Happy Monday, Gems!
I had so hoped to get the next installment of the deconversion series written for you, but I got clobbered by a terrible migraine at the end of last week, and it just didn’t happen. I hope to have that to you soon!
In the meantime, it is Monday, and here are a few thoughts for you. Hit play right here in Substack to hear the voice note or you can read the transcript below:
Hi friends! It’s Monday so let’s make it mystical!
Thank you for the feedback on last week’s Mystical Monday. I think I will keep recording voice notes for now as it’s a really easy way to get my thoughts out of my head and into your ears. I’ll keep providing the text transcription, too, for those who would rather read.
I’ve been pretty contemplative in the past week, and I think some of jt has to do with the fact that it has been three years since the last time we went to Mass. (To clarify - three years liturgically speaking, not by the calendar.) The last time we went to Mass was Palm Sunday of 2022, and that mile marker along with working on this deconversion series just has me thinking about Christianity a lot, and I’ve been thinking about the Bible especially.
It’s so funny and weird, I guess, because I really do turn to the Bible and read and contemplate Scripture daily. It’s so amazing that these chapters and verses that I’ve been memorizing since I was a child still come to mind for me and still have so much meaning, it’s just there’s been a little tweak in my understanding.
As I shared in my deconversion series, one of the biggest epiphanies happened from viewing Jesus’s words that the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, is truly found within our own human awareness. And that reminded me of a translation of the Our Father, or as I grew up calling it - the Lord’s Prayer.
In the early 1900s, there was a Greek scholar named Ferrar Fenton. He went about translating the entire New Tesstament from the original Greek into what he called “a modern English.” HIs version - the Ferrar version, never really took off, but I find it fascinating. This is where my old English teacher heart just gets so worked up because he notes in his translation of the Our Father that the Latin - which is what the vast majority of English translations works from - doesn’t have an Aorist tense. We all know that when it comes to verbs in any language, it’s critical to know what tense the verb is in. Well Greek, again the language that the gospels were originally recorded in, has a verb tense called Aorist tense, and a mood called imperative passive.
So Fenton looked at the original Greek of how the Lord’s Prayer was recorded and his translation is
Our Father in the Heavens; Your Name must be being Hallowed;
Your Kingdom must be being restored.
Your Will must be being done both in Heaven and upon the Earth.
Give us today our tomorrow’s bread;
And forgive us our faults, as we forgive those offending us, for You would not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from its evil.
The imperative passive mood for the verbs in this prayer are what you could call “a standing order.” Fenton notes that’s not a prayer for something that will happen in the future, or something you are praying will happen in the future. It’s a “recognition that God is continually manifesting these things in the present.”
So yeah, just something to think about during this Holy Week.
And now, let’s draw a card for the week really quickly. Again, this is the Love Your Inner Goddess oracle deck from Alana Fairchild. And this week’s card is
#12 Princess Savior
Have we had this card before? It seems familiar. Here’s what the guidebook says:
Even if you feel uncertain facing a challenge, believe in yourself. You are strong enough to conquer this. There will be help if you need it, but you already have the inner resources to overcome any obstacle and attain the most blessed outcome. If you are in the process of letting go of someone or something - perhaps an old habit, an old way of life, a relationship or a situation in which you have felt trapped - don’t allow insecurity of uncertainty to stop you. You’ve got this, and you are doing the right thing in moving on.
Okay, I hope that speaks to someone this week! It’s interesting, too, in conjunction with thinking about the Kingdom of Heaven being within.
Lots to contemplate this Holy Week!
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