A Longer Look at the Serenity Prayer

In my previous blog post, I recommended watching Michael Dowd’s 25-minute YouTube video titled “Serenity Prayer for the 21^st Century.” Since watching that video a couple of weeks ago, I have been thinking more about the serenity prayer and I invite you, too, to take a longer look at it.

Looking at the Serenity Prayer

In its shortest form, the serenity prayer consists of three simple petitions, artistically presented as follows: 

As you probably know, the serenity prayer is the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) prayer recited at the end of each AA meeting.

AA.com also has a link to a 12-page pdf titled “Origin of The Serenity Prayer: A Historical Paper.” In spite of similar statements made by various people, the conclusion is that American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892~1971) penned the prayer in its present form.

Even though Niebuhr’s prayer is universally known as the serenity prayer, it actually includes petitions for three things: serenity, courage, and wisdom. It is also noteworthy that serenity is linked to acceptance. Denying or struggling against the inevitable always destroys serenity.

This prayer, though, asks God for courage and wisdom as well as serenity, so perhaps it should be called the serenity/courage/wisdom prayer. Indeed, Niebuhr’s main intent may well have been a call to courageous action, rather than a serenity that fails to work for necessary changes in society.

Looking at the Longer Serenity Prayer

In the above-mentioned video, Dowd emphasizes the next three lines of the serenity prayer that, he says, a lot of people don’t know:

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace,

These are good words. Regardless of what we have faced in the past or are going to face in the future, living and enjoying one day/moment at a time is truly the pathway to personal peace.

Those words of Niebuhr written in the early 1940s are similar to the emphasis on mindfulness by Thích Nhất Hạnh, the venerable Vietnamese Buddhist monk who died on January 22. He taught,

When we are mindful, deeply in touch with the present moment, our understanding of what is going on deepens, and we begin to be filled with acceptance, joy, peace and love.

These words by Thích Nhất Hạnh, as well as the three lines in the serenity prayer that are not widely known, do nothing to help solve the crisis of global warming or the likely collapse of industrial civilization. But they do help us to live calmly and at peace in spite of looming crises.

Looking at the Longer Serenity Prayer

The longest version of the serenity prayer as given on the website of Alcoholics Anonymous (and elsewhere) includes all of the lines cited above followed by these words:

Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make things right
If I surrender to His will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

These final lines of the serenity prayer regularly spoken by AA members are even less widely known than the three lines mentioned in the previous section—and are not mentioned by Dowd at all.

What does it mean to be “supremely happy with Him [God] forever and ever in the “next” life? And how come Dowd, an ordained Christian minister, didn’t mention these words at all?

From New Testament times on, Christians have affirmed the reality of a coming “world without end.” Why is that emphasized so little in so much of contemporary Christianity? This is what I will continue to ponder as I prepare my next blog posting. 

Facing the Grief of Looking Up, Looking Forward

Don’t Look Up has been a much-viewed, much-discussed movie this month. There has been a wide variety of comments about that Netflix film both by “professional” movie critics and by amateur reviewers (like me). Unlike some of the professionals, though, I think it was quite significant. 

The Grief of Looking Up

Don’t Look Up is ostensibly about a huge (the size of Mount Everest) comet which is on track to crash into the earth about six months after when it was discovered by a grad student at Michigan State University. She and her professor seek to warn the world of the coming disaster.

Their message of impending doom, however, is not well received. The media is more concerned with the latest news about celebrities and the President is more concerned with the upcoming election and the breaking news about her own personal scandal.

Additionally, wealthy capitalists seek to take advantage of the looming catastrophe for economic gains. And then soon numerous science (comet) deniers emerge, rallying under the cry “Don’t look up!”

Even though that is what the film is about on the surface, it was produced as a satire about the current crisis of climate change (better labeled as global warming).

A large segment of society—politicians, capitalists, media personalities, and many of the general public—is like the science deniers in the film, but their rallying cry for maintaining the unsustainable present is “Don’t look forward.”

The Grief of Looking Forward

In the past couple of weeks, I have learned of, and been challenged/shaken by, Michael Dowd. A constantly evolving thinker, Dowd (b. 1958) is an American progressive Christian minister (ordained by the UCC) and an “eco-theologian.”

His recent work has been focused on the worldwide ecological crisis, which he is certain will lead to TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it).

My initial introduction to Dowd’s alarming thought was through two thirty-minute YouTube videos produced in November 2021: “Collapse in a Nutshell” and “Overshoot in a Nutshell,” both having the subtitle “Understanding Our Predicament.”

In addition, I watched (and recommend) Dowd’s 25-minute video, “Serenity Prayer for the 21^st Century: Pro-Future Love-in-Action,” produced in June 2021. According to Dowd, “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change” includes, or is primarily, TEOTWAWKI.

