A River Runs Through Us
Finding peace, joy, and comfort in the poetry of reverence
Raised a Catholic, I repeated the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday at mass. One night, when I was a young teen, I lay awake with a question on my mind: What did all those words in the prayer really mean? Religion, I had come to believe, was a mystery. Perhaps the words of the prayer held some secret clue to living a good and purposeful life. I repeated the words again and again, stopping at each phrase to puzzle out the meaning.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be
thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Though I discovered no secret meaning then or since, I was soothed by the poetic resonance of the words. Decades later I am agnostic but still love the Lord’s Prayer. I repeat it to myself on dark nights, on long walks, and in moments of stress when I need to flood myself with calm.
Prayers and Sankalpas
Though yoga is no substitute for organized religion, I practice it about as often as I attended mass as a child. In the last moments of class, right before we stir from shavasana, the…
