A writer’s catechism for the Lord’s Prayer

Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash

I say the Lord’s Prayer in my first waking moments. This is not because I am pious, but because I am neurotic. If I do not say it first thing, I will forget by the time I feed the cats.

I say it before I remember my own name, in that numinous limbo between dreams and the dulcet psalmody of the Beastie Boys on my phone alarm. I say it while the small cat erupts in citric shrieks and the large cat renders himself gelatin on my solar plexus. I say it before I know what I am saying.

I say it because I am smitten and cowardly and small and superstitious. I have squished myself under Jesus’ arm since I was six, peeking out from the folds of his robe just enough to see the next step in front of me. Sometimes I squeeze my eyes shut and step on Jesus’ feet. Many losses, one anarchic pancreas, and a variety-pack of vicissitudes later, I am still here. I laugh at least twice before dinner most days, so I have decided this is a good long-term plan.

But if I am going to stay under Jesus’ arm, it seems I should at least make conversation. Jesus knows that I will yammer all day, burbling with the foolishness of those who feel safe. I will comment in Jesus’ direction on all manner of things. Jesus will hear that my mother resembles the Holy Spirit. Jesus will hear my request that my mother live at least as long as Enoch. Jesus will hear that I am contemplating switching brands of coffee, and that I find Emmanuel Macron super handsome. Jesus knows when my boss unintentionally wounds me, when my blood glucose is ghastly, and when I give in to the temptation to buy another pink sweatshirt.

Jesus is such a generous listener that it only seems right to talk about Jesus’ interests, too. It would be wrong to keep venting to Jesus about how nobody asks about my writing or my prayers or the Eiffel Towers on my desk, only to ignore the things Jesus likes to talk about. I start the day with the prayer I know Jesus likes.

I like getting to call Jesus’ Father my Father. If the cats and the Beastie Boys have awakened me sufficiently, I thank Jesus for this, and I thank Jesus for all the beasts and blesseds who are part of our family. I picture space and time as stretchy and silly as putty, all of us together at the rowdy table. I high-five Emily Dickinson and Dorothy Day and Gandhi and my grandparents and St. Gertrude, patron of cats.

I like that our Father is in Heaven, although I like this differently as I get older and odder. I used to take this as a reminder that God was close enough to hug but far enough to be ferocious, and we’d best not forget either part. Smarter siblings with letters after their names explained that this was the tension between the immanent God and the transcendent God. But then the table conversation got noisy, and someone shouted that the fear of God is a lot different from being scared of God, and someone – I think it was Eusebius the Lesser, but don’t quote me – pointed out that Jesus is always saying the kingdom of heaven is here, right here, right inside wriggly superstitious 42-year-olds in pink sweatshirts.

The larger cat is walrusing himself across my collarbones by now, and I am wiggling. If our Father is in Heaven, but the kingdom of heaven is within, then distance ends up in the dustbin. All the hallowing happens at the table, with the crumbs and the bibs and the children who can’t remember our own names.

I like joining Jesus in asking for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done. I have known since I was small enough to be brave that this includes everything lovable. God’s kingdom contains my grandmother’s lavender cardigans and the full congress of Care Bears and every cure. God’s kingdom has room for cola and good marriages and cheetahs that you can pet. God’s kingdom will have full bellies, and knee-slappin’ bluegrass, and nations becoming best friends, and death becoming a laughingstock.

I am wiggling. If Jesus and all the siblings and I are asking God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and heaven is inside us, then the whole hootenanny is happening already. I used to think as it is in heaven meant either “elsewhere, already” or “here, eventually,” or – after my second coffee – both.

But Eusebius is clogdancing on the table, and no one minds that their Grape-Nuts are bouncing off in all directions. If the kingdom of heaven is here inside our pajamas, then the healing is happening already. We are asking God’s will to be done on earth as it is at this table. I ask Jesus if I’m still too drowsy to understand. Am I to believe that God is heavening this burnt and brokenhearted world through my spaghetti arms? Already?

I am starting to wake up now, which means the gerbil-thoughts are galloping in. I need to do two loads of laundry. I am low on spinach. My mother has a sinus infection. I must keep praying before the day gnaws my neurons.

It is a fitting juncture – Jesus is good at those – to hit daily bread, the toasty, yeasty bridge across the dewy lawn. I like asking for daily bread because I am always hungry. I like asking for daily bread, because I know it’s shorthand for the entire shopping list, including the entries I didn’t write. I will remind Jesus all day of my favorite flavors, the pumpernickel that makes me proud and the raisin swirl of affirmation. I will remind Jesus that I would like a chocolate croissant of compliments. I will remind Jesus, and then I will gnaw like a teething baby beast on a bagel when he gives me whole wheat words for a weeping friend and the dense naan of silence for the stranger who needs to talk at the drugstore.

The gerbils are jumping now. I need to email that puckery Board member, and they are repaving the parking lot tomorrow, and it is really scary to be almost forty-five. I’m nearly awake and in serious danger of forgetting my trespasses. Jesus is used to my hard little head under his arm, and he doesn’t need the reminder. But he lets me remember, and this is daily bread, too. I remember forgetting that the stranger at the drugstore is a sibling. I remember running down the street with all the bread in my arms. I remember feeling ragged when I went one hour without hearing I was brilliant. I remember not hearing Jesus’ voice, even though my head is tucked under his arm.

I don’t dislike saying “as we forgive those who trespass against us,” but my lawn looks pristine from the breakfast table. I ask Jesus if I’ve just been blessed – a consolation prize for the caramelized pancreas? – to not be particularly angry. I mumble something about my ex-husband and the late uncle who thought I was “eccentric.” I remember the people who don’t ask about my writing or my prayers or the Eiffel Towers on my desk.

I don’t like saying “and lead us not into temptation.” Jesus knows this. But Jesus listens to my pros and cons list about wearing leggings at age forty-two. Jesus listens to my perseverating over whether or not to use the word “perseverate” in a poem. The least I can do is listen to Jesus’ favorite prayer. Maybe I need to hear myself say “and lead us not into temptation” to remember that our Father would never do such a thing. Maybe I need a long diving board to gather momentum for “but deliver us from evil.”

I like the “us,” the third-to-last word before I gallop into the kitchen across “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever and ever and ever” (I figure, since Jesus is so generous in listening to me, maybe Jesus grins when I get gushy). I like the “us,” because we’re here together, my daddy and St. Padre Pio and the Beastie Boy who passed away and Mother Teresa, asking our Father to do what sleepy children can’t do. I like the “us,” because I remember that we will all hold hands this day.

I’m out of bed now, on my feet, appeasing gerbil thoughts and shrieking cats. I will forget the Lord’s Prayer by the time the kibble hits the bowl. I have forgotten my name already. The yeast will laugh its way through the loaf.