Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00

Subject: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:29 AM

To all who celebrate this joyful and important day, Christain or not:

May you have a renewal of spirit, love, faith, hope, charity, and prosperity in all ways.

The Aramaic Prayer of Jesus

O Birther 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,
But free us from what holds us back
From you is born all ruling will,
The power and the life to do,
The song that beautifies all,
From age to age it renews.
I affirm this with my whole being.

translation © 1988 by Neil Douglas-Klotz

All the best and MERRY SPRING!

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:30 AM

Drat! I HAD taken off the italics at the end, I thought! Sorry!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Kelida
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 12:56 AM

Take away the title, and that isn't specifically Christian. . . Nevertheless, beautiful.

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 07:38 AM

Today is also my saints day: St. George. The patron saint of England, adopted as such by the Crusaders in the 12th Century. Folklore has it that he was a Roman soldier converted to Christianity, and put to death by Emperor Diocletian in 304 AD. The red cross on white background was established as his symbol, since incorporated into the Union Jack. Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 08:09 AM

Thanks kat for that lovely prayer. It looks good in italics, makes it special.

I may have been brought up in Judaism but I sure do love Jesus.
He seemed to be someone who really knew he was a son of God and had the magnificant gift of being able to show us all that we are children of God too.
Well, that is how I see it anyway. I do think Jesus was some mighty fine person who 'done good' on this earth. And I plan to follow as best I can in his footsteps.

Happy Easter everbody,
Little Neo who considers herself a religious mutt

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 09:22 AM

He is Risen!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Mbo
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 10:04 AM

Amen to that, Praise!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 10:55 AM

I posted it wrong, too, should be:

Alleluia, Alleluia, alleluia, The Lord is Risen!

~S~

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: GUEST,ivy b*
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 02:54 PM

today is important, whatever your religious/spirtual background. the prayer was wonderful, i will be printing out a copy of it and keeping it close at hand.

i hope you dont mind if i add this poem as its in a similar theme.

I wake to feel the sun apon my face - The touch of spring returned again at last. The winter swept away and in its place This light to melt the shadows of the past. A mind washed clean, a spirit free embraced, A well of peace as from my soul is cast All fear and hate - oh let it now be graced With April's balm for cruel midwinter's blat. By his example we are told forgive And be forgiv'n, grow on without regret. The world's anew! Turn from the cold and live, Embrace the good, all else learn to forget. For Hope's a gift wrapped in this April morn Through which the world this eastertide's reborn.

happy easter (and st. george's day!). may it bring you hope and peace.

love ivy b*

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 03:33 PM

These nail holes are making it real hard to type.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: sophocleese
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 03:38 PM

Well I got up early and hid small chocolat eggs around the back yard for the kids to find. By the time they were outside lookig for them 6 had disappeared. Does anybody know if chocolate is good or bad for squirrels?

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 03:56 PM

I don't know about the squirrels, Soph, but our friends Greg and Cathy have warned us NOT to bring chocolates with us to their Easter Dinner tonight. Their two little girls are ALREADY "Buzzing" we're told. By the way, if they KNEW Catspaw, they'd probably warn us not to bring him either!

Rick

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 04:05 PM

I'll take you off the list for free asparagus Rick.

Gawd how I love these "Candy" holidays........The kids are completely buzzed, flying off the walls, and in general completely nuts. I always thought that they were just paying homage to me by emulating me on holidays and then I realized it was the sugar. Bummer.

Actually, Karen and I made a pact for these days like Easter and Halloween.....Complete pigout on ONE day and then we take the stuff away, ie, if they don't eat it today, it goes in the trash. Works pretty well and cuts down on the wall repairs.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: ceitagh
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 04:42 PM

"Truly He is Risen!!!" :-)

Happy Easter everybody! (Sang the Hallelujah Chorus today....there's a chocolate-free buzz!)

Ceitagh

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 04:54 PM

Catspaw I didn't realized you were a holey man too.
Why, can I walk in your footsteps? Maybe I should just post after all your postings, that is kind of like walking in your footsteps isn't it?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 05:40 PM

Yes BonnAmmie, tis true....I am one of the holey ones and as such, I've decided that Rick should have the same status (see the "Good Balance on the 'Cat" thread).

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Caitrin
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 06:31 PM

Today is the one day of the year that we really do the Slovak thing (Easter is a bigger deal in Slovakia than Christmas!)...I've pigged out on goulas, halubki, halushki, roshky, paska, kolbasi, and pagach all day. (As well as a whole bunch of other stuff with names that even other people can pronounce, including lots of candy.) Cristos Voskres!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Kelida
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 07:40 PM

My family still shops for me like I'm 8 years old, so I have a huge amount of candy that I'll never eat--I'd like to stay thin and beautiful for as long as possible. Why can't people just give me money--or a new computer? Candy is fun, though. . .until I gain 10 pounds that I end up having to lose again.

