However, I also know that many of us did not have such a good relationship with our father. Perhaps you did not even know your father and feel that something worthwhile is missing in your life. It is important to recognise our childhood experiences for what they were, good, bad or imperfect, with as much compassion and understanding as we can, for our fathers were not perfect. This can help bring healing to our relationship with our father and to other men in our lives. 

Holding the space for compassion and understanding in this way, we can build or develop a healthy and loving relationship with God, for to many God is Father. Whoa – stop, I can hear some of you say! In Unity, we speak about God as Oneness: As the principle of Truth, Love, Divine Mind and Heart. Well yes we do. Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, our co-founders, wrote and spoke of God in this way. Yet their writings were also very much about God as Father – that felt experience of God as wisdom, love and activity present in, through and as us all. It was a personal experience.

The same was true for Jesus, as he spoke about God as his loving father: as Abba meaning Papa or Daddy. Jesus had a powerfully loving relationship with God in this way. This relationship guided him, sustained him and took him through the crucifixion to the resurrection. By himself, as Jesus alone, I believe this would not have happened. It was because Jesus knew, “I and the father are one” (John 10.30) that he was able to do all he did and be the way-shower and example he is to us in Unity today.

Life is complex – it is all about relationships, which we first experienced through our parents and parent figures. It is also through our relationships that we can know for ourselves, the father and I, God and I, are one. We can move from the complex to the simplicity of this statement and abide here.

As we honour and remember our fathers on 16th June, with compassion and understanding, perhaps we can also be like Jesus and come to know our oneness with God so that we, too, can say, the father and I are one.

Rev. Kimerie Mapletoft
Director of Silent Unity and Daily Word UK

Creating a knowing. I have all I need for peace, love and happiness within me. Not needing to search for it outside, somewhere, someday. It is already here. With trust I accept that whatever is unfolding, is leading me to where I need to be, even if I perceive circumstances with my judging human brain as uncomfortable or negative.
 
I have discovered that if I can bring my focus back to see God in all things. To seek out the light even in the darkness. To align with gratefulness for the gifts I already have, what I experience and what I can share. That’s where prosperity lies.
 
I ask myself;
 
What is valuable and precious in my life now?
 
How can I nurture what is important to me?
 
How can I use my creative gifts and talents to benefit the lives of others?
 
These positive notions contribute to the richness of my life in a way that truly makes me feel wealthy! If we all try to move our attention away from lack and by following daily practices of gratefulness; abundance will follow. We can all be lifted up through acknowledgement of our blessings here and now. Finding joy in the smallest things does not negate the need for food and warmth and housing.
 
We all do require the basics to survive, but these practices undoubtedly open my heart and mind to new opportunities, new ways of being and thinking. Allowing me space to be adaptable, resourceful, and creative. Ways of being which lighten the load rather than adding to it.
 
Stef Bridges
Unity Administrator

Having said that, I would like to define meditation as the process that helps me to pay attention to the activities in and around me and consciously focus my awareness without judgement, to reach an experience of oneness. If I am not in a conscious relationship with my breath, body, food or clothing, I will not pay attention and I will not be aware of what any of these does to me or for me. It will just be something I am doing: for example, I eat because I am hungry without checking in to what food my body really needs! 

Amidst the numerous benefits of meditation, what motivates me more than anything is the Idea of attaining oneness. I may not have had a transcendental experience as most people would define, but the mere practice of meditation always brings me to a place of peace that lingers on, long after the meditation session. Practicing meditation is to me like ‘seeking first the kingdom, and everything shall be added to you’. The more I practice meditation, the better my relationships become with myself, my God, other people and my world. Now I can accept and be willing to do what God does, for myself and my world, while enjoying both the physiological and psychological benefits of meditation.

Soe Alaibi-Nwokocha 
International SEE student

So, as far as Jesus is concerned, being free is about freedom from sin and, in Unity, we see sin as error thought. If I am free of error thought i.e. all of the nonsense that pervades my mind, then I am One; One in God. 
 
Freedom is eternal; it is our God-given natural state. Freedom, from all of the worries and pressures of our day-to-day existence. As Daily Word says : ‘I am one with the presence and power of God, wondrously free’. In my daily prayer, I always include the affirmation “through forgiveness I am free” (also from a Daily Word some years ago – a great place to get affirmations!). Forgiveness is letting go, sometimes affirmed as “I let go and let God”. Because as we let go of our own angst, worry, nervousness etc., we naturally fall into alignment with the Truth of our Being: One. In this state I am free, free to be me – the True me. This is the key to a joyous and fulfilled life and is on of the greatest lessons I have learned on my journey with Unity.
 
So, I encourage each and every one of us to practice forgiveness and find the joy of Oneness; true freedom.
​
"And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free." John 8:32
 
Rev. Paul Mapletoft

However, In Unity we teach that we find this in ourselves first – we can choose to experience peace and see peace; we can consciously align with our wholeness and know our wholeness; we can connect into the power of Love as a Divine Idea and quality here for all of us equally, no matter how we are experiencing the world. We can let go into the flow of Infinite Life and know it is an enduring quality we can tap into, body, heart and mind, for ourselves and our world.
 
This week, I invite you to join me in seeing the world rightly. When you find yourself getting angry and upset, take a few moments to turn your attention inward, breathe and settle into peace; allow peace to rise from within you; know this peace is a state of being within everyone in the world. Then take whatever actions you are guided to take, within the quality of peace.
 
Take time each day to allow the energy of Divine Life to radiate in every cell and atom in your body. Claim it with an affirmation: In the mind of God, I am healthy, whole and free. Let this energy of wholeness resonate within you. Then witness this as the truth for everyone you hold in prayer.
 
Instead of fixing the world, we are aligning within the Absolute Truth, the beautiful radiant energy of God expressing as peace and life through us and as us. This is the empowering way of Unity prayer. I encourage you to take this knowing into the silence so that it becomes a deep abiding experience and then act as peace, wholeness, wisdom and love in our world. Be the change you wish to see. You may be amazed.
 
Rev. Kimerie Mapletoft
Director of Daily Word and Silent Unity UK

Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash