These days Prayer Group begins in a new way. The tenor of the prayer and our agita over the harm being done by the current administration had risen to an untenable level. It had become overwhelming. We had to do something.
We end Prayer Group with the Lord’s Prayer. So I thought maybe beginning with the Serenity Prayer might put us in a better frame of mind and set up our prayer concerns in a context of some helpful triage.
It turns out the history and authorship of the Serenity Prayer is long and unclear. While most often attributed to UCC theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, it may well have been first written by Winnifred Wygal, a national staffer for the YWCA movement. It seems to have been composed in the early 30’s in response to the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany.
Since the earliest versions were shared widely (through the YWCA and media), they have resonated with various historical and personal situations, and eventually were adopted by Aloholics Anonymous and commercialized by Hallmark Cards. My grandmother had a decopauged plaque of the Serenity Prayer on her bedroom wall right, below a print of Warner Stall’s the “Head of Christ.” I always thought it was there as a memorial to the generations of alcoholics in our family (in every family?)!
In Prayer Group, we are using the longer version of the prayer, more than the tripartite beginning most of us are familiar with. I read that Neibuhr’s daughter questions the long form – there’s not much that feels “Niebuhrian” in anything that comes after “the wisdom to know the difference.” Instead, it feels a little cobbled together – various, unrelated pietistic strands and theologies that don’t quite jive. But we’re trying praying it all anyway …
Daniel Hunter, an organizer and strategist with Training for Change, has a journaling exercise he has developed in the onslaught of Trump’s chaos, policy boondoggles and misdeeds. It’s sort of the Serenity Prayer in practice. He triages what he can respond to. Considering all the demanding issues, he separates them into four categories:
~’Those I’ll completely throw down for;
~ Those I’ll do a lot for;
~ Those I’ll do a little for; or
~ Those — despite caring about — I’ll do nothing at all about.’
He admits that last category is difficult… it feels bad, irresponsible. But realistically, one can do only so much, and it’s important to recognize there are others to do this work too. It’s good strategy to accept you cannot do it all.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the 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 Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that Christ will make all things right if I surrender to God’s will;
…that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
and supremely happy with God in the next. Amen.
In faith and courage,
Michael