Peace--Keli

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Biskit
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 10:11 PM

Happy Easter, Happy St.George day, To Everyone!!!! My wife and I were talking this morning about these religious holidays where everyone gets together and gorges themselves on food wouldn't it be much better to take your family out for a walk in nature, and truly enjoy the glory of our creator in the way the leaves are budding, (and do so every spring) The way the sun sets so perfectly b`neath the clouds,or just glory in the communion of family and friends while out on this walk? I'm watching a beautiful,BEAUTIFUL! sunset in a truckstop in Toole, Ut. as I write this, and it just made me pause and think of what a lovely world we live in, and how lucky we are to be a small part of it. Happy Easter everybody,Your all always in my prayers, Love, Biskit

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 10:29 PM

Too right, Biskit! I once taught a song to a grandma from Toole, who was riding the train back, as we were, from New England. I later sent her a tape of it and she still sings it to her grandkids as far as I know.

Thanks everyone for the lovely thoughts and images. Today has been beautiful.

luvyakat

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From:
Date: 23 Apr 00 - 10:40 PM

Katlaughing, that is a beautiful prayer. Do you know anything of the history or origins of it?

I should have done something useful or meaningful today, but mostly I slept. It has been a tiring week.

--js

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 01:03 AM

Wow, great dinner at our friends Greg and Cathy. (they even made half the dressing WITHOUT onions!) You know looking at their 3 little kids...being raised with love and care, no bigotry, no race hatred, no Mom and Dad yelling or swearing at each other...well, I'm just glad that Duckboots and I have good friends.

Oh, he's a good bass player too. Was on all the cuts except one of "This One's The Dreamer". I played bass on one song and Greg swears I screwed it up!

Rick

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 01:34 AM

Kool, Rick! Ya had me worried there, for a minute!

Jenithea, all I know is the copyright info I posted. It was in an engagement calendar book my sister's gave me, for 1990 called "Celebrating Women's Spirituality", copyrighted 1989 by The Crossing Press, Freedom, California 95019. It has such great quotes and artwork that I've kept it.

It is just one of several I've seen which seek to interpret the Lord's Prayer in a less patriarchal/denominational way. Glad you liked it. Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: SDShad
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 10:43 AM

Actually, kat, I just happen to have a beat-all--to-hell copy, which pretty much goes with me everywhere, of the book that it came from, Neil Douglas-Klotz's Prayers of the Cosmos, which approaces both the Lord's Prayer and the Beatitudes from a view which tries to unlock their inner truth through basically riffing on the many layers of meaning which would naturally be present in their original Aramaic rendering. Klotz himself is Sufi, and a student of Middle Eastern mysticism and its history way back to pre-monotheistic times. He makes a pretty convincing case that Jesus didn't intend his prayer in any kind of patriarchal/denominational way.

I think it's pretty cool that Kelida is able to see a rendering of the Lord's Prayer as not being specifically Christian. For me, that's kind of the whole point of it.

Anyway, your calendar abridged Klotz's version considerably, kat. The original:

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 the life to do,
the song that beautifies all,
from age to age it renews.
Truly--power to these statements--
may they be the ground from which all
my actions grow: Amen.

And even that doesn't do justice to Klotz's translation, because he calls it only "one possible translation", where in point of fact he takes apart each line of the old prayer into five to eight or so possible parallel, noncontradictory meanings, any of which you could combine together to create your own "Aramaic Prayer of Jesus."

Liberating stuff.

The Aramaic on which this is based is so beautiful that I include it below. I include the original Aramaic prayer in my daily meditation. In January I attended a mens' creations spirituality retreat at which we sang the opening lines of the prayer in Aramaic while dancing for Universal Peace in circles...amazing....

The Lord's Prayer (Aramaic)

Abwoon d'bwashmaya

Nethqadash shmakh

Teytey malkuthakh

Nehwey tzevyanach aykanna d'bwashmaya aph b'arha

Hawvlan lachma d'sunqanan yaomana

Washboqlan khaubayn (wakhtahayn) aykana daph khnan shbwoqan l'khayyabayn

Wela tahlan l'nesyuna

Ela patzan min bisha

Metol dilakhie malkutha wahayla wateshbukhta l'ahlam almin

Ameyn

All of the quotes above are from Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus, Neil Douglas-Klotz, Harper San Francisco, 1990.

Ameyn,

Chris

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Irish sergeant
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 08:53 PM

KAtlaughing: Truly a lovely prayer and sentiment. Too much candy, and all the other goodies associated with the holiday. Little Neophyte, I know what you mean about being a spiritual mutt. I spent a lot of time on bothe the Protestant and Catholic sides of Christianity (Everything from Charismatic pentacostal to RC) I lable my self a christian and leaveit at that. Shalom. To all else, have a happy belated Easter and /or Passover, Neil

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Easter - 4/23/00
From: Caitrin
Date: 24 Apr 00 - 09:07 PM

One biblical translation thing that I thought was interesting...
The original aramaic, when describing the creation of the world, uses the verbs for "fathering" and "birthing," the male and the female versions of creation.