I try everyday to think, act, and speak in a good and healthy way. I don't always succeed, but I try. Sometimes I still allow anger to get in the way of my better judgment and acquired knowledge.

Yes, I am angry about the way things are being handled by our government and the direction our country and culture are headed in. But, I cannot allow those feelings to live long inside me. I cannot let the burning feeling of desperation and helplessness to manifest itself in my heart for more than a moment. I must continue to follow the path of learning and inner peace. I have a roadmap for that and its a roadmap written in hundreds of texts from several millennia of acquired wisdom. Part of that path is beautifully captured in this prayer.

It has been an inspiration and a guide to me.

Lord, Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, Great Spirit, Vishnu, make me a channel of thy 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 is 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 by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.