Submitted by Karen:

School Prayer

In the name of the day break
and the eyelids of morning,
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,

I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.

In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,

I will honor all life
–where ever and in whatever form
it may dwell– on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.

Diane Ackerman, I Praise My Destroyer, Random House, 1998