Friday, Feb 12–Nena
Our Father Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name…
I learned the Lord’s Prayer as a young child. Each night as the stars emerged I would kneel at the side of my wooden bed with my hands in a prayerful pose saying these words. It has been more than a half-century since that time and yet my body still feels that sacred pose as if it were knit into my being. For me the parental imagery felt safe and comforting.
What followed when my Aunt Nena visited was the singing of a Spanish children’s song, “Ya se van los pastores a la Extremadura.” Her pure multi-chromatic singing was heartfelt and calming. The gist of the song is that it is time for the shepherds to leave their village to tend sheep in Spain’s western grazing areas. These are beautiful hills cast in God’s sun and shadow. During this time children know that even though their father may be hidden from view that he loves and cares for them.
The juxtaposition of the prayer and the song as I drifted into sleep under a woolen blanket evoked both the glory and wisdom of God beyond all my imaginings and the pastoral image of a shepherd tending the flock. For a child growing up in the cold war era these words brought comfort.
My child’s Anglican faith welcomed the mysticism that words like “hallowed” evoked. The shepherd imagery evoked for me a place of abundant love and tending those in need of care.
In concert these images informed my earliest theologies. God was uniquely holy; and God calls us into relationship. Jesus uniquely orients us toward God; and Jesus acts as a shepherd in our midst.
May God’s peace be felt by all children in our world today. May we each feel the comfort of our abiding shepherd Jesus even in the most uncertain of times. And may we remember that in our birth we are blessedly made in the hallowed image of God—worthy of care and love. Amen
–Nena Radtke