This was on The Writer’s Almanac earlier this week and if they had prayers like this in schools, I would be a lot less concerned about future generations. (Alternate titles that would also be good: “Hippie Prayer” and “Vegan’s Oath.”)

School Prayer

by Diane Ackerman

In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

 

(All joking aside, “healer of misery” is pretty powerful. Who wouldn’t want to be that?)