I published this article back in October of 2017. I came back to it in 2022 after yet another mass shooting, this time on the 4th of July in Highland Park, Illinois. What I wrote five years ago stirs me to examine my conscience today, and to critique our commonplace social consciousness.
Christ, the Way to the Father
"Deliver Us from Evil"
"Lead Us Not Into Temptation"
"As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us"
"Forgive Us Our Trespasses"
"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread"
"Thy Will Be Done"
"Thy Kingdom Come"
Preparing to participate in the reign of God means laying aside our own schemes for building our little kingdoms and organizing our worlds the way we would like them to be. To herald the coming of God’s kingdom means confessing the provisional nature of our plans and welcoming the death of our private authority, our myth of “self-rule.” In Christ, disciples share in God’s reign, not vice versa.
"Hallowed Be Thy Name"
"Who Art in Heaven"
"Our Father"
Beginning Again with the Lord’s Prayer
I want to help us begin again with the Lord’s prayer – taking on a different approach and a new perspective. I want to see if you and I can learn how to humble ourselves in praying this prayer so that we may be formed by it. This is the prayer to “Our Father,” which means that by praying it we are, above all, allowing ourselves to be his children. That is the gift Jesus gives us: he gives us his Father as our Father.