Hallowed Be Thy Recognition

For any of this to work: for any deepening of spirit—or opening to well being—or furthering in the path toward healing—for any of this to work—there needs to be the acknowledgement of something outside of ourselves. We need to be in relationship with the "other"—whatever we may name it.

Ironically, coming into the fullness of our being, we need to eventually embrace the wholeness of Being of which we are a part, eventually understanding that there is no "other" completely outside of ourselves.

It's similar to the experience of waves on the shore. We move in a particular way, creating a particular shape to our lives compelled by a larger source to which we return. The ebb and flow of levels of consciousness and cosmic awareness is some of what human being is all about.

It's that cosmic awareness that trips us up much of the time. Either the enormity of the presence makes it too hard to claim, to get a grasp of, or we see that it is impossible to render fully and so avoid a single view or vision, picking our images of God or larger source like a salad bar: sometimes it's this way, sometimes that way, add a little of this flavor and some of that perspective, till we have an intention of reverence without the ability to hold still long enough to encounter it fully. This falls under the UU trap of a love of seeking rather than finding, a sophistication of difference without the discipline of determination.

I had a dream a couple of years ago, one of those obvious teaching dreams "you are reading too many books. Stop it!"

It's hard to make a claim on belief when you know you don't know it all, can't encompass it all. Maybe I'm missing something, or going down the wrong path, how do I know where to hang my hat? How do I know my spirit's home?

We start by realizing that our job is not to know it all, in fact it is an experience, an interchange of knowing, a relationship.

Our family had the fortune to visit good friends in Indianapolis for the Thanksgiving week. They recently adopted a five year old girl from China who had lived in an orphanage all her life and has hepatitis B—a special need that would make her hard to place in a home. Three months into her arrival in our friends home, they are still unable to communicate through many words, their languages being so different, yet they are handling all the layers of transition and trust and trauma of change so beautifully. Julia is adjusting to her new environment with such strength and grace.

They have a ritual at any meal, compelled by Julia's request, of grace. It can be said several times throughout the meal. They hold hands, "hands" Julia offers, and the family says "we love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other." And Julia echoes "each other." She knows the strength of holding hands and each other. It's my new amen: "each other."

We continue when we realize there are no simple answers, really, only intention that is full of surprise and eased into understanding.

A colleague mentioned the other day that she had taught her three year old that "God is in everyone." One day, her daughter comes home and asks, "Mommy, you said God was in everyone?" And her mother answered "yes, that's right, honey." "Well today God said shut up and pushed me down in the playground, who else is in there?" (as told by Meg Riley)

Our knowing comes from an innocence in the moment, an open engagement to what is before us, and trust in the presence of greater knowing, even when it is mixed in with fear.

It is important to risk or embrace a focus, a naming of our relationship to the greater reality, the mystery of all, but not with the tyranny of the need to be right or the expectation to be answered in a certain way. The act of prayer or invocation, the honest offering of self to the moment, engages creative response. That is all and that is enough to get us started.

"The power of our intention is the key to praying always," writes Regina Sara Ryan in her book Praying Dangerously. "Our intention turns an unconscious life into a life of prayer, and even a weak intention is a good beginning.... If we waited until our intention was totally pure and altruistic we would never pray. Our initial intention gets us to the altar or the meditation cushion. Over time," she assures, "our intention evolves and our practice becomes... positive." (p. 40)

We haven't the capacity to fully know what dwells beyond our senses and in all things... but we do have the capacity to be in full relationship with it. What theologian Martin Buber coined the "I-Thou" relationship. Prayer helps us practice that relationship. It tends it, minds it, inspires it, enfolds it, empowers it—the relationship to inner peace and outer affirmation, the claiming of the grand and enduring Yes that sparked the universe.

Naming the relationship or the sense of life's longing for itself, to borrow a phrase from Kahlil Gibran, gives a power, an energy to our journey toward understanding. The opposite is also true. If we do not name what is before us, or delude ourselves in systems of denial, we lose the ower of truth and the possibility of healing.

