One Foot in AA

Not that I think I need it (yet), but I have always respected the Alcoholics Anonymous way of rehabilitation and healing. A writer I worship, Anne Lamott, has been through AA and always throws out the most amazing revelations from that experience in her writing. For example, she said that AA taught her that "expectations are resentments waiting to happen."

My God.

Why didn't someone tattoo that on my forehead when I was born? How much easier would life be if we brought that mantra into every relationship? Especially the relationship with ourselves, which just happens to be the very one that I have been struggling with for oh...let's see...30.5 years.

Anyway, I carry a book to all of my hospice visits called "Prayers for Healing," full of blessings and poems from around the world. I am finding that this book is magical because I seem to open it every day and it says exactly what I need to hear.

Now back to AA. I always knew that they also used the serenity prayer as a part of their ongoing healing and rehabilitation practice. What I did not know was there is an extended version of this prayer, which I found in "Prayers for Healing" today. Yup, you guessed it. Exactly what I needed to hear. I pass it on to all of you so that your divine eyes, full of goodness might read it now:

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.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

*My note: This prayer is still amazing, but I tend to shy away from the genderizing of God. In fact, if you were to ever have a conversation with me, or look back on any former post with mention of God, you will see that I simply say God. Never Him. Never Her. That is not how it should be and I have not been struck down by lightning yet, so I am pretty sure I am right on this one.