Yesterday, the Internet Solved a 20-Year-Old Mystery

SLATE ^ | Jan. 21 2014 | Alex Goldman

[Brown Deer]

Yesterday afternoon, a woman seeking help with a decades-old family mystery posted a thread on Ask Metafilter titled "Decoding cancer-addled ramblings":

My grandmother passed away in 1996 of a fast-spreading cancer. She was non-communicative her last two weeks, but in that time, she left at least 20 index cards with scribbled letters on them. My cousins and I were between 8-10 years old at the time, and believed she was leaving us a code. We puzzled over them for a few months trying substitution ciphers, and didn't get anywhere.

The index cards appear to just be a random series of letters, and had confounded the poster's family for years. But it only took Metafilter 15 minutes to at least partially decipher them.

[Brown Deer]

OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDOEAIIIHFUTDODBAFUOTAWFTWTAUALUNITBDUFEFTITKTPATGFAEA

[FreedomOfExpression]

BMFL, BTTT

[Bob]

Drink your Ovaltine.

[piroque]

OFWAIHHBTNTKCTWBDOEAIIIHFUTDODBAFUOT
AWFTWTAUALUNITBDUFEFTITKTPATGFAEA

[Jet Jaguar]

Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name... etc etc etc

Good story.

[smokingfrog]

A+

[mwilli20]

It’s GUTDODB not FUT...

Cool find.

[ifinnegan]

Heres the link to the actual posting and decoding

http://ask.metafilter.com/255675/Decoding-cancer-addled-ramblings

[HokieMom]

This story reminds me that creepy Nicholas Cage movie, “Knowing”

[ifinnegan]

Not only Slate, but the Guardian has picked up on this.

Of course the Guardian had to add this at the end of the article:

“But even if we decipher every word correctly, we will never know the answer to the largest question: when she sent these thanks and pleas to God, was anyone, was anything, there to listen?”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/jan/22/code-prayer-dorothy-ann-holm-internet-forum?commentpage=1

The Guardian writer also thought it extraordinary that a woman dying in pain would give such thanks to God:

“Much of it, extraordinarily for a woman dying in pain, seems to have been thanksgiving. The last four have been reconstructed as: “Thank you almighty God for protection from grief. Thank you almighty God for listening to my prayers and answering them. Thank you almighty God for everything, amen. Thank you almighty God for everything, amen, amen, amen.””

[Don W]

How tragic that this reporter is so unschooled in the fundamental prayer of Christendom.
may she find truth and love.

[SVTCobra03]

Which is why the old woman will stand before the Bema Seat of Christ while the Guardian writer will stand before the White Throne of Judgement. Each will get the reward that they deserve.

[OneWingedShark]

The Guardian writer also thought it extraordinary that a woman dying in pain would give such thanks to God:

“Much of it, extraordinarily for a woman dying in pain, seems to have been thanksgiving. The last four have been reconstructed as: “Thank you almighty God for protection from grief. Thank you almighty God for listening to my prayers and answering them. Thank you almighty God for everything, amen. Thank you almighty God for everything, amen, amen, amen.””

John explains it here:

1 John 5:1-5
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

[OneWingedShark]

Which is why the old woman will stand before the Bema Seat of Christ while the Guardian writer will stand before the White Throne of Judgement. Each will get the reward that they deserve.

Ah, but how do you know it's not this woman's thankful joy that the Holy Spirit is using to draw the writer to the Father through Jesus?

[thecodont]

How tragic that this reporter is so unschooled in the fundamental prayer of Christendom.

This prayer did appear in popular culture pretty recently.

In the 2012 movie Snow White and the Huntsman, Snow White (Kristen Stewart) recites the Lord's Prayer, complete, in one particular scene.

[uncitizen]

Wow!

[Ciexyz]

This is absolutely amazing and so uplifting. Bless all those posters who responded to that mystery.

[xp38]

There is a church located on the Mount of Olives called the Pater Noster Church. 100 languages of the Lords Prayer are commemorated in ceramic tiles. This is the english one.

[Para-Ord.45]