When you're getting ready for a vacation have you ever noticed predictable behavior-patterns in your families that erupt like clockwork? Some families begin to delegate everything & anything, trying to ward off chaos from ruining any of the precious time we get to spend together; other families find themselves fighting like cats & dogs and still others just plunge into vacation- like life, leaving any detail, including the packing to the last minute so you're at least 3 hours behind all the other traffic heading out of town! Well, Jesus probably contended with all these dynamics and more considering he and his traveling companions were always on the move- one long mission trip! There is, however, a clue about what is essential for vacation planning or just life, something essential for living...prayer.

Prayer changes us. Prayer also changes what is possible with God. And Jesus knew this in answering his disciple's simple request, "Teach us how to pray".

The simplicity of this gospel reading is touching, as is the transparent request of this disciple with Jesus. In this story, the disciple waits until Jesus is finished praying until she asks for something. In story after story, whether Jesus is seeking quiet time on the mountain or walking along the shoreline, someone, somewhere is usually seeking his attention, with an imperative & urgent-NOW! Yet this time, it was important enough for the storyteller to let us know that the disciple waited until Jesus finished his prayers. This is a clue that there was something about Jesus that caused her to pause-hover with reverent restraint. For when we pray we change, from the inside out, and it is obvious for others to see. And this disciple wanted some of that in her life. Jesus taught this disciple, is teaching us, a prayer that can carry us through life - a prayer that reveals a portrait of God, as Jesus understood God to be. It has been called The Lord's Prayer, for a very long time.  

Our Father who art in heaven; this prayer names God as parent-the source of comfort for some and painful memories for others, a lifetime of stuff to translate, as each of us encounters God. A relational naming, right up front, God is a loving parent, a loving parent who wills a world into being that is different from our every day reality...Your kingdom come; the world created for us is different than the world God intended. We can and do have glimpses of another reality and its transformational grasp on our soul, if only for seconds spread out over lifetimes! A world without restrictions to express affection; a world where time is best invested in one another and savoring awe inspiring sunrises and sunsets and where a bite of home-grown vegetables taste like sunshine; a world in which the sweet smell of freshly cut lawn, the sweat of 6 year olds and scent of puppy breath seem all the same cause they're wrapped with the ribbon of baptism or confirmation or bar mitzvahs-of new life & the chance to start again; where forgiveness is as possible as clean air and just-relationships have as passionate a claim on us as our financial portfolios-both subject to a generous spirituality. Your will be done; we're dependent beings subject to something grander than ourselves and beyond our imagination to create. To acknowledge dependency, especially for our go it alone ethic smacks of weakness and immaturity and we don't like it! Yet, it's true that we're dependent upon a creator and we have our place in creation. When we're bended at the knee, receiving holy bread and drinking holy wine we're all the same, and it's the one truth about humanity we reject with emotional and even physical violence - a source of personal, local and global abuse, one to another. Forgive us our sins; the interwoven reality of a deepening spirituality is that if we would be forgiven then the moral imperative is to forgive-which requires accepting the forgiveness of others as well as forgiving others, and living into the new reality of relationship that forgiveness creates. Save us from the time of trial; this petition strikes a chord with anyone who has ever loved as a parent and who has been parented, that your child be forever insulated from pain. I remember knowing this for the first time when I held my niece Jennifer. She was the first child of my sister, the first grandchild of my mother and I was overwhelmed simultaneously with love & fierce protectiveness the moment she filled my arms. For with this petition comes the knowing that she would need courage and hope, strength and tenderness as dedicated markers of her DNA.