©Ken Wilson, 2018
The Serenity Prayer, made famous by its use in Alcoholics Anonymous, is ready made prayer for inner turmoil.
WHAT’S A READY-MADE PRAYER ANYWAY?
Anthony Bloom, a doctor who served in the French resistance during WWII, then became a bishop in Eastern Orthodox Church, wrote a great little book on prayer called, Beginning to Pray. Bloom orients us to “Ready Made” prayers. He says spontaneous prayers (from the heart and on-the-fly) are good for “peaks & valleys.” Something great happens and you bust out with “THANK YOU GOD!” Or you’re in dire straits and cry, HELP GOD! These prayers erupt like geysers when our hearts are full of joy or desperation.
But most of time, our hearts not bursting with anything. Enter Step 11 of AA: “we sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God” Ready-Made prayers are daily-bread prayers—prayers for the daily slog.
AA has done a service for all of us by field-testing prayers, finding ones that help us in our powerless places. These prayers were not selected by monks, nuns, or some liturgical commission, but by mostly non-religious types who are battling inner demons like we all do.
MADE FAMOUS BY ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
The Serenity Prayer is one of a handful of go-to prayers used in AA.
The original version was composed by Reinhold Niebuhr, a theologian-ethicist. Niebuhr led a church in Detroit in the 1920’s. During this period, the KKK was prominent in Detroit politics. Niebuhr organized against Klan during a key city council election when Klan and White Supremacy was on rise in Detroit, a fact that has contemporary relevance. Both Martin Luther King Jr. and President Barak Obama were fans of Reinhold Niebuhr.
Here is the full version of The Serenity Prayer:
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. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships 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 first line of the prayer is well known, but AA’s motto “one day at time” comes from longer form.
Bill Wilson, one of the founders of AA, wrote in the Big Book: “we…select & memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discovering” Select—find ones that fit your need, then Memorize—like you memorize password for smart phone, for readiness/ease of use (87).
He later wrote: “Whenever I find myself under acute tensions, I lengthen my daily walks and slowly repeat our Serenity Prayer in rhythm to my steps and breathing” (As Bill W. Sees It 250). So this prayer is especially helpful for times when anxiety, distress, fear, envy, resentment, or moldering anger are wearing you down.
THE SERENITY PRAYER, LINE-BY-LINE
Let’s review it line by line: God grant me the serenity… The thing Jesus dispensed to distressed people first was peace, reassurance. When he could cut the anxiety with a knife in the room, he would say, “Peace be with you.” Just as fear/anxiety is contagious, serenity/calm/peace is too. We can catch it from God.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; Some things are within our control, other things beyond our control. Which it is, matters. Many us have strong instinct to control along with an exaggerated hope of control in every situation—a fiction we maintain to shield ourselves from how vulnerable we are. We tend to ignore the possibility that some things are beyond our control…and we only bear down harder in an effort to exert control.
It’s a bit like digging a hole and you hit a rock with the shovel. At first, you bear down—bam/bam/bam. Maybe you break the shovel. Eventually you learn to accept the rock-like existence of the rock—you admit the rock has the upper hand, and you dig around it.
These are two different strategies, depending on different situation: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
AH YES, WISDOM!
It’s not always clear thought whether something is within our control or beyond our control. For that, we need wisdom. In the Bible, wisdom (Gk. sophia) is gendered as a female attribute of God. She is personified as Lady Wisdom, described as a lover. Her femininity isn’t the eighteen century, dainty-Victorian version either. Lady wisdom calls out in the streets, throws banquets, builds a house (hewing her own pillars), and mixes her own wine.
If your image of God is hyper-masculine, pray for wisdom and picture wisdom as a woman who is a lover, builder, pillar-hewer, party-thrower, wine-mixer (a full-of-life being, not a scold).
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. Living one day at a time….
Much suffering is a function of projecting fear-driven future scenarios. Psychologist call this “catastrophic thinking.” You notice an ache or pain…but then your brain hops on the calamity train. First stop: picture needing a biopsy; next stop: bad news from the oncologist; then you’re dying a miserable death. If you’re good at catastrophic thinking you may even fuss that your loved ones won’t survive losing you, or worse, that nobody mill miss you. Then it occurs to you: it’s only a minor ache, maybe it was those push-ups you did yesterday.
This phrase,” living one day-at-a-time” signals your brain to get off the calamity train. Or in the words of Jesus, “each day has troubles enough of its own.”
DON”T FORGET TO ENJOY THE MOMENT AND HOW YOU FRAME YOUR HARDSHIP MATTERS
enjoying one moment at a time… I eat desserts too fast—while eating one bite, I’m thinking of the next. When the dessert is gone, I always regret not savoring it. Even when life in general sucks, there’s always some simple pleasure to be enjoyed in the moment.
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace Hardships happen (“in this world you will have trouble”) but how we frame them matters. If we frame them as a hostile universe (or worse, God) punishing us, we empower them to further torment us.
If we frame hardships as a path to peace, we reduce their power to bully us. I remember those years of small children getting sick—ear infections, colds, flu, croup, colic, teething, food allergies, all had a rippling misery-affect (lost sleep, increased irritability, cabin fever, worry, doctors visits). But as long as they survive, all those infections are necessary to build a robust immune system to fight off stronger threats. A number of us who started this church went through a weird-religious ordeal together, and while the suffering was real, and leaves its scars to this day, it led to something better.
That’s a framing—seeing hardships as a pathway to peace. “We must through many hardships enter the kingdom of God” is the wording St. Paul used.
taking, as He did, this sinful world, as it is, not as I would have it… There’s a difference between wanting to improve the world and imposing our will on it. If Jesus is God-in-flesh appearing (with rights over the world) it’s instructive that he didn’t whip the world into shape. He prophetically overturned the tables of the money-changers in the temple, but the next day business went back to usual. For someone who accepted the title “Lord” he was pretty patient-tolerant of the sinful world as it is. He operated within a limited/human frame. He did extraordinary deeds of power but not on a grand scale: mostly one-on-one. Yes, he fed 5,000—but not 5 million.
Jesus saw more suffering up close than most of us do, and he did more to alleviate it, but he did not stew in frustration at the world’s resistance to change. He took time alone to recharge, observed the Sabbath, enjoyed parties—even as he set about improving things. He took the world as it is, not as he would have it be.
trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to His will… Not “trusting that God will make all things right, so I don’t have to do anything about it”…but trusting that God will make all things right if I surrender to His will. God has his BIG PART but I have my necessary small part—surrender to his will.
REASONABLY HAPPY, THAT’S DOABLE, BUT MORE MAY BE COMING
that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next… Since the 1970’s everyone tells everyone to dream big dreams—the mantra from pre-school on is “you can be anything you want to be!” The Serenity Prayer offers a more modest expectation, “that I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy in the next”
Not wildly happy, reasonably happy. Not happy all the time, but happy enough given the constraints we’re all under…but never letting go of the hope of a future supreme happiness…because the little joys we experience are just a hint of an inexhaustible storehouse of joy just beyond our present capacity to absorb…
Modesty and moderation of expectation combined with go-for-broke hope…that’s a potent combo.
PRAYERS SHAPE THE DESIRES OF OUR HEARTS
Think of prayer as a way to shape the desires of your heart. We find ourselves wanting things that don’t lead to happiness, joy, well-being. We need help shaping the desires of our heart. Think about this prayer—is it the sort of prayer that would shape the desire of your heart in a desirable-to-you direction?
Is this a prayer you want to select and memorize?
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. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that God 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