This is Part 2 in a continuing and really long, non-contiguous, stream of consciousness series on my life with the Lord's prayer.
"Our Father which art in heaven..."
The words rang out in the now still dining hall. More than a hundred fourth-graders, heads dutifully bowed, spoke in unison new and interesting words I had never heard before. But somehow they were familiar. I paid attention. The words seemed important. Even the practiced cadence, the chorus of children pausing at predetermined points, didn't sound like the rote of multiplication tables, or the Pledge of Allegiance (something I wouldn't hear for eighteen months), but seemed to lend weight to the significance of the event.
"Our Father..."
Clearly, they weren't speaking of their own fathers. Their fathers weren't there. Not a father in sight. My own father was at work. He dropped me off at St. Peter's just a few hours before. No fathers of any description were in the room. It repeated in my head, "Our Father...Our Father...Our Father". Who? Perhaps the large man with the short necktie was a father, but clearly they weren't talking about him. And I remember thinking, "Why are they praying". And as quickly, "Why would you pray to someone who wasn't there". And just as quickly, "What if someone is here? Someone I can't see".
"which art in heaven..."
All right, that clear that up. He's not here. He's in heaven - this...Father. They're talking about God. I've heard of him, though not too much at home. Like Andy Stanley says, "Many of us grow up somehow knowing that God is good and that God is love, but we're not suppose to talk about him at home". He was talking about my house when he said that. We didn't talk about God or sex, and we rarely mentioned politics. But Shakespeare, well that's a different story. We knew him. And we knew his writing intimately - so the language in the lunchroom was not at all foreign to me. At nine, I already knew that Shakespeare was presented at the Globe theatre, that he was from Stratford-on-Avon, and I'd been there. I'd seen Anne Hathaway's cottage. No, not the actress from 'The Devil Wears Prada'. The Anne Hathaway. The one Shakespeare loved. I knew the King's English. This prayer was not a mystery to me. It was spoken in a language I already understood.
Then it hits me, "Our Father, which art in heaven", meant they weren't just talking about Him. They weren't just talking about the Father. They were talking to Him.
This was something altogether different...
