What is it we mean when we use the name of God? Do we know the meaning of such a name as we ascribe to the concept of a Higher Power? Didn’t Moses query God on the mount asking just exactly who it was that was commanding him to go back into Egypt? Didn’t God answer, “Just tell them that I am,” and wasn’t that all Moses needed to know? The once commonly spoken name of God became sacred a hundred or so years after the priests got a hold of the name... YHWH. From then on YHWH was considered so sacred that to mention it was blasphemy… blasphemy so severe it required a death sentence to anyone foolish enough to speak it in front of the wrong sanctimonious dunderhead! It is obvious to me that folks made too much of God’s name and not enough of what it meant to be liberated by this power Moses tapped into by going to the mountain top.
When I sit in meditation I go to the mountain top to make conscious contact with the “I Am”. I don’t go there thinking of making a big deal out of it. But it is important to me to be open minded enough to surrender to the will of the heart of compassion (or Heart of Compassion, if you will). Using a name for God is sacred enough for me to make sure I don't take it in vain. The term “to take the Lord’s name in vain” actually means to use God’s name uselessly. I.e., when I use the name of God to curse someone or something. Goddammit! (except maybe when I hit my thumb with a hammer) it is simply uselessly throwing God’s name about. If my description of God is the heart of compassion, it is silly to think the Heart of Compassion would or could damn or curse anyone or anything. It is far more useful for my own inner peace to bless instead. Therefore I sit and bless the ones I love and the ones I would otherwise hate because it works and is liberating. It takes me out of the symbolic use of God’s name into the active principle of God’s grace. The realm of the spirit is the kingdom this prayer speaks of… “in earth as it is in heaven”. Surely, I'd rather go there than the hell of my own resentments.
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