WOW – Lord’s Prayer – vonda drees art

The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and
freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power
that is love, now and forever.
Amen.

“It rained last night. The pomegranates,
Red and orange-red,
Have all burst open into flower.
Not to be comforted,
I sit in this cool pavilion
Set in a lotus lake
And under its glass-bead curtains wait
For my closed heart to break.”
—Pomegranates by Sim Hun, translated by Graeme Wilson

“When we hold onto our heartbreak and our aliveness — when we really meditate on it — when we hold those questions with every cell of our being, something cracks and there’s this sense that arises in us. And I call that the Holy Spirit, or the impulse of God.” –Adam Bucko

Welcome to Day 30 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the Lord’s Prayer.

I learned something new about pomegranates when I originally posted this image on Facebook. Here was the conversation that happened in the comments of the post:

My friend: The pomegranates need to crack to be ripe.

Me: I didn’t know that. So, when we get pomegranates from the store, should we wait until they crack on their own before eating them?

My friend: not necessarily. My bff has two trees and she always waits until they start to crack on the tree. They really are sweeter. The store bought ones probably won’t crack once they are off the tree.

Ways to Engage:

Practice Visio Divina (receive, reflect, respond, rest) with the painting.
Download the B&W image. Color it on your own or with a friend. Let it inspire further contemplation/conversation.
You do you. Trust your intuition and engage in the way your heart desires.

Tree of Life painting update:

To download the black and white image for personal use: on a computer, click and drag the image to your desktop; on a phone, press on the picture until it gives you the option to save it to your photos. The image is formatted to fit on an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper, but feel free to print it whatever size you’d like.

Background: I created a series of forty 5″x7″ watercolor paintings inspired by the elements of worship. It was work commissioned by a project with Nourishing Vocation with Children at St. Olaf College, a program funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative.

As the paintings are shared, you may notice a pattern: