An Ode to Serenity Prayer
Many of us pray, don’t we? We all have varied reasons for saying our prayers. For
some, it’s out of fear; for some, it’s out of reverence and for many amongst us,
it’s out of sheer habit. Having been exposed to varied forms of prayers (thanks
to my schooling under varied religious trusts), I have noticed a couple of
things. Mostly, a prayer is a note of thanks to a higher power. Many a time, it
is asking for forgiveness and it also becomes an earnest supplication for protection at
times.
Since prayer largely concerns our ‘self’,
we tend to lack objectivity. This is the reason why we commit the gravest of
sins and have the audacity to ask for forgiveness. This is why we reach out to the
higher power only in times of need and conveniently forget otherwise. This
serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr that I came across made a lot of sense and I think that objectivity is what makes it so
unique and universal.
It
goes like this:
God,
grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The
courage to change the things I can,
And
wisdom to know the difference.
This prayer addresses our world and
thus our lives in to two – that which can be changed and that which cannot be.
Through my eyes, I see it as a prayer to help us to do away with the feeling of
‘regret’ in our lives. I look at ‘regret’ as cancer to spirit of our soul.
We regret about things that could
have been done differently. Do not mistake regret with repentance. There is
learning involved in repenting because in that state, we learn from our
mistakes and thus strive to become better beings. In ‘regretting’, all we are
doing is putting ourselves in to misery due to an occurrence from the past which
cannot be undone. These are among things that we cannot change.
In the second line, again it
implores for power to not get in to the downward spiral of regret is what I feel. It asks for the
strength of mind to go ahead and do things which one is capable of. It implores
within to make a difference in the lives of one self and of others. It asks for
courage to not hold back when one is capable of doing something noble. Largely,
we are asking to be blessed with contentment when we look back in Life.
It is said we worry mostly about
the eventualities that never happen in reality. We think in our own mind about
things that could go wrong and the repercussions there of. We should know what
is worth fretting about and what’s not. Hence the need for wisdom to know the
difference between both.
Don’t you think these three lines of
prayer embody our journey of Life in itself?
Arun Babu
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