God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.
The
timeless truth of The Serenity Prayer has been a refuge and comfort for many. I
recognize and acknowledge its wisdom.
I just have one problem with it. When cathartic change is coming, (as it now is)—when soul-wrenching, extreme socio-political catharsis is presently upon us—The Serenity Prayer can be one big cop-out; instead of a being “balm for realists,” it sure can be a “show-stopper for patriotic visionaries”
The prayer begs the question: What is reality?—more so that which I cannot change, than that which I might.
More precisely, the prayer asks of people: How much of what is accepted as reality is real and how much of it is unreal, namely, how much has acceptance simply been the result of conditioning, trance?
NOTE: Be careful here; questioning what is real can quickly earn you the label of being “crazy”; and speaking “too much truth” can easily ostracize you from society, not to mention your friends and family.
Human beings are spirit beings, thinking beings capable of discernment. Discerning beings are those who wonder, research, weigh, calculate, surmise, examine and re-examine, converse and debate conclusions—all within a holistic framework of physical, mental and spiritual dimensions; with those dimensions working together synergistically.
We are living beings who are capable of recognizing our own divinity but also credit God Almighty, our Creator, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, a God Who allows transgressions of evil into this world in order that we may experience and know the absence of our divinity, the polar opposites of the sacred, the true, and the real; a God Who allows freewill, freedom to choose; Who allows us to suffer those choices in order that we may bear our burdens, triumph over them, and ultimately learn from suffering the results of our bad, unwise choices—or, Who stands by when we suffer the difficulties of making a righteous-yet-necessary choice.
To choose evil over good is sin. But then, that sin must be gauged along with our imperfections. What if we become addicted to strong drink in order to be able to deal with an unbearable suffering over which we may have no real control or cannot totally fathom? How much of a sin is that?
Is “situational” relativity relevant after all? Perhaps only to the degree of culpability.
Only God can judge the person; man discerns ignorance, pathos, and judges only actions of people and in some cases their failures to act, the results of which cause harm to others. These harms are called law-breaking, namely, crimes or civil wrongs. Being “unlawful” is the very definition of sin; and to sin against the divinity of self and/or against that of your neighbor is also to sin against God.
And so, The Serenity Prayer recognizes that we have to know our own limits. That is common sense. To expect too much from ourselves only sets us up for failure and disappointment; to stay within the bounds of our realized limits, on the other hand, brings us “serenity,” which I would define as a sort of relaxed and peaceful joy.
This, then begs another question: How is it that we come to know our limits?
We know them by testing them, and in order to test them we have to first have a certain sensibility that we are capable of doing or successfully refraining from doing a certain something. This can be measured by how much physical (arm wrestling) or mental (debating) or spiritual prowess (steadfastness in conscience) we think we possess and which we think might bear up via a demonstration.
The inhibitions of knowing our own limits are patrolled by fear: fear of failure: fear of the anticipated results and imagined effects of failure on both ourselves and in regard to others. Fear can prevent us from ever testing our own limits. This compounds the initial problem because we might never get to know our own limits for fear of testing them!
It has been variously said that Reinhold Neibuhr himself denied writing [The Serenity Prayer], and credited Friedrich Oetinger, an 18th century theologian [actually lived from 1872 to 1941], with its authorship; or that it was actually written in 500 A.D. by a philosopher named Boethius who was martyred for the Christian Faith.Both of these theories have since been discredited, and it does now appear that the Theologian Reinhold Neibuhr was the actual author (he also did in fact claim credit for it). Niebuhr was a major influence on the German Pastor and Nazi resister, DietrichBonhoeffer.
God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.________________________________________
The Full Version
God, grant me the SerenityTo accept the things I cannot change...Courage to change the things I can,And Wisdom to know the difference.Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
Amen.________________________________________
The Original Full Version
God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.
Being “quietly complacent” and “dedicated to God” (as opposed to “the world”) is oft times, though not always, incompatible.
Then again, being “unflappable” because you have an interior strength of mind and heart and soul is, I think, an admirable trait.
So, what is one to say or do? What is proper and right and good? And what is the test of whether or not you have even a sense of your own limits?
I’d say one gauge is being able to smile and even laugh (good-naturedly) in the face of ignorance and ask questions. Such an ability displays one’s capacity to remain detached from the triggers that can often lead to conflict, to possibly compromising one’s limits. (Think of James Garner—real name “James Scott Bumgarner”—as Rockford in that old TV show, The Rockford Files; that casual, suave and easy-going temperament he could display in even the most stressful of situations.)
My answer is as follows:
First, listen to this 4-minute video presentation: Linda Thomas: The United States Has Always Been and Still Is a British Crown Colony
In times of catharsis and chaos, the proper, right and responsible way forward is to publicly criticize the immoral, unethical, namely, “sinful” actions or failures to act of others. Name-stealing, liberty-denying activities by such entities as subverted governments, corporations, and their mercenaries—and subverted religions and other institutions—all infiltrated by secret societies behind the scenes, are, in my opinion, the targets most worthy of all people's ire and contempt. What level-headed patriot would disagree, especially when we are discovering remedies against them?
How you choose to put forward your critique is a matter of personal choice. I do that
with my blog posts, and aspire to walk-my-talk in my everyday interactions with
people (and bear the social consequences).
There—I’ve said my piece. I hope this piece-of-my-mind brings you peace, if not serenity. If it does not, well, perhaps it is high time to start putting your discernment to work.
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| There's no need to stay HOODWINKED any longer! |
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