I’ve been thinking about the Prayer of St. Francis recently and thought I’d share the Sarah McLachlan version with you.

Play song from Lala.com*

We like this prayer here at MoF: John recommended it for a secular meditation and I as a secular prayer for strength.

At that last link, I removed what I saw as unnecessary religious overtones. But I recently found a German translation which, although it has more God in it than I’d like, and more masculine-normative pronouns, I find to be even more beautiful than the traditional English translation—I’ll try to convey it back into English:

Oh Lord, make me into a Mechanism of your Peace:
that I practice Love, where people hate me,
that I forgive, where people offend you,
that I bring together that which is separated,
that I speak the Truth where Error rules,
that I bring Belief where Doubt oppresses,
that I awaken Hope where Despair torments,
that I spark Light where Darkness reigns,
that I create Joy where Sorrow lives.
Lord, may you make me to aspire:
not, that I myself am consoled, but rather that I console others,
not, that I myself am understood, but rather that I understand others,
not, that I myself am loved, but rather that I love others.
Because he who sacrifices—receives,
Who loses himself—finds,
Who forgives—he will be forgiven,
and who dies—awakens to eternal life.

(I like the capitalization in German: God’s pronouns are not capitalized but platonic ideals like Truth and Peace are)

I like that it’s not just a list (where there’s x, let me bring y) but that each pair is poetically nestled. Ignition of Light in the place where Darkness reigns is a much better visual image than in that traditional English version. The word used for “Darkness” is also the word for “eclipse”; it brings to my mind not just the darkness of night (in the city, as I have known it), in which one can still see, but a kind of complete and total darkness where your eyes are open but they might as well be closed. I also like that some of the pairs are personal: not “where there is injury, pardon” but, “when I have been injured, let me forgive” and “where people hate me, may I practice Love”; that seems harder, somehow.

May we all be strong when we are most weak—not by some supernatural power but by our own strength, which is always with us.

* if the link above doesn’t work (it only works once on a computer), here’s a link to the least annoying video of this song that I found.