God give us grace to accept with Serenity the things that cannot be changed...

Among what cannot be changed is the reality of evil.

Our separateness from God is a necessary corollary to our freedom of decision.

In exercising freedom we easily fall into self-assertion, especially when convinced of our own righteousness.

The more our decisions express and empower our separate self, the greater the potential for evil.

This is the human condition. The potential for and reality of evil will not change.

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. Amen.

For many years I had a mixed reaction to the so-called Serenity Prayer, or at least its first stanza. As a young man I was uncomfortable with what seemed an undertow of fatalism.

But the courage to change the things which should be changed would not allow me to dismiss the prayer entirely.

With years and experience, I better understand there are things that cannot be changed. (I first wrote, there may very well be things that cannot be changed. This remains a wisdom I resist.)

At some point in the last ten years or so I encountered the second stanza, beginning with, "Living one day at a time..."

Taking this sinful world as it is, gave depth to the things that cannot be changed. Learning that Reinhold Neibuhr was the author gave context to each word and phrase.

In the days ahead I will give the prayer close consideration.

Gracious and loving God, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for being with us today. Help us to know you. Help us to join with you in creating, healing, and being. Help us in our observing, deciding, and doing. May we find and stay on the way you intend. When we go another way - wounding others, hurting ourselves, and neglecting you - do not cease to seek our return. May our relationship with others reflect the love and liberty you have given us. We know you are always with us, help us to truly be with you.

This is one form of my common prayer. Before a meal, on a special occasion, as I enter into conflict or potential conflict, something like this is what I will say aloud or silently.

It is based, I hope, on the pattern of the Lord's Prayer. We begin by acknowledging the identity of God. For me the Kingdom of God is revealed and present, but we usually deny it.

We need help in our daily doing. We need help recognizing that what we do in the present moment is how we are co-creators (or not) with God.

We acknowledge our failures. I am especially concerned with how I too often treat others as means to my ends, rather than profound ends in themselves.

I seek to deepen my relationship with God and with others. In these relationships I perceive is the way of ultimate reality.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

Surely towb: good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, valuable, charming, becoming better, beautiful...

and chesed: good, kind, lovely, loyal, loving, faithful, devoted... shall follow me all the days of my life.

There is a sense that towb is an experience of the external world while chesed describes our interior experience. Goodness is what we encounter. Mercy is what we bring with us to the encounter.

The prayer does not promise that towb is all we will encounter. Even in this short prayer there is talk of enemies, evil, and death's valley.

But when we open ourselves to God's chesed, even the deepest wounds we have caused or received can be healed.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

I am my own worst enemy.

I can subvert, distract, and defeat myself more effectively than anyone else.

Yet despite myself - and often without intention - I can contribute to, cooperate with, and experience such exquisite grace.

I am anointed as a child of God. My meaning is found and my purpose is achieved in relationship with God.

In relationship God's gifts are continual and overflowing.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff - they comfort me.

Increasingly it is the presence of God that is most meaningful to me.

I do not expect dramatic interventions, but I very much depend upon God's company.

God offers guidance, his staff touches my shoulder warning to choose another way. If I am paying attention, God is leading me along the path that is best for me.

But whether I am on the path or have blithely wandered, God is there.

There is comfort in companionship.

He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

Only once have I been seriously lost. I was hiking the woods alone (the same woods I had known since sixth grade).

The aim of the hike was to get beyond where we had gone before. On the northeast corner of our known world was a big marsh, maybe 15 to 20 acres. In spring it could be a shallow lake. Given time and difficulty, we had never been to the other side of that swampy ground.

We called the swamp Death Valley. When we first found it the bleached bones of cattle were scattered in piles across its edge. Here and there the cattle had been trapped in the mud, struggled, died, feasted upon, leaving their own bones as grave markers.

It took considerable time and care to find a way through Death Valley. Then I climbed the rocky cliff that I had seen but never stood upon. Tired I lay prone at the top of the cliff surveying the tangled scene I had gotten through.

Far below, barely half-way across the swamp, coming a different way than I had, was a boy/man. Given distance even the gender identification was more assumption than observation.

I had asked my friend Mark to hike with me. I decided that his baseball practice must have been canceled. Standing I yelled, "Mark, here I am."

I don't remember the reply. But the voice was much deeper than Mark's fourteen or fifteen year-old scratchy tenor.

I ran until I could run no more. I ran until I was breathless, bending over wheezing. I ran full-speed where I had never been before.

Where I finally stopped was, of course, entirely unrecognizable. Even if I had wanted to, I could not have easily found my way back to the cliff's edge, the edge of what I knew.

Quieting my fear and collecting my wits, I roughly situated where I needed to go from the sun's position. I set out to connect with the old east-west cut that was once the road used to haul out the coal.

There was no path. Only a direction. In that direction were ponds I could not cross, cliffs I could not climb, and thorny thickets that tore at my clothes and skin, but after hours I made my way.

I had not run far. The ground was too rough for that. But it did not take long for fear and ignorance to make it very difficult for me to get back to the right path.