Conversation and Contemplation

Two things this evening.

J had a "Harvest Moon dance" at school this evening. It was a fund-raiser for the PTA -- they charged admission, sold concessions and had a raffle. Conversation at home prior to the "dance":

J: Dad, can I have $5 for the dance?
S: Well, we'll see. (He then pulls out $10 in ones, counts them out and hands them to J)
J: $10?
S: Yes. Spend it all.
J: Spend it all?
S: Yes. Spend it all. It's a fundraiser; spend it all.
J: I may have to buy things for other people to spend it all.

I bought a book of quotes this evening at Empire books called Patches of Godlight. I've been thinking about the Lord's Prayer, and ran across this passage in the book:

"Thy will be done" is what we're saying...we are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not only what we want but what God wants. We are asking God to make manifest the holiness that is now mostly hidden, to set free in all its terrible spendor the devastating power that is now mostly under restraint....

"Thy kingdom come...on earth" is what we are saying. And if that were suddenly to happen, what then? What would stand and what would fall?...To speak these words is to invite the tiger out of the cage...

You need to be bold in another way to speak the other half. Give us. Forgive us. Don't test us. Deliver us. If it takes guts to face the omnipotence that is God's, it takes perhaps no less to face the impotence that is ours. We can do nothing without God. We can have nothing without God. Without God we are nothing.

It is only the words "Our Father" which make the prayer bearable. If God is indeed something like a father, then as something like children maybe we can risk approaching ...

--Frederick Buechner, in Listening to Your Life, Daily Meditations with Frederick Buechner (but quoted here from Patches of Godlight by Jan Karon)