In his own time, though, Francis was beloved for his taming of wild animals. The story goes that around 1220, a wolf was terrorizing the Italian city of Gubbio. It snapped up livestock and eventually graduated to humans. They became his preferred meals, and at last, no human who dared venture outside the city walls was safe. Francis, who was living in the city at the time, told the townsfolk he was going to parley with the wolf, and passed beyond the city walls, citizens trailing a little way behind. He went up to the wolf’s lair. When it came out, it made as if to devour him, but he made the sign of the cross and commanded it in the name of God to stop its depredations. It meekly laid its head at his feet. But Francis was not quite done. “Brother wolf,” he said – the citizens were close enough to hear this part...There are numerous downsides to our modern urban lifestyle. We are surrounded by screeching cars and trains. We breathe in exhaust and chemical fumes. We need supplements and expensive lamps to deal with how little sunshine we get. Running from one thing to the next, we eat processed foods with low nutritional value. But we (rural people included) benefit from the developments of the industrialized world, like clean water and warm houses and antibiotics. There are good things about the unnatural world that we live in.
