Beautiful Prayer Share

[Shemaya]

Love this rendition of the Lord's prayer. I have Neil Douglas- Klotz's book, The Hidden Gospel. He translates Jesus'words based on Aramaic, it puts a whole different spin and understanding to his words. The nuances and depth of meaning are very inspiring.

If you want, do share some please.

Hi Ankh!

I tried to reply yesterday, got distracted

I found some beautiful translations in the book The Hidden Gospel I highly recommend the book if you are interested, I go back to it often.

A famous saying in English:
Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44, kjv)

Douglas-klotz translates as follows:
Kindle feeling slowly
for that which feels excessive,
out of proportion with your rhythm.
Let the germ of love break
gradually through the shells of pride
that separate you from another,
you from another your-self.
The husks become kindling
for a fire of new birth in which
the two become one,
knowing the One behind all.
Find the blessing of yielding
to those who cover you with their own impressions,
detaching you in their minds
from who you really are.
Use this seclusion to retreat
to the surface of your image,
the pride and reputation
to which these insults stick.
Use the force to bend toward your own deepest Self.
restrain a reaction
when someone helps to filter out
the real from the false in you.
What you feel as hate is a mirror
like the moon
reflecting your own self-loathing.
Heal hate with beauty,
inside and out.
When the dawn breaks,
the moon knows its time has passed.
Open space for those
who try to tie you up.
lay a trap that catches
and releases all of their knots
and binding complexities.
Let your prayer for them be:
"O Alaha, use this force that
pushes and contracts,
that chases and entangles,
to guide us all back to
harmony with you.

In his translation Douglas-Klotz takes each phrase and expands it as fully as possible, based the root meanings and nuances in the Aramaic language. It's a poetic language and contains within it a worldview different from the western world. He brings this Middle-Eastern perspective into the translations. It presents an expression of Jesus' teachings that undoes the dualistic and rigid interpretations that we have today.

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Here's another, since Ali mentioned Matthew 6:6 :
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly

So an expansion of the above passage, with the nuances available in Aramaic added, provides this rendering:

When you want to lay yourself open for the divine,
like a snare that is hollowed out to its depth,
like a canopy that projects a shadow from the divine heat and light
into your soul,
then go into your inner place,
to that story or symbol that reminds you of the sacred.
Close the doors of your awareness to
the public person you think yourself to be.
Pray to the parent of creation with your inner sense,
the outer senses turned within.
Veiling yourself, the mystery may be unveiled through you.
By opening yourself to the flow of the sacred,
somewhere, resounding in some inner form,
the swell of the divine ocean can move through you.
The breathing life of all reveals itself in the way you live your life.