One year ago, on 24 June 2024, my life turned suddenly. A silent, life-threatening illness led to an 11-hour emergency surgery. What followed was three months in hospital, countless fragile moments, and an inner storm I didn’t expect — but also, a profound rising.

Through it all, one force held me — prayer. In the darkness of ICU, when my strength had left and even words escaped me, I remember placing my hand on my chest and whispering inwardly: “God, be my breath.” And He was. Prayers were sent from loved ones near and far. I felt them — like a net holding me from beneath. They didn’t just comfort me; they carried me. And in the silence of each day, I prayed too — not always with words, but with trust. This journey has been one of healing, but even more, of awakening. For life — restored through divine grace. For prayer — the invisible cord that held me close to God when everything else slipped away. For community — fierce and faithful, praying with me and for me. My recovery reminded me that healing doesn’t just happen in our cells — it happens in our spirit. Through prayer, I remembered who I was beyond the diagnosis. I became again. To those walking a storm: may my story remind you that healing is real. That prayer works in ways we cannot measure — whispering strength, calling light, and restoring what we thought was lost.

And to those who prayed me through — known or unknown — thank you. You became part of my miracle. With all my heart,

Josephine Nana Abena Powell
 Unity Truth Student
“God is within her, she will not fall.” – Psalm 46:5

As the longest day comes and goes, we are reminded that balance and harmony reside in the acceptance of both light and dark. High and low vibrations. Positive and negative emotions.

Perhaps it makes it easier to step towards healing your wounds when another person can look you in the eye and say, I’ve been to the darkness, darling, I know how fearful, lonely and full of rage the depths are. But. I survived them. I befriended them. You can too and I walk with you on this journey.

I don’t run from the darkness. I light a candle. I hold the space. I cry into my hands and move through it. Collapse on the floor but then pull myself up again.

I try to remember that no matter how enthralling the author or how impressive the qualifications of this therapist or that psychologist. No matter how renowned this philosopher is or the staggering following of that prophet. I need to decide what works for me.

It all works; that’s the truth. The path to peace and love is mine to walk as I see fit.

Your experience. Your truth. Your healing. Your relationship with love and light. That is something no-one can take away.
Never push down what you are feeling. Be supportive always of what your emotions reveal, analyse them if necessary, focus on the feeling not the trigger, intuit what you need to heal, write them down and put them in the fire if you have no other action. But act. Let it come out.
Don’t push it down my darlings ... don’t push it down.

​Stefanie Bridges
Unity Administrator
 

​THE CALL TO PEACE

Once more we are called to peace – to know peace within us, become the expression of peace around us and hold the vision of peace in the world.

When life is at its darkest, the light shines more brightly. As we seek to connect with another human being, we can come to understand them, even dare I say it, love them. For everyone acts out of fear or love. As we seek to see the divine potential within every person, we find it. For as Jesus taught us, “‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7: 7-9

When we are disturbed by what is happening in the world (which after all is a very human and understandable response), it is our call, our invitation, to re-centre in understanding and peace. We can do this by reconnecting with God as Peace in the very midst of us. Then we can make a choice in how we see and respond in the world, for what we focus on expands. If we focus on what is wrong, it increases in our experience. When we focus on what is good, this increases in our experience. It becomes our daily practise to ask ourselves, “What do I What do I want to experience?”
(Join our Conversation in Unity this Tuesday to discuss further).

To help us, we can seek to see everyone as fully human and fully divine. As human beings, we are all finding our way, making mistakes and learning on the path. As divine beings, we already are peace, for we know our Oneness with all of Life, including each other, our Self and Universal Life/God.

Our practise of prayer and meditation becomes our faith. Our faith grows with practise. The light shines more brightly. We become the peace we seek. We act peacefully in our world. We are the vision and activity that supports others so that, together, we live as peace.

​Join with us on our practise of faith and peace. Join us online through Zoom for our many prayer and meditation meetings. And join us in person when we visit Edinburgh, Exeter, Sheffield and Wolverhampton. We love to be with you and honour the journey we are on, together.
 

“The Daily Word reading on the theme of “Surrender” (Saturday 24th May) really spoke to me. Anyone who has met me might have observed that I tend to wear around my neck various mala necklaces made of semi-precious stones and a wooden cross. Also a couple of chakra bracelets on my right wrist. On my left hand middle finger I wear a simple, gold signet ring. It is always there and I very rarely take it off, except when having a shower or bath, or doing the washing-up. Occasionally I might take it off when I am practising the piano, but not very often. It was given to me by my mother and it belonged to her father whom I never met as he had passed before I was born . I do not think it has any particular monetary value but is very sentimental and carries a deep meaning for me.
 
