The Nature of God's Kingdom, Power, and Glory

The Grand Canyon, South Rim

Imaginative Prayers from the Original Language of Jesus, Conclusion 

A Lenten Series by Beth A. Booram

January 15, 2005

We pressed through the narrow road before us like a mole nuzzling its way through a tunnel some other creature had made. I leaned forward, my blind eyes groping, straining to catch a glimpse of the unknown. Through the parked cars, pavement, rocks, and scrubby trees, I caught sight of her. She emerged, seemingly, out of nowhere; a vast, cavernous, indescribable monument—the grand, Grand Canyon. 

Before I was cognizant of what was happening, a sob broke loose. Emotion erupted in me from somewhere deep. I fought it for a moment, feeling silly, self-conscious at my reaction. But it was no use. Not even a full view of her—but a glimpse—was enough to expunge deep, sweltering emotion. I grabbed David's arm and squeezed it. My heart spilled out through gushing tears. Throbs of anguish, pain, relief, and gratefulness swelled up at seeing a picture that captured God’s former words to me. "I'm bigger than all of this." 

These two paragraphs belong to a journal entry I wrote in 2005 when I encountered the Grand Canyon for the first (and only) time. It was a particularly low point in my life. We’d just resigned from our roles at a mega church with no vocational plans in place. We had two kids in college, a third getting ready to go to college, and a fourth at home. Life felt so bleak. Faith felt so weak. And then....

I caught a glimpse of something. Something so grand, so encapsulating—a symbol of who I hoped God was, of what I needed God to be for me—a God who was bigger than all the crap that had happened, all the loss that we’d endured. Today, this experience came to mind as I meditated on the meaning of the last line of the Lord’s prayer. 

Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.

Encounters with the natural world have a unique and unparalleled way of embodying these ineffable qualities of God. My experience of the Grand Canyon was exactly that for me. It cast a vision of God’s exquisite and expansive creativity, a display of God’s power that generated awe as I experienced such magnificent natural beauty. The nature of God’s kingdom, power, and glory! 

In Aramaic, the word kingdom conjures the image of a fertile, abundant field, one sufficient to produce unimaginable and lush fruit; the raw materials of the cosmos, all at God’s disposal. Hayla refers to the life force or energy, the power that animates God’s creative process. It’s not “power over,” but power working through the raw materials of the natural world. And glory, an abstract word that can’t be easily defined or described, is an experience that inspires awe and wonder. 

When I saw the Grand Canyon, I saw the nature of God’s kingdom, power, and glory on display. My journal entry continued: 

As we began our trek around the south rim, the wonder of her bigness and the intricacies of her complexion hypnotized me. Pocked and worn, creviced and rounded, her facial expression told a very old story. The texture was subtle, yet so variegated that I never tired of exploring her beautiful face.

I moved closer to the edge and found her deep bowels drawing me down into her. I wanted to consume her and be consumed by her. I was drawn down into her depths, comforted by the bigness of her outstretched arms, smitten by the enormity of her heart. I took deep, deep breaths, trying to inhale her goodness and beauty and magnificence. I wanted to swallow all that I could take in. I wanted to digest it with each gulp of air, each long exhale.

An Invocation for Today

Even though many scholars wonder if this last line of the Lord’s prayer was part of the original prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, its summarizing quality is in keeping with traditional Jewish prayers of the day. By all accounts, it is an exquisite capstone to a prayer that many of us memorized as kids and pray often as adults. Yet this last line is also an invocation to us to not merely speak the words, but actually experience the nature of God’s kingdom, power, and glory in its most primal and pristine expression: the natural world. 

Today, we are facing a similar cataclysmic disturbance to what I had experienced when I witnessed the Grand Canyon for the first time. Every day, there are new “power-over” grabs, new underhanded, reckless, inhumane actions taken by the president and his cronies. Many of us feel overwhelmed with anguish and alarm in our bodies, reeling from the constant chaos. Perhaps we need a dose of nature to calm our nervous system. Perhaps we need an experience that helps us re-envision who God is and what we need God to be for us right now in these tumultuous times. 

Breath and Body Prayer

As I conclude this series, I’d like to end with a prompt: rather than articulate this line of the Lord’s prayer using words, I want to encourage you to experience it by moving your body toward the natural world as prayer. Immerse yourself today or in the following days in creation; contemplate afresh the nature of God’s kingdom, power, and glory. Bask in the holy awe of silence before your Creator and notice what you notice in your soul and body as you encounter the ineffable. God is bigger than all of this. Amen and amen.