Mike Willock writes: A recent Luther Seminary devotional highlighted two three-word prayers from the gospel of Matthew. I have added a third found in the Psalms. The first is in Matthew 14 after feeding the 5,000 when Jesus sent the disciples across the Sea of Galilee and went alone up the mountain to pray. Later that night the boat was caught in a storm and Jesus came to them walking on the water. Peter, ever the one to speak first, said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” When Jesus said, “Come”, Peter got out of the boat but soon he became afraid of the wind and waves and began to sink. He cried out “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30) and Jesus caught him by the hand and rescued him. That’s one. The second is from the Matthew 15 story of the Canaanite woman who pleaded with Jesus to heal her demon-tormented daughter, crying, “Lord, help me” (Matthew 15:24). Jesus praised her persistent faith and healed her daughter, which marked a turning point in Jesu...

Tim Woodcock writes: Back in the summer, I read Annie Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow – Three Essential Prayers , mentioned in a previous blog post . While I appreciated certain passages in this 100-page book in it but wasn’t sold it on it as a whole. Before returning it to the library, I made a photocopy of the section about giving thanks, thinking I might be more in the mood for it at another time. In this Thanksgiving week, I revisited it and indeed there was more waiting for me, when I dug into the book for a second time. Lamott’s great gift is her constant swerve to avoid conventional religious language and in doing so, she makes things appear fresh. She writes: You may in fact be wondering what I even mean when I use the word “prayer”… Let’s not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to. Let’s say prayer is communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in, to something unimaginably big, and ...

Tim Woodcock writes:  There was a very interesting guest essay in the New York Times by Anne Lamott headlined “I Don’t Want to See a High School Football Coach Praying at the 50-Yard Line” responding to the recent Supreme Court Case. Hopefully you can read it here , but that depends on whether you have subscription and/or how many other NY Times articles you’d read this month: Lamott doesn’t get too caught up in the specifics of the Kennedy v. Bremerton School District court case , in which a good deal of showboating and posturing in the media somewhat disguised the real question at hand of whether a sports coach in Washington State public school was inappropriately using religion to exercise his power and influence over his players. Lamott’s strategy is to sidestep the news story almost entirely and instead critique it by cataloguing the small private prayers that punctuate her daily life. And of course, being Lamott, she writes in an idiosyncratic and entertaining styl...

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...

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...