Your kingdom

     Our world seems endlessly busy, commuting, straining at our i-phones, watching TV and mindless commercials. We are a disgustingly consumer oriented society of wants and needs dictated by Madison Avenue types. It is truly a gloomy picture and when we have achieved or obtained what it is we are convinced is our raison d'etre, we feel a bit smug. Perhaps there is a feeling that we have complete ownership of everything. Even though a friend provided me with a cute picture of a hearse with a trailer attached, there really are no hearses with luggage racks. We cannot take it with us. The world can come crashing in at a moments notice. For myself and many people I know, age, current events and the trials of life lead us to the realization of what is truly important in life and 'things' are not among them.

     The Roman Church in my area several years ago embarked on a kind of mission, not unlike a company hiring a consultant. The focus of this kit campaign was all about our time, talents and treasures. It actually was a great program in which I actively participated. One of the real take away points is that we really do own nothing. Not our homes, our kids, our families, nothing. Everything we think we may own is really entrusted to us as  caretakers or as a guardian. Nothing is permanent and everything is temporary. 

     It might be a logical question for us as consumers then to ask, well who does own this stuff if we don't? God of course. No matter how much we have convinced ourselves that the stuff is ours or that we 'earned' it, it is truly all in God's hands.  Everything belongs to God.

      Perhaps it is time to assess all the stuff 'we have' and all the beauty and relationships we are graced with, entrusted with, and know from whom it really has come. It is after all His kingdom and we are the most loved 'subjects', His creation.  We came from God and we will return to God. Just some thoughts for today.

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 

Call me by my name

     Let's just say my name is Fred Smith. I used to attend a Catholic parish where the Pastor, an old Irish man with a hint of a brogue used to call me "Joe". The first 5 or ten times I attempted to tell him that my name is Fred. After a while it was simpler to just answer to Joe.
Several years later Father came to me and asked if I would help with the deposit once a month and directed me to an office where I would get instructions. The next week Father pulled me aside, very apologetic, and said " I am so sorry Joe, they got some guy named Fred Smith to do the job". Once again, and for the last time, I told Father that I was Fred Smith!  Father never called me Joe again.

     I think everyone likes to be called by their correct name.  When I was young man at work, I had young residents come to me on a daily basis. These residents came from all over the globe and I always made an effort to a learn their name and how to pronounce it. In fact I always tried to learn a friendly phrase which I wrote down phonetically for myself to say to them each morning so they'd feel at home and welcome.  I can say I speak twenty languages, all of them with a a single word or sentence. Everyone likes to hear their name and have it said correctly.

        One more story. Years ago my Pop had asked me to read a book about the power of one's subconscious mind. One of the lessons is that we listen and believe so many things we tell ourselves and that others tell us.  It was a good book. One of the negative examples they used as I recall is that of a child who believed everything his parents told him and that he was about ten years old before he realized his name wasn't "hey, stupid".  

         I think perhaps that God may want to be called by his real name, with reverence and respect and full acknowledgement of the love and care we are given.  The meditation for today could be the recognition of all that God has done in creation, the power, the majesty, the beauty; the intricacies and uniqueness of you and me. In so doing, we may come to realize that God really deserves to be called by a respectful and loving name. Allah, Abba, Father, Creator God or many of the other names the world's religions have conjured to try and capture the awesomeness and respect due God.

     Nowhere in that mix are there phrases that are used to condemn and expel frustration on our part.  That third commandment really has great import. I think God really likes to hear the correct name when we have a conversation in prayer or in our daily living. Just a thought. How do you feel?

     

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 

To be

     I recently had the pleasure of entering into semi-retirement. The decision was quite easy really. Besides being of a certain age, my husband and I have seen too many cases of friends, family and acquaintances who have become very sick or who have died. In other words, we know we are not guaranteed anything. As relative newlyweds, we have been spending as much time as we can simply enjoying each others company and building memories together that some people have had a lifetime building.  A real simply way of looking at this is that we want to simply 'be'.

      I don't have a vision of God in heaven sitting by a pool ordering Pina Coladas and reading the latest book on a kindle. That sounds like a slice of heaven to me though and it really sounds like just allowing yourself to "be". What I do see is that God is ever present.  God does not get get caught up in this or that because God is ever present in every situation in every time. God just is, God can simply 'be' who God is.

        We often need a vacation or a concerted effort to allow ourselves to simply 'be'.  Very often we can go through a day and miss most of stuff and/or people that happened around us during the day. We get absorbed into the stuff, we concern ourselves with what others are doing, wrapping ourselves in concerns  that really do not matter. That does not seem like what God wants our existence to be like.  

