Prayer time 22 July 2026
You and me: the lamp already on the stand
The light shines. Who needs this light, how may we serve them, and where must we shine?
Download a PDF of the prayer script
Orientation
Tīhei mauri ora. Nau mai, haere mai. Tēnā koutou katoa. Good evening, and welcome.
Matthew 5:14–16, NRSV: ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’
Our lamp is lit, and we put it up on the stand where its light can reach the whole house. Tonight we pray by holding three questions: who needs this light, how may we serve them, and where must we shine?
There is an old whakataukī that holds the answer inside these questions:
E huri tō aroaro ki te rā, tukuna tō ātārangi ki muri i a koe.
Turn and face the sun, and let your shadow fall behind you.
Relaxation
Our time for a full body sweep and our relaxation of the mind.
I read this week: Mary Oliver asking ‘are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?’ Hmm….
Mary Oliver, ‘Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?’from West Wind, 1997.
Howard Thurman, ‘How Good to Center Down!’ from Meditations of the Heart, Beacon Press, 1953. The text is in copyright, so it is not printed here. It is worth finding: the whole piece is about the traffic of the mind quietening until a deeper note comes through, and then walking back out into the day with the peace of the Eternal in your step.
You are here, we have come together to pray, and so together, we Centre Down.
Concentration
H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, Lesson One, ‘Bondage or Liberty, Which?’ 1896:
There is in your own indwelling Lord all the life and health, all the strength and peace and joy, all the wisdom and support that you can ever need or desire. No one can give to you as can this indwelling Father. He is the spring of all joy and comfort and power.
[pause]
Adapted from Charles Fillmore, Dynamics for Living, chapter 9, Unity School of Christianity, 1967. Fillmore's original reads ‘man is the thinker,’ and so on. Spoken here in the first person, so that the community says it of itself.
God is Mind; I am the thinker.
God is Life; I am the living.
God is Substance; I am form and shape.
God is Power; I am powerful.
God is Wisdom; I am wise.
God is Love; I am loving.
God is Truth; I am truthful.
[pause]
Now we clear the way.
I deny that the light in me is small, or scarce, or running low.
The light in me is God's own Life, and it does not run out.
I deny that I must be whole before I am of use to anyone.
I am able to give light tonight, exactly as I am.
I deny that what I give away is lost to me.
What I give away is what multiplies. The more I spend, the more there is to spend.
Meditation
Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit-Gathering, 1916: ‘Send me the love that would soak down into the centre of being, and from there would spread like the unseen sap through the branching tree of life, giving birth to fruits and flowers.’
Think of one specific person. Let their face come to mind.
[pause, five minutes]
This is the sap moving through the tree, reaching the branch, becoming the fruit.
Realisation
Hannah More Kohaus, The Prayer of Faith, 1898:
God is my help in every need; God does my every hunger feed; God walks beside me, guides my way through every moment of the day. I now am wise, I now am true, patient, kind, and loving too; All things I am, can do, and be, through Christ the Truth, that is in me. God is my health, I can't be sick; God is my strength, unfailing, quick; God is my all, I know no fear, since God and Love and Truth are here. Amen.
[pause]
Job 22:27–28, NRSV: ‘You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will pay your vows. You will decide on a matter, and it will be established for you, and light will shine on your ways.’
A note as we speak this: these words are Eliphaz's, one of Job's friends, and the book itself goes on to question their counsel. We use the verse in our Unity tradition as an affirmation of the spoken word, that what we decide is established and light goes with us. Worth holding lightly: we say these things, and others say these things, and it is good simply to be aware of that as we do.
The four comprehensive affirmations of H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, Lesson Five, ‘Affirmations,’ 1896:
God is life, love, intelligence, substance, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence.
I am a child or manifestation of God, and every moment His life, love, wisdom, power flow into and through me. I am one with God, and am governed by His law.
I am Spirit, perfect, holy, harmonious. Nothing can hurt me or make me sick or afraid, for Spirit is God, and God cannot be sick or hurt or afraid. I manifest my real self through this body now.
God works with me to will and to do whatsoever He wishes me to do, and He cannot fail.
The light is mine, and it is mine to give.
Appreciation
Thank you for the light already here tonight, brought in by every person who joined, and for whoever each of us goes toward next.
H. Emilie Cady, Lessons in Truth, Lesson One, modern-language edition, adapted from the 1896 original:
We go apart to get still, to receive new life, new inspiration, new power, new supply from the overflowing fountain within, and then we return to the world around us to share that life and power in love.
[pause]
Go from here as the lamp already on the stand, shining toward someone who is waiting for exactly this light, this week, from you.
And we close, as one, in the prayer our Lord taught us. Ka īnoi tātou.
Te Īnoi a te Ariki (The Lord's Prayer), te reo Māori, Anglican Church in Aotearoa:
E tō mātou Matua i te rangi,
Kia tapu tōu Ingoa.
Kia tae mai tōu rangatiratanga.
Kia meatia tāu e pai ai ki runga ki te whenua, kia rite anō ki tō te rangi.
Hōmai ki a mātou āianei he taro mā mātou mō tēnei rā.
Murua ō mātou hara, me mātou hoki e muru nei i o te hunga e hara ana ki a mātou.
Aua hoki mātou e kawea kia whakawaia; engari whakaorangia mātou i te kino:
Nōu hoki te rangatiratanga, te kaha, me te korōria, āke ake ake. Āmine.
The Lord's Prayer, English:
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.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Prepared by Jacinda Faloon-Cavander for Unity of NZ