Tag Archives: Affirmative Prayer

moment by moment, choice by choice

March 15, 2016education, Reflections, Spiritual Education and EnrichmentAffirmative Prayer, embedded theology, New Thought, Oneness, practical spirituality, prayer, spirituality, Unity teachingsnewvistaunity

I’ve been moving across towns, from Chapel Hill to Durham this past month. Moving offers on-going opportunities to make deliberate, conscious choice, if we chose to make it so. With every day of the move, with every challenge, (securing utilities, buying and selling on craigslist and obtaining mailbox keys,) I’ve had opportunities to be a deliberate creator of my experience, to be in the awareness of the divinity that I Am, to chose to show up as my Authentic Self. “Moment by moment, choice by choice.” That’s how we live this life of empowerment and effectiveness.

“Moment by moment, choice by choice.” That’s the subtitle of How to Pray Without Talking to God, Unity Rev. Linda Martella-Whitsett’s recent book on Affirmative Prayer as taught by Unity and Science of Mind.
Unlike what I used to think, prayer has nothing to do with being religious or superstitious. Prayer is about tuning your mind to the Oneness, and claiming your essential thriving essence. That’s what I chose to do, claim Oneness: whenever I can get centered enough to remember to chose it! Linda Martella-Whitsett teaches how to pray from a unity consciousness, step by step, shift by shift. God is not a superhuman, God is Principle. Work with It, and shift your life into satisfaction and empowerment.

In our upcoming course “Unity Prayer,” SEE PR250, we’ll explore “what is prayer?” if we understand “GOD” to be Principle and Presence rather than a person. We’ll be creative ith names of “GOD” so we can release our childhood images of the Santa-God, and explore what it means to be spiritual beings having a human experience. We’ll consider very deliberately what words to use that reflect a sense of unity with/as The I Am. We’ll practice saying our own prayers together, aloud, in small groups, with partners. We’ll explore what it means to pray for and with others.

This course is a perfect introduction if you want to become a prayer partner or chaplain in your center. I offer weekend chaplain training as a followup to this course. The entire package is a perfect and thorough training experience for your center’s prayer team. To inquire about my weekend training, send a reply to this blog, and I’ll contact you personally to discuss the details. (a page is about to appear on this website that will provide the information)

Beginning March 31, Join us for this 5 week series of classes from your own comfortable desk or living room. 7-9pm Eastern Daylight time. Thursdays March 31-April 21.

A Vivifying, Life-Giving Principle

October 27, 2015UncategorizedAffirmative Prayer, Christ consciousness, gratitude, H. Emilie Cady, Unity Institutenewvistaunity

I have been in an attitude of gratitude that is beyond my expression. How can I express the gratitude I feel toward every one who has found New Vista Learning Center and has enrolled in classes? How can I express my gratitude for the technology that links us across thousands of miles and enables us to have fellowship as if we’re all sitting in the same room? Can I aptly express my gratitude for Unity Institute which gave me the knowledge and confidence to bring New Thought truth teachings to others. Can I quantify my appreciation for my ongoing spiritual growth throughout this experience?

As I am grateful to the students and teachers in my life, I am also grateful to Presence and Power, to Guidance and Inspiration, to Source and Substance. As a human being, I desire to “say thank you” to that Presence and Power. And, at the same time, I know It is not a being, not a personality, not a person that gives me things. It is an Energy and Essence, a limitless Creative Cause of all things. It is my very essence, and my inner “ground of being.” It is my innate capacity to use my innate talents to create a world that works well for me and for others. So the applause goes to” All That Is.” Kuddos to the “‘vivifying Life-giving Principle” of my heart and my innate intellect.

My most favorite Unity author is the one and only H. Emilie Cady, whose articles were the first lessons to be published by the Unity movement. Written in 1892, as a series of articles in Unity magazine, it was compiled into a book: Lessons In Truth and published by Unity in 1896, becoming the most influential and longest running textbook used in the training of Unity ministers.
Reading it today we are simultaneously charmed by the smooth, poetic prose of the Victorian era, and distracted by the language that alludes to “separation consciousness” which is paradoxically counter to its teachings. I find myself translating many passages so that I can see past its language patterns and comfortably learn from its truth.