       The object of prayer, meditation, a journal and the gamut of exercises to get us in contact with our true selves and allow ourselves to 'be' is what God is at all times.  Since we are created in the image and likeness of God, we are trying to be as present, as loving, as whole as possible. We strive to simply 'be' our very selves. I suppose the way I see it, when God had that incredibly brilliant idea that what the world needed was 'you' and willed us into existence, God wished that our gift to humanity , to all of creation was that we would 'be' what God created us to be.  Our mission is to 'be' like God in every way. God wishes us to simply 'be' you and me.

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 

Hallowed be indeed

     Hallowed be your name. I think of hallowed halls and hallowed walls. I can easily think of people that I consider heroes too. People whose name I respect and whom I recognize for something they have done, achieved or that they cooperated with God's plan or whom they were called to be. Respect. My list is very human, Jesus of course, Merton, Boswell, Nouwen, Anna Schuster, Corvino, Cherry, Luther. The list is long.  

      But hallowed be thy name. God, the Creator. Number two on the great list of Ten Commandments.  It seems fairly obvious really, creator of all that is. Created the world in six days, then rested. Got a brewski? Tough work there creating an entire universe. And yet so easily dismissed perhaps because, really? Created the world in six days? Come on. Possible? Sure. Absolutely. Nothing is beyond God but it almost seems simplistic and easy to take for granted.

      Let's think about this another way. God is the lighter of the fuse to the Big Bang.  Wow.  And not only that, the more we find out, mesons, muons, neutrons and neutrinos. Creator of everything. Not just throwing some rocks around here and there willy nilly making mountains.  The greatest mind, better than Einstein, Newton, Hawking, Sheldon! The complexities we know and yet undiscovered, and  all from the mind of God. Hallowed indeed.  

        So at least a moment of appreciation and respect when you think about the world and about the gift each one of is to that world. More appropriately, think and be conscious of God's presence all around us and in our lives and think again when things might not go the way we want it to and we utter some expletive with God's name attached. 

    God is hallowed more than anything or anyone we might know. Let that sink in. 


Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 
For if you forgive others their tres

Thoughts on Heaven

     When I was a kid there were expressions adults would use and sadly are often repeated today that are exaggerations that kids know are filled with hot air. 'Do as I say or I'll never let you watch TV again' is so filled with hot air it is the antithesis of assertive discipline. Kids know that isn't going to happen. How about 'holding your nose to the grindstone'?  I am sure your parents or someone had a few expressions you could relay that made no sense. As we get older we know the real intent of such statements even if we might repeat them to our own kids knowing they are false.

         But we do learn that they are not to be taken literally. How about stuff in Scripture? Do we understand the real meaning and intent?  Astoundingly there are people out there, a fairly large number of people that still think the Earth is flat. Holy crap!  And then there is Heaven. Our Father in Heaven.  I have little patience myself for people that still view Heaven the way a child does after reading the Bible. No, we do not live in a dome and God is not in some lush velour throne in a physical place with people ( souls) ) lined up before him. We use our imagination and words to relay a story of truth but not necessarily literal truth.

       So what is Heaven then? It seems to me it is more than a singular location. It seems to me that if it is anything it is more than a singular location meeting all our worldly desires run rampant. It may seem appealing and easy on our mind but it is not logical or perhaps even reasonable.

        I view heaven as a reuniting of our souls with our Creator, perhaps a state of bliss and love we are not quite capable of attaining in this Earthly realm within our physical state. But the truth is we can catch glimpses of it and that is one of the ways we know of it's existence. We can in fact get more than a glimpse. We can see large pieces of it, experience it wholesale by our actions and cooperation with our nature. Our relationships can portend what heaven is like. How many countless songs portray this? How many times have we been in love that brings our physical and spiritual aspects into the realm of a higher unearthly union?  

        The difficulty with an unseen truth is that it is easy to accept some written dogmatic concept as reality than to live with uncertainty. I'd say it is easy to live with the certainty of it's goodness even if we do not know the fine details yet. Is that faith? Can we mature enough to know experientially that Heaven is not up in a cloud or in outer space but  know it exists in some way that we simply do not fully understand yet?  I do know that heaven exists and I do know that God gives glimpses of heaven in how we live and love. That I am certain of. It is our destiny, that I am also certain of.

        What are your ideas about Heaven and where God resides?

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 

The FATHER in "Our Father"

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

     When I was growing up, I did not have the best understanding of what a father was. My own Dad ( Pop ) had moved out of our house when I was  5 years old and the only real recollection of him for me was hiding behind a chair as he and my Mom had a terrible fight. As the youngest, I do not recall any of the specifics but some of my older brothers sadly have a much more vivid memory of the details that they have shared. As the years passed  my personal experience with my Pop grew to the point that we became quite good friends, phoning each other every day for years before he passed. I am blessed that my experience of 'Father' was an evolutionary one from my own Pop and from that of Church which played a major influence on my life.

