St. Francis Redux for a Time of Crisis

Lord, make me an instrument of your surprise:
where there is convention, let me sow dissension;
where there is conformity, abnormity;
where there is insistence, coexistence.

detail from wood door, St. Francis, Derby, United Kingdom, by Rachael Cox for unsplash

And alongside the saintly Assisian,
let me sow hope where there is despair,
light where there is darkness,
and joy where sadness abides.

O divine Disruptor, grant that I may not so much seek
to be the rule as to be the exception,
to be the norm as to be the outlier,
to believe in falsehoods as to be true to truth.

For it is in standing up that we do not fall down,
it is in standing for that we stay honest,
and, as sister Alice Walker reminds us,
it is in resisting that we possess the secret of joy.

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