Recently the Department of Agriculture released its annual report that speaks to access to food for Americans and managed to omit the word "hunger" from its description of the state of life for Americans. Now it seems that the 35 million Americans who do not have enough food in their lives are no longer suffering from hunger but from "low food security." And 10.8% of those Americans, who miss meals every week, suffer from "very low food security." The Department says these words convey a more precise and scientific view of the situation, whereas anyone who has felt the gnawing ache in the stomache would surely rather use the H-word. "Hunger." When we mask the truth in euphemisms or in attempts to reframe the world to avoid painful mutuality or the discomfort of empathy, we separate ourselves further from the mystical heart that compels us to the knowledge that we are one, and if one is suffering needlessly, then we have work to do and truth to see.

We must be open to seeing further. So when we choose a name or an image or a dialogue to enter ourselves into for this mysterious relationship of being, we are simply steadying the ground for our reaching. We're making it possible to open our minds and lives further, for we do not fear what we must see.

The names we may give are the names we have now, not ones tyrannized by "have to be" or "this and no other." We are not in charge of the ultimate definition, we are a part of the presence which moves beyond our knowing, and we call it by our present name to keep up with our growing awareness.

In Hinduism, there are more than 50,000 proclaimed deities. This is understood not as a very crowded celestial metropolis, but as different views of reality. "There are so many images of God, and more" writes MK Gandhi in his book honoring his grandfather Mohandas Gandhi, "and since no one knows what the true image of God is, who can decry the image someone holds close to the heart?" (The Way To God, p. 9) There is one overarching reality, named Brahman, which is above and beyond the deities that is shared. The path to which one finds that reality, the way that one gets to that truth is up to each person's heart.

But it is important to make a choice, to claim the relationship and stay with that choice long enough to widen our love and deepen our wonder. If we do not claim the nature of that relationship, through naming or recognition. If we do not give ourselves over to an "other" that has entered our awareness, then we do not nourish our sense of the source from which we came and in which we have life. We then float in our lives unsure of beauty, unclear about our knowing and unsteady in our living.

The image can change but only when it has passed through spirit's longing.

"Look for the answer to prayer not in what you get," comments Rabbi Chaim Stern, "but in what you become."

And the becoming is often slow, undetectable and unpredictable. That is why it is important to claim that relationship every day. From that place of belonging comes wisdom for our life's journey, wisdom that pervades all being. Wisdom that we have to trust is working in our lives and will surface when we have a true and hearty grasp of it.

The daily prayer, suggested by Jesus, affirms this. And I share this not to necessarily recommend this prayer, but to look at the format, well crafted from daily use. There are many prayers that one could choose.

Let's open to this passage, first with the standard translation and its generalized meaning, then a translation using the complex nature of Aramaic, which was a language of layered meanings to each word, then a translation that I am working on.

Our Father which art in heaven (a patriarchal image of the overarching essence of all being that resides apart enough for our awareness but is in a place we can come to),
hallowed be thy name. (treat this calling into relationship as holy)
Thy kingdom come. (Let the essence of the Divine reign in our lives)
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Let it all be one—no separation between consciousness and cosmos)

A translation from the Aramaic by Saadi Neil Douglas-Klotz:

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....

And one which I am using these days:

Holy One of All Being, the Truth in All things,
Hallowed Be Thy Recognition
Thy Wisdom be in our hearts and lives
Thy will in our ways and walking
In all places, form and spirit—let there be no separation.

What this invocation does—this calling of relationship—is to focus our senses on what's possible and what's present at the same time. And for a moment, at least once a day, we can summon that larger being within us that can guide us to wholeness. Bit by bit, opening by opening.

This calling can also be in a chant, or a breath, or a sigh given over to the moment, or music held completely in its rendering. This calling is a reminder, a recognition, a re-meeting of what we have known at other and at our birth.

Hallowed be that recognition.

So may it be. "Each other." Amen.