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Professor Randall's Note: I have had a bumpy relationship with religion. My foster mother (who bootlegged and who was abusive) made us go to church.  She use to say "Go to church and thank God because he is helping me do this." The this to me was being abusive, so I thought-- well if god is helping you abuse me than who the fuck needs God."  Although I am agnostic, I find a certain amount of comfort in the gospel music and prayers. One of my favorite prayers is one that is wrongly attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi. Nevertheless, to my mothers and fathers, my sisters and brothers, my daughters and sons, I offer myself and my work to you with the Peace Prayer:

 

BlackWomanGod

Lord, 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.

Lord, grant that I might 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