planet in our solar system provides like this.\u00a0 We were born here.\u00a0 We live here.\u00a0 Realistic living begins by admitting our dependence and by asking Reality to \u201cGive us this day our daily bread.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since this fifth model petition is also made to God, the Hallowed Finality, these are strange debts we are talking about.\u00a0 God is not literally a big bank from whom we have borrowed money.\u00a0 If we can be viewed as being in debt to the Final Reality, it must be because we have failed to live realistically and bear the consequences of that unrealism.\u00a0 So in this petition we are asking for a fresh start in realistic living.\u00a0 We, like the prodigal son, are asking to return from our far country of devastating unrealism to the real life we have squandered.\u00a0 We are asked to pray this fifth petition because we need to ask for forgiveness in order to claim it.\u00a0 God\u2019s forgiveness is never absent.\u00a0 It is our asking that has been absent.\u00a0 It is our willingness to return to Reality that has been missing.\u00a0 Reality has never been missing.\u00a0 It is we who have been missing from Reality.<\/p>\n
Jesus links this request for forgiveness to our forgiveness of those who have mistreated us, who have not paid their debt of realism to us, who have treated us unrealistically: moralistically in ways that denied us forgiveness, rationally in ways that did not recognize our whole emotional and Spirit being, sentimentally in ways that did not encourage our realistic living, violently in ways that disrespected our humanity, stupidly in ways that paid little or no attention to us, and this list is very long. Implied in this petition is the fact that we cannot ask for our own forgiveness of all these things unless we are also asking for the forgiveness of everyone \u2013 and indeed granting our forgiveness to everyone who owes us for the neglect and violations they have done.<\/p>\n
The most preposterous implication within this fifth instruction on true prayer is this: Everyone is already forgiven by Final Reality, has always been forgiven, is now forgiven, and always will be forgiven.\u00a0 To appropriate this restoration to realism all we have to do is ask for this ever-present forgiveness.\u00a0 All anyone has to do is ask.\u00a0 Final Reality stands ready, like the benevolent father in the prodigal son story, to receive us back into the family, to provide us fresh clothes, to put arms around us and kiss us, to throw a feast with excellent food.<\/p>\n
This sixth model petition recognizes that most of our \u201cpraying\u201d has been about asking Final Reality to provide us with those unrealities that we most desire.\u00a0 With this sixth model petition we are instructed to ask to be kept real, to be kept home in the bosom of actuality.\u00a0 And what is evil?\u00a0 Evil is being lost in unreality \u2013 being lost in the manufacturings of our own silly minds \u2013\u00a0not noticing that our thoughts and our actuality are two different things \u2013 not noticing that we are not thinking about what is actual, but are using our thinking minds to create a world of our desire to replace the world of our IS.<\/p>\n
This model petition also implies that Final Reality can and will answer our request.\u00a0 We are never certain what that answer will be, but this\u00a0 petition implies trusting Reality to lead us into realism, not temptation.\u00a0 God\/Reality will deliver us from illusory living, the only evil.\u00a0 All that is missing here is our request, our willingness to be delivered, our willingness to give up our temptations to unreality. Praying this prayer changes the sternness of Reality in its opposition to our unrealities into the blessing of Reality upon our ongoing success with the option of realistic living.<\/p>\n
A deep irony is present in this petition.\u00a0 Often the last thing we want to pray for is realistic living.\u00a0 Often we would rather die than give up our illusions.\u00a0 Often we would rather rage in despair for the rest of our days than give up our desires to have life be different than it actually is.\u00a0 The temptation to such evil is very strong.\u00a0 Nothing is stronger than this temptation, except Reality. Yes, Final Reality is able to turn illusion into nothing in the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n
So, the benediction that was added to these six model petitions is appropriate:<\/p>\n
In other words, if you insist on picking a fight with Reality, you will lose.\u00a0 For Infinite Reality is the Rule that rules all things, the primal Power that none can defeat, and the Glory of fulsome joy meant for us from the beginning and for all time.<\/p>\n
Here in simplified form is my metaphorical translation of the model prayer:<\/p>\n
Oh Infinite Silence, our devotional Thou, our Primal Parent,<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Hallowed be Thy name<\/em><\/p>\n May we honor Your nameless awesomeness. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Thy Kingdom Come<\/em><\/p>\n May we open ourselves to whatever future You will bring to us and our planet.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven<\/em><\/p>\n May we accept the past and also the present situation of limits and possibilities as <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Your good gift to us in this real down-to-Earth moment.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Give us this day our daily bread<\/em><\/p>\n We ask no more than what we need for today\u2019s living.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors<\/em><\/p>\n We ask for forgiveness for our malice, our bondage, and our self-inflicted despair, <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n and we ask that we be similarly forgiving toward all our companions.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And lead us not into temptation, <\/em> Guard us from the lure of unreality and deliver us from a life of despair.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, <\/em> For Yours, Oh Final Reality, is the Rule that rules all things, <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n the primal Power that none can defeat, <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n and the Glory of fulsome joy meant for us all <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n from the beginning and for all time to come.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nbut deliver us from evil<\/em><\/p>\n
\nand the Glory Forever<\/em><\/p>\n