A Prayer for Morning

A Prayer for Morning

I am so weary, Father, of using myself
as the measure of everything and everybody.
Just for this one day, I beg you,
help me to find release from the old pattern
of seeing the different-from-me
as either less-than or more-than me.
Grant instead that, for just this one day at least,
I may see everything and everybody I meet
in terms of how I want you to see me
at this day's end.

-Phyllis Tickle from Race and Prayer: Collected Voices, Many Dreams, edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester Talton. Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.