PRAYER

It seems to me…

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.

I started saying that prayer about twenty years ago. At that time is was a tool to quiet a very active and troubled mind. By just saying it over and over and over again, my mind was put into a different groove than the painful one it had been stuck in. With a different focus, I was no longer continuing to amp up the stuck painful place. Temporary relief.

One of the marvels of a prayer or the act of prayer is how my relationship to it changes over time. How the ways I can and do use it grow and develop. How even my ideas of what prayer is grow and change over time.

It took a while for my mind to quiet down enough to begin to explore the words of the serenity prayer. Its meaning to me has changed greatly over the years.

God, grant me… a request, not a demand. A want rather than a need. A gift, given. Not acquired through trying harder and harder to achieve.

Serenity… a, more often than not, temporary state of mind. But one not dependent upon external situations or conditions.

To accept… acceptance is not resignation. It comes from the gift of surrender, not from an act of will. Trying to accept is like trying to stop drinking.

The things I cannot change… what is it really that I can change? Apparently not much. Certainly not other people or life as it is. Any change in my actions and thoughts seems to come as a gift. More often despite my efforts, than because of them. And usually not until I’ve worn out trying.

The courage… not fearless, but despite my fear.

To change the things I can… over the years much has changed in my life, but I have serious doubts as to how much, if any of it, I have changed.

And the wisdom… I used to think wisdom was the exclusive realm of the mind. Now I have had a great deal of experience that tells me there is much more wisdom available than that.

To know the difference… not knowing used to be a very uncomfortable place. Over the last many years, somehow I’ve accessed a peace that very much includes, and is probably only sustainable by, believing that I probably don’t know.

For the last five years, the primary prayer in my life is and has been…

“May I be free from suffering and the cause of suffering. May all that arises, be transformed into wisdom and compassion.”

A stated request or intention. A mirror in which I watch myself react to life and my wants and desires. A mirror in which I watch myself react to not getting my wants and desires met by life. By substituting we for I, it is a mirror in which I can see the commonality of us all. We all share the desire to be happy and free from suffering. And do we ever go about it in different ways. And it still can function as a different groove than the one I’ve been stuck in.

love to you all, rick

may you be free from suffering and the cause of suffering.