The Lord's Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer

William R. Colagrande, MS

Though I don’t really consider myself to be a very religious person, I have had the opportunity recently to ponder The Lord’s Prayer, or as we used to call it growing up in the Catholic Church The Our Father. It began to occur to me that it is a lot more instructive than other prayers I grew up with, such as the Hail Mary or Glory Be to the Father. These two strike me as being more elaborative or petitional than instructive. The part of The Lord’s Prayer which seemed to me as most instructive was the simple phrase… and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us I will return to this in a moment, but would first like to formulate some background thoughts.

Human personality development theory posits that our individual personality, the differing aspects of our character and even specific emotional problems are the result of many, many subtle acts, interactions and interpretations, particularly over the course of the formative years from ages one through five. Often, in novels or in movies, primal single events are credited with shaping our personalities, I guess because it makes a better read or looks more dramatic on the screen. The shock of suddenly losing a parent or of having all your classmates make fun of your prom dress does have a dramatic impact, but not one as formative as the day to day routine of the simple passage of time and events. It’s the little things that mean a lot.

When we discover Marley’s ghost in Charles Dickens’s wonderful tale of redemption A Christmas Carol, he is dragging around a heavy chain with large bricks attached. I propose that he did not merit those bricks one brick at a time, but rather one grain of sand at a time. Marley did not commit seven or twelve or twenty-five offenses in his lifetime, he committed thousands of them and the composite weight of those offenses comprised the total weight that shackled him as he confronted Scrooge all those Christmas Eves ago. Some of his offenses may have been of major proportions but the large majority were probably more along the line of slights, unkind acts, malicious or selfish thoughts or incidences of greed, indifference or callousness towards others. It’s the little things that mean a lot.

And we are likely to find ourselves in the same boat. The kinds of things that weigh us down in life, that contribute to unhappiness and erode our sense of self-esteem and self-worth are not so much the major offences we may have committed but the myriad, apparently trivial, minor ones that we may commit every day. Things like harboring unkind thoughts, holding onto resentments, thinking, saying or doing mean things or giving in to impulses that are fear or greed driven. The force of these minor transgressions is potent primarily because we consider them inconsequential and therefore tolerate and fail to challenge their presence in our daily lives.

So how do we work with these character flaws once we detect them in ourselves? Well, the obvious first thing is to notice the harmful effects these characteristics have on both ourselves and others and to begin training ourselves to stop engaging in them. Another is to attempt to restore balance into the ledger book of our lives (a simile that I’m sure would appeal to Messer’s. Marley & Scrooge) by guess what…asking forgiveness for our trespasses and forgiving those who trespass against us. We stop doing harmful things, we ask for forgiveness for having done them and begin balancing the books by consciously forgiving those who wrong us in some way. We ask God to forgive us and then act in His stead by forgiving others ourselves. Soon, the ledger book of our daily lives is showing more black ink than red. We begin to reap the dividends of feeling better about ourselves and having a higher sense of self-esteem and self-confidence, secure in the knowledge that we have become a force for light in the world. Just as we add weight to our chains one grain of sand at a time, this is how we can unburden ourselves of it.

I don’t think it’s quite enough for us to just ask God for forgiveness and to intercede on our behalf in other ways. I think we need to work for Him and become an active force for healing and forgiveness ourselves, right here on the earth, right here and now. We don’t have to be perfect at it. We don’t have to sell all we own and begin preaching in the wilderness. It’s the little things that mean a lot. Find a way to forgive someone for their transgressions against you, or even the community at large. It may take some practice to actually accomplish this goal, but don’t give up: the process itself is beneficial. And although so much harm has been caused throughout human history by those purportedly acting in God’s name, I doubt there will be much opportunity for wreaking havoc just by the practice of forgiveness. And by so doing we become agents of God’s will in the manner of the statement…Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But that is another part of the prayer that perhaps we’ll tackle at another time.

2006

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