AN IRISH KADDISH

It was a prayer that I had modified around the death of my father.  I still see his name all the time.  It was not just a name.  Too often a man did not want to think about the experience of loss, what it was that I really had had, and what it was that I really had lost.  

 

A prayer was composed not in the sound of words but in true feelings.  I had thought of the relationship of my dad’s life to God.  I thought of my relationships that had led to his God.  I had posted this on the National Day of Prayer.  Relationships were based upon true feelings. 

 

I thought how the children of a father, a mother, were so God-like in both the human and the divine.  I thought of how in this prayer, creation moved from birth into some form of action.   Or inaction.  It was action that gave life purpose.  It was in work.  Or in rest.  In re-creation.  In leisure.  I once heard a rabbi say that the Jewish word for work was the same as that of either leisure or rest.    Or I think I had, in a lecture at the University of St. Thomas. 

 

Family called the question on love:  How can you love without true feelings? 

  

Father.  You created me.  In Your Image.  You formed me.  In Your Likeness.  You put me on this earth for a reason.   

 

Jesus Christ, you are that reason.  You set the captives free.  You gave sight to the blind.  You healed the sick.  You taught us how to live and love.  You lived, you died, YOU ROSE.  For me.  And you somehow move me to complete your works.    

 

Holy Spirit.  You help me complete the works of Jesus, the Messiah, and find my purpose on this earth, in the real world today.  In action. 

 

 

MAGNIFIED AND SANCTIFIED

MAY HIS GREAT NAME BE

IN THE WORLD THAT HE CREATED,

AS HE WILLS,

AND MAY HIS KINGDOM COME

IN YOUR LIFE AND IN YOUR DAYS

AND IN THE LIFES OF ALL THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL,

SWIFTLY AND SOON,

AND SAY ALL AMEN.     

  

 

AMEN!

MAY HIS GREAT NAME BE BLESSED

ALWAYS AND FOREVER.

 

There seemed to be a relationship in my family name, which carried on the tradition from one generation to the next, in relationship to this God of creation, that connected me to all of history.  And to all of creation.