Friday Findings

Variations on the prayer as taught to us by Jesus:

(THE MESSAGE, 2002)

Our Father in heaven,

Reveal who you are.

Set the world right;

Do what's best --

As above, so below.

Keep us alive with three square meals.

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

You're in charge!

You can do anything you want!

You're ablaze in beauty!

Yes. Yes. Yes.

RETRANSLATION (FROM THE ARAMAIC)

O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere!

Release a space to plant your Presence here.

Imagine your possibilities now.

Embody your desire in every light and form.

Grow through us this moment's bread and

wisdom.

Untie the knots of failure binding us,

as we release the strands we hold of others'

faults.

Help us not forget our Source,

Yet free us from not being in the Present.

From you arises every Vision, Power and Song

from gathering to gathering.

Amen -

May our future actions grow from here.

EARTH DANCE
(based on the Lord's Prayer published in Minnesota Women's Press,

December 1999 Author thought to be Karen Loveland, as member of Unity Church, Santa

Rosa, CA Passed on in 2000 by Nancy Carroll)

Our mother,

which art the earth,

Nurturing are thy ways.

Thy web of life be woven

Thy way be found within,

As it is all around.

Thank you this day for our daily bread and sweat

and forgive us our misuse of you,

as we forgive others their misuse of us.

And lead us not into exploitation,

But deliver us

From lording it over you,

And over each other,

And over all our other fellow creatures.

For thine are the waters of life,

The hills, valleys and plains of home,

The breeding, seeding, feeding ground,

For now, and for as close to forever

As we will ever come.

Ah, woman!

Our Father, Mother,

who are in the world and surpass the world,

Blessed be your presence,

in us, in animals and flowers,

in still air and wind.

May justice and peace dwell among us,

as you come to us.

Your will be our will;

You will that we be sisters and brothers,

as bread is bread, water is itself,

For our hunger, for quenching of thirst.

Forgive us.

We walk crookedly in the world,

are perverse, and fail of our promise.

But we would be human,

if only you consent to stir up our hearts.

Amen.

(circulated from the BC IREPM advent prayer list, 12/21/07)