We are pleased to join Cumbria Unity Festival to offer a space for ‘Healing Together’.
Join us in the Kendal Unitarian Chapel from 2pm until 3pm to share interfaith prayers and affirmations with music, poetry and whirling dervishes.
We invite you to write an affirmation or prayer of healing for our healing board.
All welcome.

Sat 18 June 2022, 2-3pm
Kendal Unitarian Chapel, Branthwaite Brow, Kendal LA9 4TN

Other events in the Chapel:
10-12pm Mindfulness & Meditation session
10-4pm Quiet room available for meditation/prayer/reflection
Open to everyone from all faiths and none

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Prayers, Affirmations & Chants for Healing & Unity

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born —
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
(Karaniya Metta Sutta: The Buddha’s Words on Loving-Kindness Sutta Nipata Sn 1.8, translated from the Pali by The Amaravati Sangha)

O God! Grant me Light in my heart, Light in my grave,
Light in front of me, Light behind me,
Light to my right, Light to my left,
Light above me, Light below me,
Light in my ears, Light in my eyes,
Light on my skin, Light in my hair,
Light within my flesh, Light in my blood, Light in my bones.
O God! Increase my Light everywhere.
O God! Grant me Light in my heart,
Light on my tongue, Light in my eyes, Light in my ears,
Light to my right, Light to my left,
Light above me, Light below me,
Light in front of me, Light behind me,
and Light within my self; increase my Light.
~ Muhammad

If there are a hundred religious books, they are but one chapter:
a hundred different religions seek but one place of worship.
All these roads end in one House:
all these thousand ears of corn are from one Seed.
~ Rumi

Even though each lamp may seem different, the Light is the same.
This clay lamp and its wick may appear to be different,
but the Light isn’t — it comes from Beyond.
If you keep looking at the glass of the lamp, you’ll be lost,
because it’s from the glass that multiplicity is seen.
Keep focusing on the Light, so you’ll be free of duality
and the multiplicity of colors of this limited body.
~ Rumi

Sit with your friends; don’t go back to sleep.
Don’t sink like a fish to the bottom of the sea.
Surge like an ocean,
don’t scatter yourself like a storm.
Life’s waters flow from darkness.
Search the darkness, don’t run from it.
Night travelers are full of light,
and you are, too; don’t leave this companionship.
Be a wakeful candle in a golden dish,
don’t slip into the dirt like quicksilver.
The moon appears for night travelers,
be watchful when the moon is full.
~ Rumi

I am the voice of the voiceless:
Through me, the dumb shall speak;
Till the deaf world’s ear be made to hear
The cry of the wordless weak.
From street, from cage, and from kennel,
From jungle and stall, and animal lab
And factory farm, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
Of the mighty against the frail.
For love is the true religion,
And love is the law sublime;
And all that is wrought, where love is not,
Will die at the touch of time.
Oh, shame on the mothers of mortals
Who have not stopped to teach
Of the sorrow that lies in dear, dumb eyes,
The sorrow that has no speech.
The same power formed the sparrow
That fashioned Man, the King;
The God of the Whole gave a living soul
To each furred and feathered thing.
Oh, never a brute in the forest,
And never a snake in the fen,
Or ravening bird, starvation stirred,
Has hunted his prey like men.
For hunger, and fear, and passion
Alone drive beasts to slay,
But wonderful man, the crown of the Plan,
Tortures, and kills, FOR PLAY.
He goes well fed from his table;
He kisses his child and wife;
Then he haunts a wood, till he orphans a brood,
Or robs a deer, a fox, a pheasant, a hare,
a hen harrier, of its life.
For he has a gun and wants some fun
And will not pause to ponder this cause
Of such pain, such terror, such strife.
He aims at a speck in the azure;
Winged love, that has flown at a call;
It reels down to die, and he lets it lie;
His pleasure was seeing it fall.
So, this is the race as we find it;
Where love in the creed spells hate,
And where bird and beast meet a foe in the priest,
And in rulers of fashion and state.
But up to the kingdom of thinkers
Has risen the cry of our kin;
And weapons of thought are burnished and brought
To clash with the bludgeons of sin.
And I am my brother’s keeper,
And I will fight his fight,
And speak the word for beast and bird,
Till the world shall set things right.
Oh, far Christ of a million churches,
Prophet Muhammed of a million mosques,
Buddha of a million shrines,
Brahma of a million temples,
Great Spirit of a million sacred sites,
come near to earth again.
Be more than a name, be a living flame;
Burn bright and set right; with your healing
Send to bring to an end
The country sports inflicted by men.
~ VOICE OF THE VOICELESS by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Additional spoken words (italicised) by Mark Rotherham

You are found in the space in between;
I am found in the space in between…
The space in between thoughts, acts, plans,
Goals and desires.
The space where we can breathe,
The space where nothing and everything lies.
The space where peace resides.
The space where wisdom waits, patiently,
To be welcomed in without words.
The pressing decision, the fear-filled thought,
The consuming ambition, the tortured heart.
Let them all fall from the grasp of your awareness
Let them fall, soften your gaze and let them fall.
Only then you will see there is no space,
No empty, unfilled space.
There is only love.
But to let it in you must listen carefully
To this silent message –
All else must fall into the space in between.
~ The Space in Between by anon

The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.
We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend an enemy.
Regard the world as the human body which, though created whole and perfect, has been afflicted, through divers causes, with grave ills and maladies. Not for one day did it rest, nay its sicknesses waxed more severe, as it fell under the treatment of unskilled physicians who have spurred on the steed of their worldly desires and have erred grievously. And if at one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before. Thus informeth you the All-Knowing, the All-Wise…. That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith.
Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
~ Bahá’u’lláh

Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.
(Meditation by Philips Brooks)

This is my prayer to thee, my Lord –
Give me the strength to lightly bear my joys and sorrows.
Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.
Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.
Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.
And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.
(Rabindranath Tagore, from ‘Gitanjali’)

Thou hast put gladness in my heart…
I will both lay me down in peace and sleep;
For thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.
(Psalm 4)

May we have light for all who sit in darkness
And in the shadow of death,
To guide their feet in the way of peace.
(Alma, Book of Mormon)

May we watch and pray continually
That we not be tempted above that which we can bear;
That we be led by the Holy Spirit,
Becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient,
Full of love and long-suffering,
Having faith on thee, Lord,
That thy love may always be in our hearts.
(Alma, Book of Mormon)