What I'm Reading #15: Revelations of Divine Love (Julian of Norwich)

Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich

Revelations of Divine Love is the oldest extant English publication by a woman. We read it recently for my Christian Ethics course—it was a re-read for me, because I had picked it up for $2 at a used book store in high school. Julian has influenced me for a long time, even more so now that I've read her in an ethics context and written a paper on her work (it's almost done, I might post it later).

The lecture my professor gave on Julian brought out the side of me that led me to get a second major in Medieval & Renaissance Studies in undergrad. A 14th-century English mystic? Right up my alley. We talked about the hierarchical society of the day that assumed people were born with different blood—a society in which a woman having a vision of Jesus' blood making us all kin was scandalous. Julian's visions are graphic—God's love is portrayed in copious amounts of blood pouring into the ground at the foot of the cross. In a time when people were dying of the plague, perishing in pools of their own blood, Julian had visions of the blood that heals every wound.

The paper I wrote on this book deals with Julian's understanding of sin and forgiveness in light of her visions. I've been hearing a lot of hoopla lately about Rob Bell's book Love Wins because it supposedly denies the existence of hell. I haven't read the book yet (I intend to), but from what I can gather from reviews and friends who've read it, Bell isn't doing anything all that new (and he'll tell you that himself). There are places in Revelations where Julian is on thin ice—in all her visions, she was never shown hell, even when she asked to see it. For Julian, sin is its own punishment. She never comes out and says there is no hell—sin is its own hell, and in terms of a place of eternal torment, she will not make an argument from silence or say anything that departs from the teaching of the Church—but there is room for that interpretation. And Julian wasn't the first; Origen and many others have wondered about the question of the afterlife in a way that is more faithful to Scripture, which is far more ambiguous on the subject than we seem to think, than many traditional depictions of heaven and hell.

Revelations of Divine Love is a beautiful extended meditation on God's freely given, unconditional love for his children. It was edifying to my soul to read it again, in a way that some of my theological reading for school simply isn't. Whether you're interested in a devotional work or in dealing with poetic theology, this is a wonderful book to read.


Favorite Quotations

"Our falling does not stop his loving us."

"I was shown no harder hell than sin."

"His love for us is not broken by our sins; nor does he intend that our love should be broken for ourselves or our fellow Christians."

"We can see that our sin well deserves it, but that his love excuses it."

"It is not God's will therefore that we should grieve and sorrow over our present sufferings, but rather that we should leave them at once, and keep ourselves in his everlasting joy."

"And he showed me more, a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, on the palm of my hand, round like a ball. I looked at it thoughtfully wondered, 'What is this?' And the answer came, 'It is all that is made.' I marvelled that it continued to exist and did not suddenly disintegrate; it was so small. And again my mind supplied the answer, 'It exists, both now and for ever, because God loves it.' In short, everything owes its existence to the love of God. In this 'little thing' I saw three truths. The first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God sustains it."

"Thus I was taught by God's grace to hold steadfastly to the faith I had already learned, and at the same time to believe quite seriously that everything would turn out all right."

Prayer Requests (poem)

Hearing bad news,
Resisting the urge to say,
"Did you hear...?"
Sometimes prayer requests
Are really just gossip.

Standing up to preach
Even when you are failing.
Proclaiming the truth
Even when you can't live up to it.

I'm not the kind of person who...
But yes.
Yes I am.
There is only one kind of person:
A sinner dependent on grace,
A flawed creature in need of the only person
Who can draw the world to himself
And wrap us all in arms
Stretched wide upon the cross.

Stained (poem)

In the middle of communion,
A friend showed my his palm
Stained with grape juice
Dark like blood,
As if his hand were pierced.
He embraced me and whispered,
"Praise Jesus."

Praise Jesus whose hands,
Feet,
Side
Were pierced,
Were stained.

Praise Jesus whose hands
Probably looked more like my friend's —
Dark and brown —
Than mine —
Pale and pink.

"Praise Jesus."

Praise Jesus whose blood
Runs the same color as ours.

Praise Jesus whose blood
Covers every sin,
Washes every stain,
Heals every wound,
Makes us all kind.

Praise Jesus whose blood
Looks just the same
On every stained palm.

