Mark's Prayer

On the occasion of the opening of our new Interfaith centre, I’d like to do one of the few things that faiths have in common, that is, pray, and speak a few words that I have tailored to suit all faiths. This prayer forthwith is addressed to the Divine Power, whatever form that Divine Power may take, whether Yahweh, Allah, Brahman, Deva, Vahiguru or Albert Einstein. 

This was originally a prayer I composed for the Simchat Torah celebrations at my local synagogue, and in the original, I referred to the Higher Power as ‘Lord’, and I have chosen to stick to ‘Lord’ because that could apply to more than one religion:

Let us not condemn people, Lord, but let us say a prayer for them, and let us include particular groups.

Let us forgive those people who make loud claims of righteousness and acting within the law of God, but are blinded by hatred, fear and prejudice. Let us forgive them their lack of understanding of your message, Lord, of love, tolerance, forgiveness and compassion.

Let us no longer see the world in terms of representative figures that we see in our own minds and consider to be their characteristics; let us not see the world in terms of the immoral Westerner, the bomb-crazy Muslim, the intolerant Conservative, the amoral Liberal, the greedy Jew, the thuggish anti-Semite, the mindless racist, the drug-addicted homeless, the lawless chav, the mean bully in the playground, the parasitic immigrant, the wicked Israeli, the wicked Palestinian, Jew or Gentile, Arab or Aryan – let us reach the day when we realise that all human beings are real and different, and what we hate and fear is what we do not know or understand. Lord, we hold so many different points of view, but we have so much more in common. Our desires, our pleasures, our pains, our losses, our hopes, our dreams, our bodily instincts – you made us different, Lord, but you made our differences irrelevant.

Now let us pray, Lord, not for our faith or our friends or family, but for our enemies. Let us pray that anti-Semite and Jew will marry and have children, that white supremacist and black nationalist will set up a charitable organisation together, that one soldier and an opposing soldier will take a few seconds to remember than they are not fighting war-crazed monsters but their brothers and sisters in the human family.

If a thief should steal our coins, let us pray that they will learn an honest trade; if an inconsiderate person should heckle us with hurtful words, let us pray that they love their family very much; if someone should take our loved ones away from us, or take away our very lives, let us forgive them and pray they realise the error of their ways, Lord, and hope they change for the better.

These words may sound strange in the midst of the weak-minded, hateful, selfish, misguided world of humans, Lord, and sound like words that would lead to our ruin, but let us not forget the many people in history who were designated evil for holding unconventional points of view; remember the ‘evils’ inflicted upon us by Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Eleanor Roosevelt, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Anne Frank, Raoul Wallenberg, Florence Nightingale, the Dalai Lama, the Buddha, Confucius, Laozi, Guru Nanak, the Prophet Mohammed Peacebeuponhim, Jesus and so many others who committed the unforgivable sin of abandoning ordinary human behavior and being different.

Let us be patient, humble, selfless, respectful, compassionate, understanding, without vice, without desire, and without a mind so weak that men and women may fill it with their own prejudices.

Blessed be you, Lord, for giving us free will to act as we choose. Blessed be you, Lord, that lets your children find their way in the world by themselves one year after the next. Let us work towards a world at peace.

Mark Potter.

March 2007

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