Cheryl Sharpe writes: My first exposure to the Lord’s Prayer was not in church. When I was in elementary school, I woke up every weekday morning to the sound of local talk radio station, KMOX-AM. My bedroom was right across the hall from the kitchen, where my parents’ old-fashioned radio was always turned on at the crack of dawn. When it was time for me to wake up and get ready for school, my father would turn the radio up high. I’d lie in bed listening to the same programming each morning – the national anthem, the Morning Minute from Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking,” and The Lord’s Prayer. The latter was a soaring rendition sung by American tenor, Mario Lanza. I’d sink back under the covers, close my eyes and listen to his beautiful singing. By the time I was six or seven years old, I had memorized the Lord’s Prayer though I didn’t really understand it. As soon as that song ended, Daddy would blast the radio station’s “Morning March” loud to jolt me out of

During the Aug. 13 outdoor service in Tower Grove Park, Pastor Travis preached and led a discussion about the closing phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “deliver us from evil.” A key part of the discussion focused on how we envision evil. Do we chiefly see evil as the systems and forces that shape our actions, something akin to the “principalities and powers” that Paul writes about his letter to the Ephesians? Or is it more personalized, a specific adversary, “the evil one,” sometimes characterized as the devil or Satan? Both these are commonplace interpretations and the tension between the two has its roots in the translations favored by Western theology (systems) and the Eastern theology (a specific adversary). In the same week as I encountered this fascinating insight, I also cam across a wonderful folktale from the Buddhist tradition, which also helps to illuminate the phrase “deliver us from evil.” It gave me a entirely fresh way to think about the battle between good and evil. Some b

Tim Woodcock writes: As a complement to Pastor Travis’s sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, I’ve been listening to a short series of reflections that similarly approaches the prayer, forensically and in sequence. It is part of a radio series called simply “The Essay,” something my wife pointed me toward, which was broadcast originally on BBC Radio 3 and is now available online. None of the commentators are approaching the Lord’s Prayer from within the framework of orthodox Christianity and it is all the richer for that. Each one is about 15 minutes in length. Among my favorites are: - The literary and playful approach of novelist, Ali Smith who, in a transporting Scottish accent, focuses on the phrase “art in heaven” - with art operating as a noun rather than an archaic verb. - Rabbi Julia Neuberger who looks at the phrase “give us our daily bread,” comparing it to the prayers of the Jewish people that Jesus would have been familiar with, as well discussing the role of bread wit