Thought for the Week: Our Prayer
Stephen Yeo revises his Quakerly version of 'The Lord's Prayer'
God in all of us re- membered be your name.
Our re-
public come,
our wills be one
for all,
and all for one.
Here
we will
grow, reap, grind, knead, bake
then slice
our daily bread.
Trespasses?
The measure for mercy is ours:
we ask for no more than we give.
Lead us not into temptation, which is
to strip the evil
which occurs with good
in ‘us’
and stick it onto ‘them’.
For ours is the human condition,
the power and the story
of Now and Again
· recurring
Amen.
A few years ago Stephen Yeo published ‘A Lord’s Prayer’ in the Friends Quarterly along with some other poems. The 9:30am Meeting for Worship in Oxford is normally a quiet one. On 1 April an unusual, ‘string of pearls’, set of ministries focused on the Lord’s Prayer, particularly on the meaning of the word ‘trespasses’. Following Meeting, Stephen went home and revised his Quakerly version of this prayer.
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