For example, the following passage about prayer is a beautiful expression on the power of being grateful:

“Go even beyond this and speak words of thanksgiving to this innermost Presence, that it has heard and answered, that it does now come forth into visibility. There is something about the mental act of thanksgiving that seems to carry the human mind far beyond the region of doubt into the clear atmosphere of faith and trust. … do not worry or cease from your thanksgiving. Do not go back … again to the asking, but continue giving thanks that while you waited you did receive, and that what you received is now manifest; and believe me, you will soon rejoice and give thanks, not rigidly from a sense of duty, but because of the sure manifest fulfillment of your desire.” – H. Emilie Cady Lessons in Truth Lesson title: Finding the Secret Place.

Sometimes I find myself jotting in the margins a completely re-write so that I can see past blocks from my past embedded theology. Here, Emilie is talking about what we might do while we sit in the silence, awaiting an answer to our prayer. First the original, from the same lesson, then my translation.

“We repeat from time to time, while waiting, words something like these: ‘Thou art now renewing me according to Thy highest thought for me; Thou art radiating Thy very self throughout my entire being, making me like to Thyself — for there is nothing else but Thee. Father, I thank Thee, I thank Thee.’ Be still, be still while He works.”

My translation is an attempt to speak from a consciousness of Oneness; to remind my self that I “live and move and have my being” (Acts 17:28) in the Oneness that we sometimes call God: (note the lower case “s.” That’s my egoic self which tends to slip into forgetting that my True Self is One with/as The One, because That is All That Is.)

My translation: “We repeat from time to time, while waiting, words something like these: ‘I am renewed now, as I am open to my Divine Power and my Highest Thought. Divine Self radiates throughout my entire being, making me reflect the Oneness– for there is nothing else but The One. I am grateful, I am grateful.’ Be still, be still while Principle works.”

I love Emilie Cady! And I love Unity’s casual permission to let Emilie’s truth words from 125 years ago be translated to speak to my Truth.

One of her images, again from the same lesson, speaks to me, the gardener. She is talking about practicing the presence of God by allowing not straining.

“Some persons carry in their faces a strained, white look that comes from an abnormal “sitting in the silence,” as they term it. It is hard for them to know that [Presence] is right here within them, and while in the silence they fall into the way of reaching away out and up after [It]. Such are earnest [people] truly feeling after [Oneness] if haply they may find [It], when all the time [It] is near them, even in their very hearts. Do not reach out thus. This is as though a seed were planted in the earth, and just because it recognized a vivifying, life-giving principle in the sun’s rays, it did nothing but strain and stretch itself upward and outward to get more of the sun. You can see at a glance that by so doing it would get no solid roots in the earth where [Source] intended them to be. The seed needs to send roots downward while it keeps its face turned toward the sun, and lets itself be drawn upward by the sun. … But we are consciously to let it; not merely to take the attitude of negatively letting it by not opposing it, but to put ourselves consciously where the Son can shine on us, and then “be still, and know” (Psalm 46:10) that while we wait there it is doing the work. While waiting upon God, we should, as much as possible, relax ourselves both mentally and physically.”

When you practice prayer or meditation this month, during the season of gratitude, let this be your vivifying, life-giving image of your Is-ness. For so It Is. Namaste.

(In the 6 months since this ministry began, through to the end of the calendar year, I will have engaged 61 students and taught 10 different accredited Unity SEE courses. I have many more planned for 2016, as I help students fulfill their requirements to move on toward licensing and ministry. Watch New Vista SEE pages for new listings coming up in 2016.)

“Pray Up!” Today

September 10, 2015Spiritual Education and EnrichmentAffirmative Prayer, Christian scriptures, Fillmore, gratitude, Jesus, Silent Unity, Unity Institute, Unity teachingsnewvistaunity

Remember those “WWJD” bracelets? They were intended to help us ask ourselves “What Would Jesus Do in this situation?” As we all know, a teacher’s actions speak much louder than his or her words. Memories about Jesus recorded decades after his ministry reveal that Jesus instilled an effective, positive, practical teaching about prayer.

Today, on Unity’s World Day of Prayer, the theme is “Pray Up!” As I visualize people across the nation gathering in their spiritual centers to pray together, I think of our Way-Shower Jesus “praying up!” How did Jesus pray?

