“Holy God, make us one” is the “breath prayer” (Christian mantra) I have been using for the last year or so. I pray it in time with my breathing when I’m trying to “center,” fight off anxiety, go to sleep, or at other odd times! This personalized form of the Jesus prayer has been taught for years by an old friend, Ron Delbene, and I value it highly.
You simply name before God your deepest need or desire (in my case, that we all be one), then couple that with a favorite “name” for God — Lord, Savior, Jesus, Spirit, Holy God, etc. And then put those together to craft a simple six to eight syllable prayer…mantra.
Regular readers of this web log will surmise that I began praying this with special intention for the ecumenical movement and the search for Christian unity. But I have recently seen it as perfectly applicable in so many areas of our divided and broken society and culture. We need to “be one:
in our families…in our own Christian communions/denominations…between the churches…one some level, even between our major faith traditions…
but also in our communities, so divided between rich and poor…in our nation, split right down the middle between so-called “red states” or populations and “blue states” or populations (witness the stalemate over health care reform…)
in our world, with “wars and rumors of wars” flaring all around us…Iraq and Afghanistan…Sudan…Nigeria…the Middle East…Iran following us into the absurdity of nuclear arms…so many more…
Our need to stand in solidarity with those in Haiti…Chile…Turkey…and other places devastated by natural disasters. We need to “be one” with them as well.
So join me in praying…and working…toward that unity…
Holy God, Make Us One…
That We All May Be One 
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