Our Father

My Father
I don’t always feel comfortable with a name so distant, so intimate,
but I love you. Today, I love you.

Who is in Heaven
Promising nearness but sometimes feeling far, far away.
I acknowledge you are here and removed, both.

Holy is your Name
A God who makes both the song of the frog and the sting of the hornet;
Calm eddies in raging rivers and lush mosses on jagged mountains
Such a One is magnificent and beyond my understanding. You are holy, holy, holy.

Your Kingdom come
Because it is the only one that will stand, though men build many of their own.

Your will be done
Because all hope rests in knowing that your way is Love and that we can be free.

On earth
This torn and groaning, glorious and beautiful planet.

As it is in Heaven
What is it like where you sit? Is it as flawless and untouched by sin as we hope it is?
Can we see here a Kingdom unscarred by the wrongs of men?

Give us today our daily bread
Bread for our bodies. Bread for our souls. Enough to sustain us. Enough to give.

Forgive us our trespasses
They are many and dark and often repeated. Thank you for second chances.

As we forgive those who trespass against us
Because they are as worthy of love as ever we are. You do not wish ill on our enemies
any more than you wish harm to come to us. We choose to forgive with every breath.
No more with-holding. Only the beat of redemption pulsing through our every vein.

Lead us not into temptation
Temptation is doing a fine job of recruiting all on it’s own!

But deliver us from evil
As we will need rescue upon rescue from it’s cloying talons. Our minds. Our emotions.
Our spirits balk at the ever-growing threat to our sanity.

Yours is the kingdom
Perfect. Timeless. Unmarred.

The power
Kind and terrifying. Restrained and fierce.

And the glory
One day we will gaze upon your beauty. That one thing do we desire:
To dwell in the House of the Lord…

Forever!
Today. Before creation. Tomorrow. Beyond imagination. You Are.