Our Father, in other words

Father Roman Lewicki always taught us that the right questions mattered more than the right answers We become better through our questions he drilled into us Nothing in life should be deemed unquestionable and beyond challengeGod bless Father Lewicki I still say long after I severed ties with the almightyBack then at St Xavierrsquos High the Jesuit school that really has been the most formative influence in my life we didnrsquot quite know what to do with this gift of unfettered interrogationCan we question your religion we asked the priest tentatively People donrsquot like their faith questioned as far as we knewBut in Father Lewickirsquos world it was allowed Nothing we were told was sacrosanct to the enquiring mindI rubbed my hands like a mud wrestler preparing to engage and asked him why Christianity felt the need for holy ghosts Wasnrsquot it enough to say there is a loving god and leave it there Why did they call wine the blood of Jesus when it was clearly brewed from grapesThe Jesuit priests always considered each question seriously and answered carefully using facts logic intelligence and kindness We were allowed to disagree argue back and defend our assertions If occasionally we won the padreacutes would graciously acknowledge defeatThis brings me to the prayer all of us irrespective of religion were required to say during morning assembly the Lordrsquos Prayer Donrsquot misunderstand me please This was not an attempt to subvert or convert us it was just a part of the Jesuit schoolrsquos Christian culture I went to school in a different India one where diverse religions coexisted in peace without rancour or illwill No one including parents felt insultedAs I entered my senior school years the Lordrsquos Prayer bothered me more and more and my conversations with Father Lewicki grew more numerous and lasted longer The questions I asked him relating to specific lines weremdashOur Father who art in heaven Why must God have a gender and why must it be male Did God believe men were superior to women Could we say Our Mother who art in heavenAlso doesnrsquot this presume that heaven is a physical place and that God like any mortal needs a home Isnrsquot god supposed to be everywhereThy kingdom comeThy will be doneKingdoms belong to kings and represent property owned Why bring kings into it when the religion itself was founded by the poorest ofhuman beings JesusAlso if everything is Godrsquos will what about my will Is everything preordained Do I have a say inmy lifeAnd forgive us our trespassesShould it be so easy to get away with doing bad thingsAnd deliver us from evilDividing everything into good and evil sounded a bit blackandwhite simplistic to meThen school ended we moved on and I suppose Father Lewicki moved on too I forgot about god and god forgot about meLast week out of the blue I was reminded that Jesus did not write the Lordrsquos Prayer in the way we said it at school assembly and that no one in Jesusrsquos times including Jesus spoke English Our school prayer was a work of translation from Aramaic an ancient language no one really understands much any moreTo complicate matters the original Aramaic text was not available Everything you read as Christrsquos words in the New Testament was translated into Greek from Aramaic by second or thirdgeneration Christians The English language prayer we were taught had passed through three languages The translator or translators were unknown and there was no original document to check againstI stumbled upon the work of a religious scholar called Neil DouglasKlotz In 1994 working on a book called Prayers of the Cosmos he translated the Lordrsquos Prayer back into Aramaic from Greek and then translated it directly into English The result is a hauntingly mystical and fulfilling prayer that I would teach to any child anywhere The words in italics are Neil DouglasKlotzrsquos translationOur Father who art in heavenO Birther FatherMother of the Cosmos you create all that movesin lightHallowed be thy nameFocus your light within usmdashmake it useful as the rays of a beacon show the wayThy kingdom comeUnite our ldquoI canrdquo to yours so that we walk as kings and queens with every creatureThy will be done on earth as it is in heavenCreate in me a divine cooperationmdashfrom many selves one voice one actionGive us this day our daily breadGrant what we need each day in bread and insightAnd forgive us our debts as weforgive our debtorsForgive our hidden past the secret shames as we consistently forgive what others hideAnd lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evilDeceived neither by the outer nor the innermdashfree us to walk your path with joyHere is a prayer an atheist like me can hold in his heart The Greek word that means verily or truly passes through my mindAmenYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper