All posts tagged: The Lord’s Prayer

Keeping Prayer Simple, Immediate and Relevant.

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If you’ve ever wondered why it’s widely expected that eyes be closed tight during prayer, just listen to the attempts of a three-year-old flouting the rule. “Thank you Jesus for the food and please keep us safe and thank you for mummy and daddy and… thank you for the window and the rubbish bin and dinosaurs and…” It’s at about this point that Master Three’s roving eyes meet mine and he finishes with a hurried “amen” and a cheeky grin. Gotta love him! Heads bowed, eyes closed and hands clasped aren’t such bad instructions, if a little tight-laced. To be honest, I can never find my authoritative mummy voice to reprimand our little man at prayer time. He’s talking to God and God deserves our respect, but we forget too often that faith is a relationship of many dimensions, including humour. The Lord’s Prayer is a particular difficulty for kids and I’ve heard some stellar mispronunciations: “Our Father who art in heaven, Howard by they name” or “How’d you know my name?” “Give us this …

Maybe, Just Maybe, the Lord’s Prayer no Longer has a Place in Parliament

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Perhaps the Lord’s Prayer should be scrapped from parliament.  This issue rears its head with as much regularity, it seems, as the debate around changing the date of Australia Day.  Acting Greens Leader, Senator Richard de Natale is responsible for the latest call. Personally, I’d like to see the Lord’s Prayer remain. But is the greater evil that a bunch of pollies are paying lip service only to the lines of a prayer that the Christian faith community upholds as a holy blueprint for communication with our Heavenly Father?  Words like sacrilege, hypocrisy and disrespect have been used for lesser offences. And, as author, historian and Centre for Public Christianity director John Dickson wrote recently in an article for ABC’s The Drum, “The Christian love of prayer is more than matched by the Bible’s aversion to hypocrisy” (Letting go of the Lord’s Prayer in Parliament, January 19). The prayer in question goes like this – and I quote from a modern version, the Good News Translation. “Our Father in heaven: 
 May your holy name be honoured; …