Based on what the ancient writings, Jesus probably prayed quietly. But quiet can be powerful! “Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Fathe Jesus7a r who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6) I see Jesus sitting quietly, kind of like the Buddha statue on my shelf, meditating upon the perfection of the All That Is and knowing his Oneness with It, in It, as It. He addressed the God-of-his-understanding as “Father,” implying that he had a very personal understanding of The Divine. He talked about the Father who is in secret. Not because The Divine is a secret, but because It is within, in the secret place of his consciousness; the constant, internal Source of all “in whom we live and move and have out being.” (check this out: the writer of Acts 17:28 has the apostle Paul quoting from a semi-mythical 7th century BCE Greek wisdom teacher Epimenides[i]). The act of tuning out egoic thought and tapping in to Source is a powerful tool of Jesus’ compelling ministry.

Today, I visualize my Unity friends all over the world wherever they are, sitting in silent meditative prayer, knowing Source within and all around them, as Jesus did.

Jesus taught us to forgive when we entered into that sacred chamber within. “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25) Letting go of that yucky, irritated, hurt, P-O’ed, or devastated feeling against someone is a huge, essential step in our prayer practice. What does it mean that the writer of Mark wrote, “so that your Father may also forgive you?” The “Father” is the Christ Consciousness, the True Self, the I Am of you. How can we come into a consciousness of Oneness with All That Is if we have angst about someone else? Thomas Merton said “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.” The willingness to let people be who they are is forgiveness.

Today, I see myself and my friends forgiving all who seem to be against us. For no one and nothing is against me. I am One with All That Is.

Jesus gave thanks in advance. “… he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute.” (Matthew 15:36) As Way-Shower, Jesus teaches us to expect the blessing when we ask. He gave thanks before it even happened because he had no doubt that it would come forth, is coming forth. “Ask and it will be given you.” (Matthew 7:7) Simple, No doubt, No worries about if it will come or when it will come. Jesus knew it was so. We like to end our prayers with “And so it is.” It’s a way to release the request. We don’t beg for it. We claim it. We expect it or something even more appropriate. It is so. That’s what Jesus knew, too, so he gave thanks before his desire was spoken. He knew that when he asked he would receive.

Unity uses an affirmative prayer process based on Jesus teaching: Relax and go within, know the Oneness, give thanks, claim and realize your good, then release any doubt and know it is so. It is a powerful, practical tool for positive living. We use that form of prayer at Unity’s 24/7 prayer line Silent Unity and in our Sunday services and classes.

Today, I join my friends in all places and give thanks, knowing that what we need, desire, ask and imagine is so. And so we let it be.

This year, Silent Unity’s World Day of Prayer’s theme is “Pray Up.” I get what it means to “pray up!” My ministry as a Prayer Associate at Silent Unity taught me the depth of that phrase. My experience there, while in Seminary at Unity Institute, was unforgettable and indescribable. (If you have any theological questions about prayer, believe me, they will come up while at that job and give you a chance to work through them!) Every prayer I spoke affected me, too, of course. Does the Oneness know separation? I would climb the stairs to the prayer room sometimes tired, sometimes distracted, sometimes agitated that I had to stop working on a term paper to go to work. Then I would open the doors to the prayer room and immediately feel the amazing grace that was in that place. In that space made sacred by prayer action, associates are in prayer 365/24/7! Entering the room would immediately lift my spirits. I would find my place and, after centering, would begin answering calls.
“Silent Unity. How may we pray with you?” Minute by minute, hour after hour, every prayer I spoke lifted my consciousness higher and higher. So that when I finished my shift I was elevated, renewed, inspired, reinvigorated to go back to my room and continue my studies.

So, yeah, I know what it means to “Pray Up.” It means get your batteries charged up, to raise your vibrational level, become energized by the “highest form of mind-action” one can do. (That’s a Charles Fillmore quote) It was indubitably the most effective activity I could do before I entered the Licensing & Ordination interviews!
You and I don’t need to work at Silent Unity to benefit from that energy. We can enjoy it anytime with a 5-minute phone call to 1-800-NOW-PRAY (669-7729) Or you can learn to create a Unity affirmative prayer for yourself, and practice, practice, practice. The more you pray affirmatively, the more vivid your understanding of the Oneness, and the more energized your body, mind and spirit will be. Join our Unity Prayer course in the virtual classroom beginning October 1.

Namaste