Prayer time 18 March 2026
The field beyond the score
Releasing winner/loser consciousness and returning to the One Life that holds us all.
Download a PDF of the prayer script
Orientation
Welcome to Prayer on a Wednesday. Right where we are, God is. Tonight we return to the field Rumi describes, out beyond the wrongdoing and the rightdoing, the winning and losing, out beyond enough and not enough - returning to the One Life that holds us all. We practise the five phases of Unity prayer together: relaxation, concentration, meditation, realisation, and appreciation.
Relaxation
Settle the body. Spine erect, not stiff.
Let the eyes close or soften.
Breathe naturally. Let the jaw relax.
Shoulders drop.
Hands open - not grasping, not bracing. Breathe into the chest. Into the belly.
Whatever you’ve brought tonight - the wins and the losses, the incomings and outgoings, the inputs and the outputs, the fears about whether there’ll be enough - let it all sit beside you. It can come. But all these things are most certainly not in the driver’s seat tonight. Here you are. Here you are. Just as you are.
Concentration
‘I have enough money to retire and live comfortably for the rest of my life. The problem is, I have to die next week.’ That joke exposes the frame many of us have been living inside - the frame that says life is a competition, that there is a score, and that the score is the measure of a life. We breathe this frame like air. We speak it without noticing. And prayer is one of the most direct routes to the reality beneath it. Four voices tonight, pointing at the same field from four different directions - Rumi, Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton and Julian of Norwich. And our scripture is Psalm 23.
Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī. Trans. Coleman Barks. The Essential Rumi. HarperCollins, 1995.
Richard Rohr
Names this the non-dual mind - the contemplative mind that has learned to hold reality without needing to rank it, divide it, or declare a winner. It is the mind that can stand in the field.
Centre for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Thomas Merton
Trappist monk, mystic, and writer. His life’s work was the inner journey into God beyond all the world’s categories. His prayer is the voice of someone who has stopped keeping score and trusted the ground instead. We receive his prayer in his own voice, then rework it as affirmative prayer.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this,
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always,
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1958.
Julian of Norwich
Fourteenth century mystic, visionary, and theologian. Gravely ill when she received her visions. From the deepest place of her own vulnerability she heard a word she spent the rest of her life writing down. (Learn more in the podcast series ‘Turning to the Mystics’ with James Finley.)
All shall be well.
And all shall be well.
And all manner of thing shall be well.
He said not: thou shalt not be tempested,
thou shalt not be travailed,
thou shalt not be afflicted.
But He said: thou shalt not be overcome.
Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. c. 1395.
Psalm 23:5 (NRSV)
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
My cup overflows.
The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version. 1989.
The Psalmist is not describing the winner’s banquet or the after-party at the Oscars. The table is set in the presence of everything that looks like threat or loss - and still the cup overflows. This is the One Life operating from the field beyond the score. Not divided into winning portions and losing portions. Overflowing. In the presence of everything.
That is the fourth direction. That is where we are going now.
Meditation
Let the breath do its work. The wins and the losses - we bring them here in prayer, and we lay them down.
The world is too full to talk about. (Rumi)
I am never alone. I face nothing alone. (Merton)
My cup overflows. (Psalm 23)
All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well. (Julian) Thou shalt not be overcome. (Julian)
I trust the ground completely.
(Silence - minimum 45 seconds.)
And gently, when you are ready, begin to feel the edges of the room again.
We move into realisation.
Realisation
Denial and Affirmation Pairs. In the Unity tradition of Charles Fillmore and H. Emilie Cady: the denial clears the mental field. The affirmation declares the truth of God.
There is no power in lack or limitation. God is my unlimited supply, active and overflowing now.
Winning and losing have no final authority over my life in God. Divine order governs all outcomes. I am held in infinite good.
Fear of not enough has no place in me. My cup overflows. The source of all good is inexhaustible.
The dualistic mind is not my true mind. The Christ mind in me sees the One Life in all things.
Affirmations - together:
1. There is a field beyond the score. I live from that field.
2. The cup of my life overflows - not because I won, but because the source is inexhaustible.
3. All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well.
4. I shall not be overcome.
5. Divine order is at work in this situation - even this one. Even now.
6. I release the outcome. I trust the ground.
7. The peace of God is present beneath every appearance. I rest there now.
8. I align my thoughts with divine order.
9. I align my words with the truth of abundance.
10. I align my actions with the knowing that I am already held.
God is the sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. There is no edge to fall off. There is no losing bracket in infinite Love.
Appreciation
Our gratitude overflows when we have remembered what is true.
Julian of Norwich
Wouldst thou learn thy Lord’s meaning in this thing?
Learn it well: Love was His meaning.
Who shewed it thee? Love.
What shewed He thee? Love.
Wherefore was it shewed? For Love.
Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love. c. 1395.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9–13 (NIV).
Prayer of Protection
James Dillet Freeman (1912–2003), Unity minister and poet.
The Light of God surrounds us.
The Love of God enfolds us.
The Power of God protects us.
The Presence of God watches over us.
Wherever we are, God is.
Freeman, James Dillet. ‘Prayer of Protection.’ Unity, 1941.
Go gently. Go with your cup overflowing. Tihei mauri ora.
Prepared by Jacinda Faloon-Cavander for Unity of NZ