40:00 Center City - Prayer of St. Francis

I ran a big loop, down 3rd to South Street, down South to Broad, up Broad to Arch, back to work. It's a little less than 4 miles.

By rights I didn't listen to anything. I was thinking about the Prayer of St. Francis-- I should preface this by saying that I'm not a Christian-- I guess I'm not really anything, but I'm pretty spiritual, and I'm kind of at a spot where I need a little boost. A friend suggested this prayer:

Make me an instrument of your peace

that where there is hatred I may bring love

that where there is wrong I may bring the spirit of forgiveness

that where there is discord I may bring harmony

that where there error I may bring truth

that where there is doubt I may bring faith

that where there is despair I may bring hope

that where there are shadows I may bring light

that where there is sadness I may bring joy.

Grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted

to understand than to be understood

to love than to be loved.

For it is in self-forgetting that one is found

in foregiving that one is foregiven

in dying that one awakens to eternal life.

I just thought about that while I was running, with the idea that a lot of what I am faced with will not respond to a frontal attack-- maybe it won't respond to any attack at all.