The St. Francis Project

My friend Bob is facilitating a blog project during the month of February that interprets, reflects on, or applies The Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is breaking the prayer down into four sections --- because our house has had the flu running rampant and other life challenges this week, I am just now getting to the first entry. Better a day late, than a dollar short, so here goes my thoughts on the first three lines:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

The first line really sums up how I see God in my life. For me, teaching and the work I do at church is my way of impacting the world in a positive way and hopefully bringing about change and peace as an instrument of God. I see children and youth as the great change agents for the future. I know it sounds passe, but plant a seed now and watch it grow to bloom and eventually bear fruit.
Let’s face it, much of our society has pushed the “me” concept to the limit and that is what our children see everywhere they go. Especially during the season of Lent, it becomes most apparent to me because our home practices the tradition of giving something up in our lives. I become more keenly aware at this time of year about how much we have and those around us possess. As a society, we are blitzed by media to desire the latest phone, the bigger car, the nicer house, the newest technology gadget that will make our life easier. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the concept of improving oneself or bettering your station in life. However, do we ever ask ourselves, when is enough, enough? How easy does life truly have to be? How selfish are we as human beings?
I spent part of this past week leading the youth of my church to participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring by canvassing a neighborhood for canned food to benefit our local community food pantry. In collecting the food, it was interesting to see how people reacted to the request. Many were happy to go inside and find some items from their pantry for us, others felt like by asking for food, we were somehow pushing God on them. One man even went so far as to slam the door in the face of a youth after screaming at him, “don’t sell your Jesus to me.” This is a part of town I live in, work in and worship in ---- we all have way more than we need in life. I ask myself, what more peace bearing activity can you do than having youth trying to help others with the most basic need in life ---- nourishment.
I have to ask, what would happen if some of that “me”energy and resources were to get redirected to solving some of society’s ills? What kind of world would we see then? For many, the concept of peace is simply about war. However, I think the concept of peace goes way beyond war. Aggression happens in many arenas --- if not, we wouldn’t see shootings, children beaten, domestic violence, school, work and church upheaval and men going into shopping malls and shooting innocent people.
So where does this leave us? For me, I get up and go to work each day hoping to make a difference in a child’s life. Hopefully, opening their eyes to the possiblities this world has for them, imparting knowledge to them, igniting creativity and getting them to look at the world in a different way outside their video game and its creator’s view of reality. For me, this is being an instrument of God.
My week ended with working alongside youth at our local food pantry, stocking what we gathered and sorting other donations. Seeing those empty shelves become restocked by the hands of youth gives me hope that not all kids will grow to be all about “me.” My prayer is that these kids become the leaders of tomorrow and truly work to alleviate the ills that plague our world today. Gotta have faith.