Recently I have been thinking a lot about prayer. I participate in a monthly spiritual group that is composed of some more liberal-leaning folks, including a few male pastors. I admire these men for their openness to ideas that don’t always align with their denominations’ teachings: they think for themselves; they see the contradictions in some of the religious dogma that exists in their denomination; and they are offering a more wholistic and loving interpretation of scripture to their congregations.

However, as we spoke about prayer and meditation in our latest discussion, they offered up the Lord’s Prayer as a model prayer. As a woman, I find this model to be seriously disturbing. I grew up reciting this prayer, as did millions of other devout Christians. That prayer continually reinforced to me that God is a male, that he lives in a place that I can never reach, and that he is mainly concerned with power and glory.

I am no theologian, but that prayer, as much as anything else, made me feel as if there was no place in the church for me as a woman.  Every time anyone prays that prayer it reinforces the patriarchal presumption that God is male and is outside of us, dwelling in some heavenly paradise, removed from the concerns of the world.

In Christian theology, we have the Father and the Son, but where is the Mother? Where is the deep feminine, nurturing, in-dwelling personification of the Divine? Where is the feminine model for me, as a woman, to emulate? If the Lord’s prayer is the model prayer, then it seems that half of the world is not included when we pray. Every time I pray the Our Father, I feel left out and excluded.

One of the members of our spiritual group shared another version of the Lord’s Prayer that is found in the New Zealand Book of Prayer. In this version, there is space for the Divine Feminine as source of all that is, and love, is the source of power. This prayer is much less problematic for me as a woman, than the version of the Lord’s Prayer which is found in the King James Version of the Bible.  I would like to share it here today as an alternative version of the Lord’s Prayer.

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Barbara Garland
September, 2023