It was around midday on Friday that I noticed that it had gone. Where? I had no idea. I checked the bathroom, kitchen and piano, floors in the living room and bedroom, all to no avail. It is a fairly tight fit so it is unlikely that it would have suddenly fallen off somewhere. What to do? I was frustrated because I do not lose things. Sometimes I wish I could lose things, like all the clutter in my house and also my extra weight which has accumulated over the years thanks to an over-indulgence of non-ideal foods including burgers and chocolate cake, together with very little exercise (work is in progress on all of those). Also there are people living under my stairs (called “Borrowers”) who take things away for a short time (usually the very thing I need at a certain time) and then return it (usually when I don’t need it), but somehow I did not feel that they were to blame.
 
What to do? I tried the traditional method of retracing one’s steps. That did not get me anywhere apart from recalling that Friday morning is our rubbish and recycling collection, so we put our bags out on late Thursday evening. That seemed to be the only logical explanation. Somehow my ring must have fallen into one of the bags without my noticing, and was now long gone. I said a prayer to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things (we Catholics do love our Saints!), surrendered and released it, blessing it on its journey to wherever it was going. I had to admit defeat which was not easy because I am not a defeatist.
 
On Saturday afternoon I was preparing some music for Sunday Morning’s church Service and spotted a Sainsbury “bag for life” on the floor in my music room, containing some packets of dried pasta and tins of vegetables and fruit, which I had bought on Thursday afternoon and had not yet put away. So I thought “let’s tidy up” and proceeded to put them into the various places and cupboards where they needed to go. Then I turned the empty bag upside down to fold it and something small fell out of the bag onto the floor. The rest of the story you can guess.
 
The affirmation “I surrender my worldly efforts and rely upon God within” was so appropriate. I had exhausted my worldly efforts and finally surrendered to Spirit. Why did I not do that first? That is not to say that we can simply sit back and let God do everything for us with little or no effort from ourselves, but it reminded me that often we might tend to go to God as a last resort when all else fails. Is it because we don’t want to bother God, or are we embarrassed or do we think that He has more important things to do than be concerned with our trivialities? That is my story and I will let you make of it what you will. The Latin phrase “quod perierat inventus est” immediately comes to mind, but for now I will say a simple Deo Gratias!”


Dr. Gregory Porilo
Licensed Unity Teacher

I must have been about 11 years old, sat crossed legged on the squeaky wooden polished floor of my primary school. The sun streamed down into the hall and at the front of the assembly stood our gigantically tall headmaster, Mr Jaques.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life” he said, looking directly at me, as if intuiting that this message was one I needed to hold on to. I do not remember the content of the assembly or the rest of the morning’s lessons but that one sentence stuck with me. Something I have repeated to myself many times in moments of realisation. Every time I have reinvented myself (which has been a few times!) I have repeated this mantra. Each time I have found myself engulfed by fire and
self-destruction I remember his words.
Unity has taught me that we are re-born in literally every single second. I ALWAYS have an opportunity to take a different path, to act from love, to rebirth and reinvent myself.
Do I want to be the same person at 50 as I was in my twenties? Hell no. My 20-year-old self thought chicken nuggets
​5 nights a week and Red Bull for breakfast was a good idea! I am grateful for learning. Grateful for being able to decide who I want to be in any given moment. Grateful even for getting old(er).
What will you do today? With the first day of the rest of your life?
Stefanie Bridges
Unity administrator
​

Don‘t think that saying "I am God"
is proclaiming one‘s greatness.
It is actually total humility.
Some one who says,
"I am the servant of God"
infers two – God and himself –
whereas someone who says,
"I am God", negates himself.
He relinquishes his own existence.
"I am God" means
"I don‘t exist.
Everything is God.
Only God exists. I am nothing.
I am utter emptiness".
This is complete humility
not arrogance,
but people often misunderstand.
When someone says he is God‘s servant,
he still sees himself as a doer,
albeit in God‘s service.
He is not yet drowned
in the Ocean of God.
When he is, there will be no such thing
as 'his actions',
only movements
of water. 

Jalal al-Din Rumi
13th C. Sufi Poet
​