The Lord's Prayer

Got some stuff going on right now. Very sad day. Don't wanna talk about it. Don't plan on writing about it anytime soon. Tomorrow isn't looking any better. So why I am here at eleven o clock at night staring at this computer? For some strange reason, this feels therapeutic. For an even stranger reason, Sister Act 2 just popped in my head. "If you wake up and all you think about is [writing] then you're supposed to be a [writer]." So here I am.

Here's a memory...

I was in Sunday School when I was about five or six. The teacher said that we were gonna learn the Lord's Prayer. I was the only one who didn't know it already which is probably proof that I was destined to go to hell. I read it out of the Bible while everyone else said it from memory.

To encourage me (or punish me, depending on how you look at it) the teacher signed me up to say it the next week in front of the church. I tried my best to memorize it, but I just couldn't. All week long, I looked at it and never made it past "who art in heaven." Everyone tried their best to help me learn it. It just wouldn't stick.

My grandmother hated to be embarrassed. She was the Joe Jackson of my church. You are NOT gonna get up there and embarrass me. She had this cadre of friends at church. I guess all old women have them. They're like a posse of senior citizens who have a reserved pew like the mafia and sit there whispering to one another as they talk trash about what's going on during the service.

Anyway, as a made-(wo)man of the senior citizen mafia, she couldn't have me mess up her chances of becoming Don one day. So what did she do? "You see this right here? I will give you this five dollars right now if you can recite that thing to me in the next ten minutes. Go sit over there on them steps and read it and come back."

Seven minutes later...
"Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen."

With five fresh dollars in my pocket, I got up in front of that church with mic in hand and recited it like my name was Martin Luther King Jr and that podium was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Believe me when I tell you....people cried.

I know it's not my usual brand of story, but considering what's going on today...it just felt like something I should write.