      I mention this because we all have different emotions and experiences when we think of the word Father. Some people have magnificent memories akin to Father Knows Best and throwing baseballs together in the yard while others feel that they had the father from hell. Still others do not have that balance that I had because even their notion of Father as ( a good ) Priest was tainted by sexual abuse at the hands of someone that should have been trusted. Instead, they became victims. We run the gamut of our experiences and some of my own brothers never were able to have anything beyond a resentful relationship with our own father, even to his death.

        There is yet the most important example of in my mind of Father, and that is the image of God our Father and creator of all that is. I suppose all our personal experiences should reflect that kind of magnificent role model but as I said, not always so.  Jesus called God "Abba". That is an interesting word, one which we probably know as just another foreign word for father. Not so simple. Abba is more akin to the word we would know as daddy. Daddy does not conjure up images of a young chap smartly dressed on an English estate who might call his progenitor "Father" in a formal Downton Abbey way.  No, Abba is such an intimate, affectionate term. We see at once a real hint of how difficult translating Scripture is and capturing the essence of words from a previous time and place in history.

     Daddy.  Jesus had a wonderful relationship with the Father. The love so intense it is said that the expression of that love is yet a third being, the Spirit. Now that is a father! Daddy, Creator, friend, wow!  If we all had that kind of father, how wonderful our experiences and lives would be.

      And yet, we do have that father, that same heavenly Father. God loves each and every one of us and in the best way possible. Even our best experiences and images of  our own earthly father cannot hold a match to the brilliant shining exuberant love of our Creator God, Father. 

     From all of my knowledge and experiences of Father I bring today's thoughts and meditations of what our heavenly Father brings to my life, to our lives. Creator of all that is. Lover of us, he willed each of us into existence by a mere thought that what the world needed is me, you. Then and only then did the biology came into play. The miraculous love of His designs shining forth even more.  Today I will focus on Abba in thankfulness and also in how I can emulate His love in our world. 

fa·ther

noun

1. 1.

   a man in relation to his natural child or children.

   synonyms:

   dad; More
2. 2.

   (often as a title or form of address) a priest.

   "pray for me, Father"

   synonyms:

   priest, pastor, parson, clergyman, cleric, minister, preacher; More

verb

1. 1.

   be the father of.

   "he fathered three children"

   synonyms:

   parent, be the father of, bring into the world, spawn, sire, breed;  literarybeget; archaicengender

The Lord's Prayer

Matthew 6:7-15

      I am not terribly big on 'signs'. Perhaps I am not as attentive to them as others but I also think that many people see something as an excuse to do something they wanted to do all along. Or perhaps some people want an excuse to not make their own decisions and 'a sign' is an acceptable alternative to self motivation. I really don't know. Having said all that, today's passage is the Lord's prayer. While not the official translation I would prefer, it is rich in texture as is. I took this as 'a sign' ( heaven help me ) that it might be as good a time as any to begin another meditation using snippets or singular words to meditate on. Let the words  I write be a beginning of new understanding, inclusiveness and dedication to personal prayer. So, here we go.

     What does that word mean "Our" mean? Of course the word is conditional. If I say "Our parents", it is in reference to siblings and the related parents. "Our religion" has reference to those who have similar doctrinal beliefs. When a head of state says "Our country" , the reference is to citizenship in a particular geographic boundary. 

       In this case it is Jesus as the Word, Son and Creator. When it comes from Jesus' mouth it references the entirety of creation, all humans, perhaps even more literally, all creatures and creations. If animals and vegetation have some level of consciousness then "Our Father" refers to them as well. So I think when we say "Our" in this prayer, given to us by Jesus, we are referencing what He referenced, all fellow humans, all of creation.

        Sounds simple right? That is the gotcha!  It is not speaking about only those that believe what we believe or those that look like "us" or any divisions that geography or time have placed in our midst. It is the ultimate inclusivity prayer. I often note that God loves the other bloke at least as much as God loves me. Think about that when you say "our". 

God does not love anyone any more or less, no one, not a single soul. We are all, everyone, loved equally. We can judge otherwise but that is the judgment of a fool. God gave us the words "Our Father".

       That is the beginning of the mediation for today. The real meaning and implications of saying that word "Our".  Let the thoughts begin. 

‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

‘Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name. 

Your kingdom come.
   Your will be done,
     on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. 
And forgive us our debts,
     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
And do not bring us to the time of trial,
     but rescue us from the evil one. 
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.