Disaster Pornography and Japan

A few weeks ago, we had a guest lecturer in my Christian Ethics class from the Duke Center for Reconciliation. Danny Arnold talked about a variety of racial and class issues involved in representing other cultures, particularly developing ones--how white Westerners (or, as I'm learning to call us, Northerners) can easily fall into objectifying people of the global South through images of poverty that, even (and sometimes especially) when they are intended to be a call to action, they really only end up objectifying their subjects. I may write more about that later, but suffice to say the lecture caused my professor to explain to a classmate of mine that I have "the gift of tears." It was wrenching.

As I said, I may talk about "poverty pornography" another time, but just for the moment I'm more interested in discussions around "disaster pornography." I'm not talking about action movies with scantily clad women (though, please, stab me in the eyeballs). I'm talking about our tendency, fed by media outlets, to seek the most graphic images and stories we can find that come out of natural or man-made disasters. 9/11 is an easy example; media coverage of the earthquake in Haiti caused the U.N. to express concerns; and these days, I'm wondering how much of every minute, horrible detail I've heard about Japan is really edifying or appropriate.

The earthquake and tsunami hit Japan at the tail end of my spring break. A day or two into the tragedy (which, as we all know, continues to unfold, particularly in the area of nuclear power), I was sitting on the couch with my dad watching the news. It was all about Japan--footage, interviews, helpful diagrams explaining tectonic plates and mapping the movement of the wave across the Pacific. At one point, my dad commented that seeing all this is really horrible, but in some strange way he finds himself enjoying it. The media tries to make it entertaining, and when we add that to this odd human tendency to be drawn to the macabre--you know the thing about not being able to look away from a train wreck?--it's a potent combination.

I'm not saying we ought to avoid seeing disturbing images to protect our delicate sensibilities. I strongly believe that Westerners (Northerners...), particularly those (like myself) who occupy the middle and upper-middle class, need to be confronted with images that jerk them out of their comfortable lives, even for a moment. We cannot simply shield ourselves from the suffering of others, especially as Christians--"If one member suffers, all suffer together with it" (1 Cor. 12:26). We should be praying for our brothers and sisters in Japan. (By the way, the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship has a regularly updated online database of worship resources for times of crisis. Check it out.) But the verse does not say, "If one member suffers, all the other members gather around the TV and say 'it's so sad' while being secretly entertained."

I'm guilty of this. I think it's something we need to guard ourselves against individually, and we need to call upon the media to be more responsible and respectful. A lot of it is very much on the line, but you know the bad stuff when you see it. One scene I saw on CNN that struck me involves an interview--if it could even be called that--with a woman in California, where waves from the tsunami reached several hours after the earthquake, tossing boats around in a way that was far less severe than what Japan experienced but still frightening. The women barely got out a few words before getting choked up and holding a hand up to the camera, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm getting really emotional right now, I can't do this."

Why did they need to show that? Clearly that woman didn't want to be on camera. If she saw the clip, she probably wasn't happy about it. But for whatever reason, we want to see people suffer, and the media knows that. The funny thing is that I keep hearing news outlets commenting on how stoic and well-organized the Japanese are--reporters point out that even in crowded airports with countless people stranded, they haven't seen anyone cry or get upset. They say they're impressed, but I can't help but wonder if they're a little disappointed.

Let's back up a second. I Googled "disaster pornography" (with MUCH trepidation), and lo and behold, Urban Dictionary has a definition (cue more trepidation). Here's the first bit of the entry for disaster porn: "When the media puts horrific or tragic images on a 24 hour loop, constantly driving them into your head, and then refers to the events portrayed as an 'unspeakable tragedy.'" Nail on the head. When we spend a lot of time trying to talk about and show what is rightly called an "unspeakable tragedy," something is off.

That's about all I have to say for the moment--here are more articles and blog posts to check out if you want to read further:


Here's an article that raises some important questions about media coverage of looting and starvation in Somalia. "Reduced to nameless extras in the shadows behind Western aid workers or disaster tourists, the grieving, hurting and humiliated human beings are not asked if they want to be portrayed in this degrading way."

This thoughtful blog post deals directly with disaster porn and Japan. "Do we look? Do we look away? If we do not look, are we ignoring the plight of fellow human beings, irresponsibly contributing to our own numbness in the face of others' tragedy? If we do look, is there a line to be wary of crossing, somewhere between responsibly informing ourselves and becoming consumers of disaster porn?"

