Letters to Malcom: Letter 5, Part 1

In this letter Lewis shares the festoons that drapes over the words of "The Lord's Prayer". "Festooning" prayers is introduced in Letter 3. There Lewis discussed the concept of praying "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" (a concept that has its place in Jewish liturgy as well) and shared that his festoons this concept around the phrase "hollowed by thy name" from the Lord's Prayer.   

I've been thinking about whether I want to discuss The Lord's Prayer from my perspective and how it meshes (or not) with Jewish liturgy, as it's not really my place to say how another religion should regard its prayer service. 

But for now, I want to discuss the idea of what Lewis calls festooning. Lewis uses the term because they do not "obliterate" the plain sense of the text. Perhaps his festoon around "hallowed be thy name" actually meets that criterion. But I'm not sure I agree that festooning actually characterizes what Lewis does in at least some of this letter. For example, Lewis rewords the phrase, "Thy kingdom come" as meaning, "may your reign be realized here, as it is there." I think most people would agree that this rewording is the plain, straightforward meaning of the text. But then Lewis gives three options for "there" and three options for "here". This is not festooning, this is interpreting. The plain meaning of the text does not provide precise enough information to be understood except in a phenomenological sense, God's kingdom will grow. Questions of "where is God's kingdom now" and "where will it grow to" remain unanswered until Lewis gives an interpretation. 

The beauty of a carefully worded text or prayer is that it can sustain multiple interpretations throughout time and space all of which may be true. Lewis, for example, in one interpretation reads "here" as England. While no doubt a Christian living in the United States would interpret "here" as the United States.    

Similarly, with the phrase "Thy will be done," Lewis first interprets it as acceptance of God's judgment it is an acknowledgement that God is just even if I happen not to understand. Then Lewis interprets the phrase as a prayer, may I patiently suffer God's will, or may I fulfill God's will. 

The point for the moment is that these are hardly festoons that hang around the plain meaning of the text. They are interpretations in an attempt to determine a meaning of the text that speaks to you.