Excerpt from Matthew 6:7-15

"This then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father / [Our Mother] in heaven . . .'" (NIV)

Reflection by Kenneth L. Samuel

In August of this year, my mother celebrated her 84th birthday.  In all my life, I have seen her visibly shaken and upset on just a couple of occasions.  One of those occasions occurred a few years ago.  My sister, my two brothers and I were at my mother's apartment in New York discussing some family business.  The discussion got heated and exploded into a fireball of disagreement among the four of us.  Out of anger and frustration, things were said that should have been tempered, or not said at all.  That's when I saw my mother visibly shaken; deeply disturbed.  She didn't calm down until she'd extracted a promise from me and each of my siblings that nothing else would be said until each of us got over the anger and remembered that we were family.

Days later I asked my mother why she had gotten so upset.  None of our angry expressions were directed at her.  "We go at one another all the time," I said to her.  "It's no big deal."  She looked at me squarely and with a solemn tone said, "Perhaps you do. . .  but not in my presence."

If prayer is an acknowledgement of the presence of God, our Divine Parent, then we can never pray without remembering that each of us is a part of God's human family.  We cannot really go to God in prayer without taking with us the quality of our relationships with one another.  Prayer can be personal, but it can never be private. It always exposes our relationships with our brothers and sisters.  Prayer reminds us that without human community there can be no divine communion. Prayer lifts each of us out of the secluded silos of our own self-centeredness and ushers us into the communal consciousness of "Our Father" / "Our Mother" / "Our Creator" / "Our Redeemer" / "Our God."  And there is nothing that displeases "Our God" more than our disrespect and disregard for one another.

Prayer

Dear God, today, as we acknowledge your presence we also acknowledge our need to reconcile and be reconciled to our brothers and sisters.  In your presence, help us to find better ways to love one another.  Amen.

About the Author Kenneth L. Samuel is Pastor of Victory for the World Church, Stone Mountain, Georgia.

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