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ROTE, ROTE, ROTE YOUR BOAT
Have you ever heard this prayer - "Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen?" That was the prayer that my father lead our family in before each meal together when I was growing up. "Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen." This is the very prayer that my siblings and I recited for all of the years of our childhood, adolescence and young adulthood when we lived with our parents. Maybe you have said it in your family or while you've been visiting relatives or friends - it's a fairly popular old traditional Christian prayer. "Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord Amen." Back then, when I was growing up, I don't think any of us children really knew what it meant, but, by golly, we said it - meal in and meal out.
Maybe when I was five or six years old someone sat me down and explained the significance of that particular prayer - what it was about - if so, I don't recall. As I think back on the repeated recycling of those words at our family meals - the only variation that I remember being allowed was the speed in which we would say it. Sometimes we would say it slow, like this; "Bless - us - oh - Lord - and - these - Thy - gifts...." I guess that tempo must have meant that somehow we were all more holy on those days. Other times we said it at a much faster pace - "BlessUsOLordAndTheseThyGifts..." On those days I think the tempo would suggest that we were much more hungry than holy.
Sometimes you could even tell my fathers moods by the tone and timbre in his voice while leading us. If my brothers and sisters and I had just been scolded for fighting or arguing with each other there would be a sharpness, a sternness to my fathers voice. He would sound something like - "BLESS US O LORD!..." - we knew then that what the prayer really meant was; "you kids had better darn well behave yourselves at this dinner table - or else." Other moods of my father might show up if his voice were voice slow, gentle and soft as in - " Blessss usss, oh Looord..." - which we took to mean that he was maybe more deeply contemplating some mysterious, unknown thing - or that he was really tired and would be napping on the couch soon after dinner.
Even though we said that same, exact prayer at all of our family meals, to my fathers credit, he was at least setting an example of meal-time prayer and family togetherness.... Those are, indeed, great things and not to be taken lightly. (DISCLAIMER: I am by no means taking pot shots at my father here - it may sound a bit like I am being critical of his parenting style, but really I'm not - it is a simple analysis from my own childhood perspective :-) But I wonder sometimes what a difference it might have made if just once, just one time in all of those years, instead of saying that "Bless us O Lord" prayer by rote, he would have said something like: "Can we all bow our heads and pray" - and as soon as we would have closed our eyes and bowed or heads he would have continued with - "Lord, Lord (a faithful sigh), I've been working so hard and so much lately, that I'm not getting to spend enough time with what I truly love most in life, my wife and my children... Lord, please let them know that even though I'm not here with them much of the time, I want to be. They are the joy of my heart. Lord, thank you for that the job that you have given to me and that you have blessed us to be able to put this good and healthy food on the table and thank you too for this time, right now, that we get to spend together, in Your name, sharing our stories and our Love for each other.... Amen."
Would that kind of a prayer have made a difference in my young life? Or what! It certainly would have gotten our attention - woken us up. We probably would have felt a little uncomfortable about it though, wondering to ourselves, "what's up with dad." But then something else, I think, would have happened. Psychologists might suggest that would have had an immediate and profound effect on all of us. An awakening effect - a light coming on - an "ah ha" - that all of us would have truly known our fathers love for us - felt our fathers love through his words. Not just in an intellectual way but in an absolute, undoubtable way. Our experiencing him revealing his deepest heart to us would have helped mold and shape us in new ways - into children who truly believed that they were loved.
To be fair, my father showed his love for us in many, many different ways - but to actually hear him say the words would have been monumental to us children.
"Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord Amen." Actually, it is a great and wonderful prayer. "Bless us O Lord" is calling God our Lord - "for these Thy gifts" is saying that God freely provides for us - "which we are about to receive from thy bounty" again, God's gift to us through his abundance - " Through Christ our Lord" meaning that these gifts came to us through Jesus Christ who is Lord of our life! It is a great prayer, but sometimes when you recite even a great prayer over and over and over again by rote - it loses it's flavor, it's depth of meaning, the boat doesn't float. Even a good or great prayer can lose it's life this way - becoming, in essence, dead.
What does the Bible say about doing something in a new way?
Isa 42:10
Pslm 96:1
Pslm: 149:1- 3
Rv 21:5
Jesus Christ wants to create something new in you and in me - if fact it could even be said that Jesus is dying to create something new in you and in me. The real question is, how will we respond to His call.
"Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts...." it is a wonderful mealtime prayer. If only he'd have - just once - stepped out of his routine - I wonder what might have happened. Maybe, just maybe, I would have come to truly know - in a deeper way - my Fathers love.
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