Tuesday, March 8, 2011

A Simple Explanation of the Lord's Prayer

When his disciples asked Lord Jesus how to pray, Jesus taught them the following prayer. Here is its most common translation, from the King James Version of the Bible (Matthew 6:6):

Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy wll be done, in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever.
Amen.

For a few years now, I have only prayed the Lord's Prayer and no other. For me, prayer time is not a time to petition God for favors. I figure God already knows better than I do what needs I have. I also have an abiding faith that God/the Tao/the Universe has my best interests at heart, and so I trust in God/the Tao/the Universe to take care of me. My husband and I recite the Lord's Prayer out loud together after each morning's scripture study and meditation. We recite the King James version above.

I provide the Simple Explanation translation below, not as a replacement for traditional versions, but simply for mapping Simple Explanation terminology to Christian memes for purposes of clarification.

Here's my Simple Translation of The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father from the metaverse, we address you with humility and respect.
We invite your plans and principles to inform and bring order to our universe, trusting that your intention for us is best.
We acknowledge that you are the source of all that is needed to nourish and sustain our lives.
We realize that our karmic shortcomings can only be forgiven to the same extent we forgive others for their shortcomings.
We desire to avoid any memes that stand in the way of doing what is best for ourselves and others.
We trust you in all things, for your authority and power transcend this universe, and we are but humble echoes of your perfection.
Amen
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The section of this article, Praying within the toroidal flow, has been moved to its own blog article. You may read it there.

2 comments:

  1. "For me, prayer time is not a time to petition God for favors. I figure God already knows better than I do what needs I have.".... This is wisdom, I've only come to focus on in the past decade.

    I agree that God knows what I need better than I do as I'm reminded of the old adage "Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it." How many times do we wish for something only to realize/discover it isn't the best thing for us.

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  2. Exactly. Even if we trust in our own wisdom (which, unless it's aligned with the Big Picture isn't all that wise), we still can't control for all the variables and unseen consequences. Might as well trust that everything is going according to plan and good things are coming; just be ready for the opportunities as they come your way.

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