Light of the World

As we are in Advent and Christmas is approaching I will take this opportunity to share some lyrics which I wrote a handful of years ago. The tune is 'O Sacred King' by Matt Redman and I have tended to use a rather nice backing track on Re:Source 2000 as it has the right kind of feel.
I've tried to write something that is theologically beefy with ancient resonances as well as poetically evocative of the scientific language that goes around the edges of mystical writing nowadays.

Light of the World
of glory poured
Word of God fleshed out in spacetime
Love of God tested in pain

O gladdening light
enlightening all
we embrace love you've made human
light of truth that sets us free

For it's the mystery of the universe
the uncreated makes a home
in created time and space.
And now you share your self with us
pouring Godlife into death
breaking open life in us.

Jesus, Splice eternity in us
encode in us your Godwardness
and centre us.

Copyright © Andii Bowsher 2000
It's Creative commons; in this case it by all means non-commercially, just attribute.

I've tended to use it as an opening song in Advent through to Candlemas alongside a candle lighting opening prayer or activity.

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Pray ceaselessly, but how?

I've just had an article published on emergingchurch.info. It's an adaptation of some of my book, but I thought I'd share it and give you a taster... ... ask ourselves whether there is a way of understanding the command to pray ceaselessly in a way that doesn't conflict with loving our neighbour. Paul may have meant his readers to pray as much as they could, whenever they could. However that would be to read a meaning into the text based, perhaps on a sense of realism faced with an understanding of prayer that involves giving God full and exclusive attention. We don't have to be bound by that interpretation. I'm going to suggest a deeper fulfilment of the exhortation. One that makes contact with Paul's command to his Roman readers to offer their bodies as living sacrifices to God (Romans 12.1-2). Perhaps Paul was suggesting making life into prayer rather than making prayer into a life emergingchurch.info > reflection > andii bowsher : Filed in: prayer

The Lords Prayer in Aramaic

I came across this a year or two back and was quite concerned that it was being purveyed as a translation when it quite clearly is not. Now my Hebrew is not extensive but enough that when combined with training in linguistics and biblical interpretation I can tell when a 'midrash' is being offered. [PS inserted here. Since I wrote this originally and noting that this post gets a lot of hits, I have continued to research and would like to encourage readers to visit more recent posts here and here and I tend to add thinngs from time to time to a Squidoo Lens dedicated to the topic of Aramaic Lord's prayer] Anyway, see for yourself the discrepancy between the quantity in the original and the English (as far as I can tell, the orthography is vaguely german, so 'j' is a 'y' sound etc.) The Prayer To Our Father (in the original Aramaic) Abwun "Oh Thou, from whom the breath of life comes, d'bwaschmaja who fills all realms of sound, light and vibration.

The Lord's prayer midrash

I feel somewhat vindicated by this site. Having traced the person who appears to be behind the supposed translation of the Aramaic Lord's prayer [Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz] which I blogged about before [ twice , not including commenting on the stats and a recent link update ], I find his understanding of what he did to be closer to what I said it looked like than how it is being presented by many people on the web and beyond. He says: Each word in Aramaic can be interpreted several different ways. This is particularly true of the words of a mystic or prophet. In the Jewish tradition, this of multiple interpretation, in which translation becomes a spiritual practice, is called midrash . In my books, I have offered five or six possible interpretive translations of the Aramaic Lord's Prayer and other sayings of Jesus. Which I think comes down to claiming that he is offering a Midrash of the prayer -which is what I said. We should, further, note that he is interested in Sufism, and

Nouslife

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