The Lord's Prayer

Most of us learned the Lord’s Prayer as kids, memorized in Sunday school or from years of practice mumbling it in Church with your parents.  For the most part it was said as a one long run-on sentence with little thought to the contents.

It is also the prayer that most of us turn to in times of pain or crisis.  At its’ heart it is a prayer that evokes the presence of God.

I spent some time at Banner Thunderbird in a Chaplaincy program; I generally worked the night shifts on the weekend.  Invariably, just as I would be drifting off to sleep the pager would go off and I would grab some coffee and head off to wherever I was being called to.  One night, the matriarch of a large Hispanic family was dying, there were well over 20 people in room crying or sobbing.  A small dignified man stood silently in their midst, saying nothing, his eyes the only evidence of his pain.  I walked in and let him know I was present.  One of young women didn’t want me there, she wanted to call her pastor to pray with them, the man wanted a Catholic priest or no one.  I offered to call whoever they wanted, but It was 3 o’clock in the morning and there was no one that was going to come. 

I stood there with the man, trying to be fully present.  As tears of helplessness welled in my eyes, I quietly began the Lord’s Prayer…. The man joined in and all of the rest of family joined hands and began praying, “hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done...”   When we finished, the women of the family started to recite… Hail Mary Full of Grace….Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death……

Prayer, according to Brother David Stendl-Rast, is waking up to the presence of God no matter where I am or whatever I am doing.  At that moment in the Intensive Care Unit, with the backdrop of high-tech medical equipment….prayer was happening, it wasn’t anything I was doing……God was present and I was blessed to be there in the Midst.

All I did was light the candles

Did God find me or did I find God?

Hush

The time for words is past.   (Barbara Brown Taylor,  An Altar in the World)