This week, posts will focus on prayer and its use in Unitarian Universalist churches that do not proclaim a universal belief in a higher power.

And this is just the question raised by today’s material, from the Rev. Tom McCready, who serves Hull Unitarian Church in Great Britain. Unitarian churches in Great Britain are members of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches rather than the Unitarian Universalist Association, but proclaim a philosophy of religion that would be right at home in our American congregations:

“WE BELIEVE THAT:

• everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves.
• the fundamental tools for doing this are your own life experience, your reflection upon it, your intuitive understanding and the promptings of your own conscience.
• the best setting for this is a community that welcomes you for who you are, complete with your beliefs, doubts and questions.”

So with that in mind, here is Rev. McCready’s take on the question, “Who are you praying to?” in a format suitable for a responsive prayer.

Who do you pray to if you believe in prayer, but do not believe in God?

by Rev. Tom McCready

And who, or what do you pray to, if you believe that the sacred depth that binds us together and holds us forever cannot be separated from the reality of ourselves, in order to be prayed to?

Where do you aim your prayers if you truly believe that the beauty and grace and glorious frailty of the human spirit is all the God we need?

If there is a God who listens, then he or she is listening in the people gathered here. And if the great creator spirit who was before the world began is present here among us, it is in the hearts and in the hopes of the people gathered here that that spirit is within reach. Most real, most near, and most fully with us.

(Read on … )