And finally, this article is amusing for making fun of Western (Northern) news correspondents like Anderson Cooper, but it's about more than that. "Rather than reporting on what made Haiti so poor and therefore its infrastructure so susceptible to collapse, we get clips of Haitians momentarily cheering 'USA!' as food packages trickle into their devastated capital."

[Sidebar: I have nothing against Anderson Cooper. He's just a really easy target. :)]

Self-Avowed Practicing

Yesterday, I attended a panel discussion on "Homosexuality and the Church" at Duke Divinity School. The panelists included Bishop Ken Carder, Dr. Willie Jennings, and several pastors from the area who are either LGBT or allies/reconciling pastors. It was a very interesting discussion and drew quite a crowd, most of whom were students trying to figure out how to balance their upcoming vows to uphold church law with beliefs that might not align with it.

I was perhaps most interested in what Bishop Carder had to say. Carder is widely adored in the Divinity School--he preached today in Goodson Chapel and packed the place out; we ran out of bulletins for the first time in my tenure as a chapel intern. Anyway, Carder is a retired United Methodist bishop and recently was one of 33 retired bishops to sign a statement calling the church to remove this language from The Book of Discipline (2008):

"…The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church." ¶304.3

You can read the document yourself if you want to hear some of the bishops' rationale behind issuing the statement, but in the panel discussion Carder made a good point that made it even clearer to me: the very fact that such a statement exists in the Discipline makes real conversation impossible and bars from the table the very people about whom it is written. I've been taking Methodism with Carder and Dr. Laceye Warner, and we've learned that although certain areas of doctrine are protected and cannot be changed, polity is the part of church law that is intended to be ever-changing and ever-expanding--and this paragraph falls under that category.

The question of how to be in ministry when one disagrees with (to whatever degree) the church law to which one promises to be obedient upon ordination was, as I mentioned, at the forefront of many students' minds. Mine not the least--many of you know that my grandfather is a retired bishop, and you will not find his name on that document. His main reason had little to do with the "issue" (I hate calling it an "issue." We are talking about beloved children of God here.) itself--my grandfather believes that a bishop's role is to uphold church law and that they shouldn't break ranks. Issuing that statement definitely caused a headache for the acting bishops.

One of the pastors on the panel, a woman who has been committed to being a reconciling pastor for a long time now, took up the issue of obedience to church law by telling us that when she was ordained, she promised to uphold the Discipline while also working to change it. She has lived into that tension. Is that what we're called to do? I have friends who are pursuing ordination and are gay. I know what the Discipline says, but I also know that my friends have gifts and callings from God, and if I ever have the opportunity to weigh in on any of their situations, I'm pretty sure I know which one of those is more important.

Who gets to be a prophet? I just read this article about Chad Holtz, a Duke Div grad who was recently fired from his church after a string of Facebook posts (not unlike this one, I suspect) dealing with Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, homosexuality, religion and politics, and more. And just this morning, I heard about the 2011 Jack Crum Conference on Prophetic Ministry, which was named after a pastor who pushed a then-radical racial agenda in the 50s and paid dearly for it with his ministerial career. One potential criticism of Crum is that his radicalism made it such that he failed to reach a broader audience. Does that matter?

In recent years, I've become very concerned with how to grapple with "issues" (ugh, see note above) like this in a way that is faithful and loving without demeaning or demonizing people who aren't on board with what often gets pegged as a liberal agenda (quadruple UGH). A while back, I wrote a post called "Why I wouldn't want to attend an open and affirming church." Part of my task there was to express something that one of the gay pastors at this discussion said in no uncertain terms: "I had no desire to be part of a gay ghetto." What I tried to do in my blog post (I still don't have it right) was to say that sometimes a reconciling church can be as exclusionary as your run-of-the-mill Methodist Church. I also wanted to say that people who identify as LGBTA are children of God AND people who are not accepting of the LGBT community are children of God. There are all sorts of criticisms out there that say that people who aren't on board with gay rights are experiencing a failure of the intellect, and if we're patient, they'll catch up someday. That is incredible patronizing. Don't get me wrong, there are bigots and willfully ignorant people everywhere, but that is not representative of everyone who is uncomfortable with the topic. There is meanness on both (or all, because there aren't just two) sides of the debate.

