Our Father Who art in that Heaven, hallowed by Thy name.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
I groan the prayer in shame, though He who could peel back clouds dribbled the same words from his cracked and broken lips.
I am the voice of one cowering in the wasteland, a
little dog trying to eat the crumbs off a table in the clouds.

Thy kingdom come.

“Lord, don’t you care if we drown?” the disciples asked your Captain one night in a storm-swept ship. Later, this same Almighty who calmed that storm, this all powerful and all loving Creator sent a legion of demons from a man into a heard of hogs. Their water-worn lungs echo the cry:
“Lord, do you care if we drown? Do you care if…DO YOU CARE?’

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The Lord is not MY shepherd
I know this because I searched through deflated streets and the nasty yellow glow of late night bible studies, and I could not find.
I asked in wails and in whimpers, and it was not given to me.
I knocked and the door was not opened. I pounded with my fist and flung the full force of my flesh into its cold hardness and still, it would not budge.

Give us this day our daily bread

I cry for bread, and a crucifix is dangled before my lips, I
lift up my eyes, but the heavens are empty. I
search for a place in Paradise, but
God has taken it from the little dogs, divided it among the swine.

and forgive us our trespasses.
(And I will try to forgive Yours as well.)

Father Who is the I Am Not
Father Whom I Know Not
Father Who Knows not what I do
Father Who art in—

Physician, heal thyself.
Shepherd, make known the way or lay down thy staff.