Reading over the translation of the prayer that will be read here today,
there are a lot of adjectives that people use to describe God that I would
also use to describe you within the context of our relationship: glorified,
extolled, honored, adored and lauded.
But working as a high school English teacher, I remember the deans
told us never to use adjectives to describe how you want someone to
be or act, because adjectives can be interpreted many ways and are even
unnecessary a lot of of the time. Using this logic, whoever translated the
prayer should really receive an F if they turned it in as a poem for class.
Sorry: I’m not changing the grade.
What does it mean to glorify or honor someone? To laud someone?
These are all almost exact synonyms, which makes the grade worse.
As a teacher, when you draft the rules for how someone should be or act,
you also have to word it using positive actions and modeling. Here, the
English-language prayer fares just fine. However, what does it look like to extol
or to praise? What does it look like to honor? I do not know this exactly,
and neither, it seems, does God, because we haven’t gotten that much
concrete feedback on what we’ve done thus far, and if it were really good,
it’s kind of polite that he would say something.
Feminists like us don’t like the idea of honoring or extolling men: for us, it’s really not en vogue for the foreseeable future. Anyone is free to worship any person they like, but doing that within the context of our modern world just gives us the ick, and it’s because when we think of these verbs we imagine the action of bowing low and kissing rings. Of cooking and mundane life tasks assigned to those who apparently don’t matter as much. Of our own forced humility, whatever humility means. Of the breaking of some divine code, because tradition says you can only worship the divine. And when you lift up the other person to the divine, it’s implied that you then put down others to establish the contrast, that one is extolled and the other the martyr.
But I still said at the beginning that in the context of our
relationship I actually do laud you, glorify you, and adore
you. But I won’t put myself down.
This looks like never taking for granted any time you spend
with me or anything you do for me. In return, I will do most
things you ask me to do and support any life you choose to
lead. Not because I am your slave or your pet, but because
I trust you deeply. And I will care for you, not like for a child
or a dog, but maybe like a hybrid: a dog-child. And I will never
call you a silly name and mean it, and I will
protect your dignity around others like it’s blown out of glass.
I promise each day I will look at you and feel a burning in my chest,
whether caused by deep love or a mixture of general malaise and
deep-fried food.
That being said, maybe the prayer is not so bad. If we can do for
others a fraction for what we do for those we honor and extol, human
or whatever, the world will be a better place. I now vow to treat you with
this divine kindness, and to always be gentle and good to you, because
it is what you show me and others, and that is what I truly honor in you.
