Prayers for June 2015

First Prayer
Let us open our hearts to prayer.   We connect with one another in fellowship, a community aware of the world.   We who pray are part of a community who care for one another; who support one another through difficult times, who look to a future with optimism.
    We give thanks for this chapel, the community that is its congregation and the wider community it serves through social events and through giving..
    We keep that wider community in our prayers.
    And we are aware too that throughout the world, almost in every corner there is suffering, sadness and desolation.   Our prayers are for the many millions who are hungry today, who have no homes today,  who have no medicine today, who have no schools today, who live without hope today.
    May our collective prayer reach into the hard hearts of those who create this suffering, may the spirit of peace enter into their spirits and show a way towards peace on earth.   
    Anger and violence turns human beings into a violent species of ourselves who do not care about human life.   Callous disregard that treats human beings as not human and without value turns the scriptures of love into manuals of hate.     We give the power of our prayer to stand against us such evil and overcome it.   We pray together with all who pray for peace today, with all who have faith in the goodness of humankind and that it may prevail over so many current evils.    This is our prayer.   Amen


Second Prayer

Let us open our hearts to prayer.
    Let us in our prayer consider ourselves as the human beings that we are.   We are body and we are spirit.    The body is the vehicle in which we live and move and have our being.    The body is a physical presence.    The body radiates our mood to the world.   It shows when we are happy, it shows when we are sad.   It shows when we are tired.   It shows when we feel uncomfortable.     The body can suffer pain and can be the victim of illness and physical breakdown.   The body is our precious house.
    The spirit lives within our house but is not confined to it.    In thought we can travel to faraway places, remember long forgotten faces, memory carries us backwards in time and imagination carries us forward on dreams and hopes.     The spirit within our house connects to other spirits to make friendships, to bond between family and in love.   The spirit in our house can be a strong confident spirit but also is fragile, is easily hurt and bruised, is sensitive to the actions of others.
    And the spirit within our house connects beyond the circle of human company and companionship.   The spirit can connect with a universal spirit,  can sense the presence of God, can connect with realms that are not physical but mysteries that are sensed by instinct.
    In times of prayer we can reach out to the universal spirit.     In this connection are hurts can be made more comfortable, both physical and spiritual.      Connecting with the universal spirit, we can gain strength, we can gain understanding and patience - and purpose in our lives.
    Let us always in our prayers reach out to that universal spirit where peace is,  where love is, where all things are that make life beautiful and serene. Connected to that holy spirit the world is different, love is everywhere.

Silent prayer 
This is our prayer