By Jeanine Otte
Those are the words my Grandmother taught me as a child. It was the prayer said at bedtime with my cousin. We repeated the German words back, sometimes amidst tired, end-of-day giggles in our small girl bodies on warm summer nights.
Abba Lieber Vater Amen
Saying those words was serious business for my Grandmother, serious to carry something, serious to not forget, serious to keep something we might otherwise lose. Her face told us so.
Abba Lieber Vater Amen
Even as we said the words together, the three of us females in two generations, there was space there too, holy space, unnamed and unrecognized in power.
Abba Lieber
Mutter
Amen