I've mentioned this in passing, but I have to address it head-on: Bishop Carder pointed out during the discussion that when heterosexuals get together and talk about the "issue" of homosexuality, they tend to abstract it, and our polity reflects this flawed thinking--which includes the very act of seeing this conversation as an "issue." We're talking about people here, in an incarnational faith in which we are all members of the body of Christ! On that note and the note of the previous paragraph, I have noticed over time that heterosexuals often want to boil down the "issue" to a specific sexual behavior that they deem as inappropriate. But let's get real here--a homosexual is no more defined by that than a heterosexual is by coitus. I've had friends tell me that they do not want to be defined by their sexuality, and a lot of that I think is in response to the negative ways in which we ignorant heterosexuals collapse the entire issue of sexual identity into a behavior. Bishop Carder made a great point--the Discipline basically says that there's not a problem unless you're "practicing"--but if you're homosexual and you're alive, how can you not be practicing? [UPDATE: I am NOT saying that if you're gay you are compelled to be sexually active all the time, which unfortunately seems to be what some people think. A friend's response to my blog made me realize I could have come off that way, and that's not what I meant, ha! I'm just trying to connect Carder's comment with my observation that straight people often forget we're talking about a whole person with a whole identity of which their sexuality is a part--not the only part or even the most important part necessarily, but we can't isolate them out. I am an advocate of celibacy outside of marriage (um as is the Discipline, heh), and the fact that gays can't marry in most states only complicates that particular issue in a way I think is unhelpful.] This is about way more than a sexual act; heterosexuals need to understand that, and the LGBT community needs to help us understand that.

This post is getting longer than I expected (go figure). I'll close with one more quip from the panel and my thoughts on it. Someone asked about how to deal with this "issue" (one last UGH) faithfully, especially in a rural context where you're likely to leave people behind. One of the panelists reminded us that many people have already been left behind. This really hit home with me. I've been trying lately to think about how to invite change and openness without running off people who disagree--how to learn to be in community with one another even when we don't understand or agree with each other. My focus in these musings has been largely not leaving behind the many Christians who just aren't OK with all of this. But I need to remember all the people who have already been left out, who have been denied their call to ministry, who have been refused membership to a church, whose baptism has been vetoed by a pastor or congregation who thinks they know better than God the meaning of love and grace. [UPDATE: Also allies who aren't allowed a voice or people who may not be allies but are just sick of the bigotry...a friend reminded me that a lot of young people of all orientations are leaving in part over this "issue."] Whatever you think or feel, THAT is unacceptable and a downright sham of a witness. Pastors and laity alike need to ask not only who might be left behind, but who already has been left behind. We are the body of Christ. Are we being faithful to that?

Simple vs. Simplistic

"A Simple Song" is a mildly whimsical (if I can use that word) piece in Leonard Bernstein's Mass. I know it best as sung by Renee Fleming. "Sing God a simple song: Lauda, Laude... God loves all simple things, for God is the simplest of all." Naturally, the song isn't all that simple and requires a good bit of work to be sung well. But there it is: simplicity is somehow integral to faith and to worship.

In "Four Quartets," T. S. Eliot describes the life of faith thus: "A condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything)." I'd wager many a believer (myself included) long for that condition of complete simplicity while ignoring the parenthetical aside, which is really the heart of the matter. The simplicity is not one of being satisfied with ourselves as we are, for we are sinful and in need; it must be a simplicity of having given all to God, of having one's source and being in God. Simplicity is not about dumbing it down to the least common denominator; it is about giving one's all.

We mess this up in worship a lot, especially in music. Lately, I've been pondering a question: what is the difference between simple and simplistic in regards to worship music? Having grown up in mainline Protestant churches going to traditional worship services, I've long made fun of "7-11 songs"--songs with 7 words sung 11 times. Just to pick on David Crowder for a minute, I heard his song "O Praise Him" recently and was struck by the lack of lyrical depth. "O praise him! O praise him! He is Holy! He is Holy! La la la la la la la la..." Really, it was the "la la's" that got me. I was bored by the song and was sure God was too. (By the way...I hadn't really seen a picture of David Crowder before. That is one goofy-looking cat.)

