The Our Father in Original Aramaic – a wow sensation
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Unexpectedly during a group meditation, I heard The Our Father in original Aramaic, and it resonated in my body like a deep, physical blessing. I wondered, is this is how it sounded from Jesus’s lips 2,000 years ago? An English translation was given that barely resembled The Lord’s Prayer we know today. I had to find out more.
The best accepted translation is by Neil Douglas-Klotz, Ph.D., a world-renowned scholar in spirituality, religious studies and psychology https://abwoon.org In 2005 he was awarded the Kessler Keener Foundation Peacemaker of the Year Award.
His translation opened my mind to a fresher love and healing paradigm taught by Jesus. For example, The Lord’s prayer begins with “Our Father,” a translation of the word, “abba.” But the actual Aramaic transliteration is “Abwoon” which is a blending of “abba (father)” and “woon” (womb), Jesus’s recognition of the masculine and feminine source of creation.
I experienced a physical sensation of calming love from the Aramaic words, later explained by Dr. Douglas-Klotz in a 2012 youtube interview when he talked about the ancient practice of Jesus’s day. “You breathe with, you say the words of the teacher or the prophet in their language and you come into rhythm with the words as a living experience.”
For me, just hearing it allowed me to feel the pulse and the vibration of the words, which caused a spiritual stirring within me.
Among his many books, Dr. Douglas-Klotz is noted for “Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus,” in which he offers various translations for each line from The Lord’s Prayer from the Bible’s King James V version. These selections spoke to me:
Our Father who art in heaven:
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos, you create all that moves in light.
Hallowed be thy name
Focus your light within us — make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Thy kingdom come
Unite our “I can” to yours, so that we walk as kings and queens with every creature.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Create in me a divine cooperation — from many selves, one voice, one action.
Give us this day our daily bread
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Forgive our hidden past, the secret shames, as we consistently forgive what others hide.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
Deceived neither by the outer nor the inner — free us to walk your path with joy.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
From you is born all ruling will, the power and life to do, the song that beautifies all from age to age it renews. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer is so familiar I tend to take for granted. In Aramaic, it had powerful resonance weighted toward infinite love and possibilities, and I felt it in a new way.
This column ran in The Patriot Ledger and nationally through GateHouse Media, August 3, 2018.