Prayer of St. Francis

I made this image yesterday morning near Rye, New Hampshire: the shore seemed like a good place to welcome the new year. This Christmas season has been bittersweet with the sudden death of my father on December 9th; since he gave me my first SLR camera as a college graduation present, beginning 2011 by heading over to photograph the sun coming up on New Year's morning felt like the right thing to do in his memory.

I paired the Prayer of St. Francis with this image of day breaking on 1-1-11 to make an electronic "postcard" for The Christian Gift's community of friends. Given the recent turn of events in my family, the last line spoke especially eloquently to me this time around.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

In loving memory of Walter G. Metschke