But, speaking of "la la's"--Simon and Garfunkel somehow managed to write an incredible song, "The Boxer," using only the syllable "lie" on the chorus. Yet I find that song deeply moving. And to get back to worship music, there is a whole tradition of meditative chant that relies on simple, repetitive choruses. A favorite source of such music for me is the Taizé Community, an ecumenical Christian monastery in France that practices meditative prayer and song; they have songs like "Jesus, Remember Me," which simply say, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." That can be repeated interminably, and somehow I find that prayerful and meditative, not boring.

For my part, I love worship music with substance. The theology of hymn by John and Charles Wesley feed me spiritually and intellectually. However, last week in my Holy Spirit class, we looked at several Wesley hymns, including "Come, Holy Ghost, Our Hearts Inspire." It's a great hymn with rich lyrics--just check out the third verse: "Expand thy wings, celestial Dove, brood o'er our nature's night; on our disordered spirits move, and let there now be light." Just in that verse, Charles Wesley performs significant theological exegesis, connecting the Holy Spirit directly to the creation story. But one classmate of mine expressed a concern that such dense, weighty lyrics might bog a worshipper down--some Wesley hymns are very heady. The idea, my professor said, is that these hymns were meant to be carried by the worshipper throughout the week, to be ruminated over, gradually unfolding their depth of meaning as they were contemplated. Maybe some Wesley hymns are too dense; or maybe our ADD culture doesn't allow us to process them as they were intended.

So what is the different between simple and simplistic? Can even a tightly written, theologically dense hymn ultimately convey a simple truth? In talking to my boyfriend (who regularly leads contemporary worship services), he pointed out that context probably makes a difference. A "7-11 song" played by a big praise band with images flashing across a screen probably won't carry the meditative potential of a Taizé chant sung a cappella by candlelight. The songs could probably even have the same words but create a very different worship atmosphere. As for a headier hymn like "Come, Holy Ghost," if it is sung in a congregation that has used it in worship before, for most it will lose its character as prohibitively dense, as its meaning and implications will have had time to open up to the worshippers.

These questions, I think, apply to prayer as well as song. Lately, I have become attached to a book called The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions. It is a compilation of beautiful prayers, two of which I have adopted as daily morning and evening prayers--the prayers live next to my bed. Each prayer is about a page long, and although they are in poem form, they do have some length to them. The theological depth in the prayers is real, and part of why I enjoy using the same prayers daily is that I can allow their full meaning to sink in over time. However, another prayer that has influenced me over the years is the Jesus Prayer, an Eastern prayer most closely associated, at least in my mind, with the 19th-century Russian work The Way of a Pilgrim. It is a simple prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." It is intended to be repeated over and over again. Those few words can be more powerful than the most theologically profound supplication.

So, what do you think? Are there simplistic (or simple) worship songs that drive you crazy, or do you like them? Do heady theological hymns distract you from or deepen worship? What role might context or intention play in making a song simple (in a positive sense) or simplistic (in a negative sense)?

I'm Wondering About Love

I'm wondering about love. Can it really last forever? I'm a romantic at heart, so of course I'd like to think so. My parents just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, and I'm grateful for their witness; even more so my grandparents, who have been together for well over 50 years.

But marriages are crumbling all around me. I understand that love grows and changes over time, and those changes are sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes just the way things are. But I don't understand it at all. Maybe I'm not supposed to. But I know I'd rather be alone than be with the wrong person, and sometimes I wonder if I have the guts to even take a chance like that--because how can you really know?

Maybe it isn't about knowing, but you have to at least think you know in order to promise to love someone forever. Forever. I always said that once I get married, I will never get a divorce unless my husband beats me or cheats on me, and even the latter might have some qualifications. But I recently learned of a divorce that's happening for no scandalous reason; but the couple's arguing is teaching their children that marriage is "an engine of misery," to quote a written note about the situation. I wonder if it takes more courage to stick it out in a failed marriage or to be honest about what it is. I wonder if some homes are better being openly broken than quietly at war.

