In his highly acclaimed book, Prayers for the Cosmos, Aramaic and biblical scholar, Neil Douglas-Klotz, presents alternate meanings of the Lord’s Prayer and select Beautitudes. While most biblical translations are from the Greek, Douglas-Klotz works with the original Aramaic texts, the language Jesus and his follows spoke. Aramaic has many layers of meaning and several meanings for each word.
REFLECT:
Do you speak more than one language?
If so, how difficult is it to translate an idea / concept from one language to another?
Middle Eastern and Hebraic mysticism say that each statement of sacred teaching must be examined from three points of view:
Intellectual – the literal meaning of the words
Metaphorical – the representational / story meaning for our lives
Universal – the individual sound and feeling meaning for each of us
Following this tradition, Douglas-Klotz presents expanded translations of the King James’ version of the Lord’s Prayer. Here are three different examples for each line of the prayer.
Our Father which art In heaven.
O Birther. Father-Mother of the Cosmos.
O Thou! The Breathing Life of all, Creator of the Shimmering Sound that touches us.
Radiant One: You shine within us, outside us – even darkness shines – when we remember.
Hallowed be thy name.
Focus your light within us: make it useful.
Help us breathe one holy breath feeling only you – this creates a shrine inside, in wholeness.
Your name, your sound can move us if we tune our hearts as instruments for its tone.
Thy kingdom come.
Create your reign of unity now!
Let you counsel our lives, clearing our intention for co-creation.
From this divine union, let us birth new images for a new world of peace.
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Let all wills move together in your vortex, as stars and planets swirl through the sky.
Help us love beyond our ideals, and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.
Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Help us fulfill what lies within the circle of our lives: each day we ask no more, no less.
Let the measure of our need be earthiness: give all things simple, verdant, passionate.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Lighten our load of secret debts as we relieve others of their need to repay.
Untangle the knots within so that we can mend our hearts’ simple ties to others.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Don’t let us enter forgetfulness, the temptation of false appearances.
Don’t let surface things delude us. But free us from what holds us back.
Keep us from hoarding false wealth, and from the inner shame of help not given in time.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen Out of you, the vital force producing and sustaining all life, every virtue…
Out of you, the queen and kingship – ruling principles, the “I can” of the cosmos.
From you is born all ruling will, the power and life to do, the song that beautifies all – for age to age it renews.
In summation, Doulas-Klutz provides one possible translation.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
Focus your light within us: make it useful.
Create your reign of unity now.
Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt.
Don’t let surface things delude us. But free us from what holds us back.
From you is born all ruling will, the power and life to do, the song that beautifies all – for age to age it renews.
Truly power to these statements- may they be the ground from which all my actions grow.
Amen
APPLY:
Choose one of the statements to repeat each week.
Monitor how it shifts your body feelings.
Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus’s Words,
Neil Douglas-Klotz, Harper One, 1990.
