April 29, 2011

Hallowing God's Name

For many years I wondered just what that meant; the infinitive form is said to be "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate", but as the years went by that came to mean less and less to me. Does it mean to worship? Maybe. Worship also came to mean less as the years went by. Evelyn Underhill is reported to have said of worship: "The absolute acknowledgment of all that lies beyond us—the glory that fills heaven and earth. It is the response that conscious beings make to their Creator, to the Eternal Reality from which they came forth; to God". That seems more satisfying to me than the conventional forms of worship or hallowing.

William Blake gave the most satisfying statement for me: "Everything that lives is holy" (end of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).

George Fox gave a very satisfying definition: there is "that of God in every one".

Everything that lives is holy and there is that of God in every one: is that the best (or only?) way that we may hallow God?

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