It makes me think of Obadiah Parker's version of Outkast's "Hey Ya." It draws out the hint of mournfulness inherent in the lyrics, which the hip-hop beat and hand claps brush over. "If what they say is, 'Nothing is forever,' then what makes love the exception?" Not to get all moralistic here, but...well, the only thing that's really forever is God, and God is love. "From everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Psalm 90:2). "His love endures forever" (26 times in Psalm 136). "God is love" (1 John 4:8). That's all I've got right now--those (and many more) Bible verses, and this final verse of the first hymn in the United Methodist Hymnal, courtesy of Charles Wesley:

In Christ, your head, you then shall know,
Shall feel your sins forgiven;
Anticipate your heaven below,
And own that love is heaven.

An Original "Modern Hymn" (lyrics only)

I mentioned a few posts back that I'm starting to try to figure out how to make hymn writing and arranging a part of my life and vocation. I've been throwing lines out to folks better versed (ha!) in such matters than I and trying to get my feet a little wet on things like arranging service music for the choir I sing in at Duke, the Vespers Ensemble. The hymn I talked about in my earlier post on the subject was a gift to my grandparents, and apparently a group of older folks who meets at their church (and whose name, "Live Alive!", also the title of the hymn I wrote, comes from the sermon series of my grandfather's, on which my lyrics were based...) are planning to learn it next week, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, I've been learning more lately about folks such as Keith and Kristyn Getty (Keith wrote "In Christ Alone" with Stuart Townend, who also wrote "How Deep the Father's Love For Us"), High Street Hymns and other groups doing neat work in fresh arrangements of old hymns and compositions of new ones, and that combined with my constant exposure to MANY worship styles has inspired me in a number of ways. And the other day, something along the lines of what the Gettys might call a "modern hymn" sort of fell out of my brain. There's tweaking yet to be done, but here are the lyrics to "Your Body Is a Temple," based on (surprise) 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and 1:31.


Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
Therefore, let it glorify the Lord above
You were made by God to serve a holy purpose
Meant for nothing less than love

For you are not your own, but you belong to Jesus
Therefore, honor him who paid the price for you
You were bought by blood shed on the cross at Calv'ry
Where from death life springs anew

All glory to the Father in the highest heaven
Glory to the Son and to the Holy Ghost
Glory to the Triune God who gives us wisdom
Only in the Lord to boast


Short and simple. Subject to change. But it's a start, and I think the music is pretty, so that's encouraging. :)

The Lord's Prayer According to "The Homeless"

This post was first published on the blog of New Creation Arts, the student arts group at Duke Divinity School.

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Elizabeth Leland

A Charlotte businessman created a poster of homeless people holding up words to The Lord's Prayer, which inspired a Winston-Salem surgeon to create a similar poster with words to a Bible verse, which in turn inspired a former teacher from Thomasville to create a poster.

Sales of the three posters have brought more than $14,000 to help the homeless.

And there's no telling where Brian Hadley's idea may turn up next.

Keep reading...

__________


I like this idea on a basic level--visually reclaiming the Lord's Prayer on behalf of ALL God's people, and I particularly like the approach to embodying Matthew 25 with one of the other posters. And from where I'm sitting right now in my old bedroom in my parents' house in Charlotte, I can turn my head just over my right shoulder and see one of those Lord's Prayer posters on my wall. I like the poster, and I was glad to see the article in this morning's Charlotte Observer.

But I'm currently taking Amy Laura Hall's introductory Ethics course at Duke Divinity School, and we recently discussed representation via media of other cultures and socioeconomic stations--a distressing conversation about how to deal with issues like poverty and development without objectifying or exploiting the human beings on whom such "issues" ultimately center. So I'm hyper-aware of problems of paternalism and the like right now, and I can't help but get mildly uncomfortable at a photo of a businessman in a suit holding a framed poster covered with images of unnamed "homeless people."

There's nothing inherently wrong going on here, and I applaud Mr. Hadley's attempt to bring the Lord's Prayer "home" in a very real, jarring way, particularly with a philanthropic thrust. I just wanted to name a few things that might have made me like the article (and maybe the poster too) even more: names. Stories. Reactions. It is inspiring--to middle class folks like me--to hear how this idea has spread and raised money for organizations supporting the homeless. But I'm curious how "the homeless" feel about it. How do they understand the Lord's Prayer? Matthew 25? In simply putting together the image, we're given a hint of a reflection on such questions, but no real answer. I want to challenge people like me to be concerned with such answers.