I have many questions and reservations about Dowd’s disturbing message, but what he presents is certainly something that all of us critical thinkers must take seriously—and his suggestions on how to deal with the grief of looking forward may well be very valuable for us all.

So, What Should We Do?

Whether Dowd’s dire analysis is completely correct or not, of greatest importance is to realize as fully as possible that the ecological crisis is much more critical than most people, probably including most of us, have acknowledged.

The result of unchecked global warming is not just one problem among many equally serious social problems. Indeed, it is not a problem that will likely be solved; rather it is a predicament from which there is likely no escape.

If humankind, probably in this century, will likely experience a collapse of civilization as we know it, what should we do? Dowd’s advice is to work through the stages of grief, accepting what is most probably inevitable, but still living each day with joy and thankfulness in spite of the looming doom.

He emphasizes the need for “adaptive inattention” to the crisis, seeking the well-being of people now. We can seek to be agents of calm amidst the coming chaos.

While the film Don’t Look Up doesn’t deal directly with the grief of looking forward, the final prayer at the “last supper” of several of the characters in the movie is a good one for us to pray at this critical time:

Dearest Father and Almighty Creator, we ask for your grace tonight, despite our pride; your forgiveness, despite our doubt. Most of all Lord, we ask for your love to soothe us through these dark times. May we face whatever is to come in your divine will, with courage and open hearts of acceptance. Amen.

_____

** Even though he is an ordained Christian minister, Dowd says nothing about what Christians have affirmed for 2,000 years: the coming of a “world without end.” I am planning for my first blog post in February to be about that.

Do Hope and History Rhyme? Assessing Biden’s First Year

It’s been a hard year since January 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46^th POTUS—and it has been a harder year for him than for most of us. What can be said, fairly and honestly, in assessment of Biden’s first year in the White House? 

1/7/22 image by Mandel Ngan

Biden’s Quote from Seamus Heaney

The President is said to be five-eighths Irish and has spoken frequently of his family ties to Ireland. He also likes Irish poets, especially Seamus Heaney (1939~2013), who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In his inaugural speech a year ago today, the new President cited these words from Heaney’s poem “The Cure of Troy”:

History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

These are memorable words, and Biden quoted them with great sincerity (and you can hear him read those words here), but one year later it seems as though the hopes of the President are far from rhyming with history now.

Biden’s Hard Year

As is true of each new President, except perhaps for #45, they start their term in office with high hopes for what they want to accomplish for the good of the nation. But those hopes are seldom realized (thus, history says, Don’t hope).

Perhaps the last President to have come close to realizing his inaugural hopes was FDR. Especially during the first two terms of his presidency (1933~1941), hope and history did rhyme to a large extent.

Roosevelt’s third inaugural address, though, delivered 80 years to the day before Biden’s address last year, was a lifetime ago. Few remember those remarks stressing America’s obligation to take action during the international crisis. Those next 4+ years were especially hard for FDR.

But for Biden, the first year has been a hard one:

* The covid-19 pandemic, with its new variants and the widespread refusal of being vaccinated, worsened instead of dissipating.

* Largely related to disruptions caused by covid-19, inflation grew rapidly and consumer prices increased perceptibly.

* Because of the intransigence of all 50 Republican and of two Democratic Senators, a democracy-protecting voting rights bill and an expansive infrastructure bill both failed to gain the support necessary for enactment.

* The events surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan were widely criticized as Biden’s debacle.

* The Jan. 15 issue of The Economist states that Biden is “almost the most unpopular president since records began” (only Trump “rated worse” at the same point in his term). Accordingly, “a mid-terms shellacking for his party looks highly probable.”

Biden’s Hope in the Year(s) Ahead

One year doesn’t make or break a presidency. In spite of the setbacks and disappointments, there are first-year accomplishments that the President and his party can legitimately accentuate in the year ahead.

* The early rollout of vaccines was highly successful. (It was certainly not Biden’s fault that so many people, mostly Republicans, refused to get vaccinated—or that new variants, delta and then omicron, developed.)

* Early in his tenure Biden also won passage for a roughly $2 trillion stimulus package and followed that with enactment of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with bipartisan support.

* Also, as Heather Cox Richardson points out, last February the jobless rate was 6.2%; today it has dropped to 4.2%. This means the Biden administration has created 4.1 million jobs, more than were created in the 12 years of the Trump and George W. Bush administrations combined.**

* Further, according to a 12/20/21 Bloomberg News article, “America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden's first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years . . . “ The S&P 500 gained 26.9% and Dow Jones gained 18.7% in 2021.

Perhaps if the President stays the course and “soldiers on,” as James Carville admonished him to do this week on Meet the Press, the longed-for tidal wave of justice will yet rise up, and hope and history will begin to rhyme more and more.

_____

** This, and much more about Biden’s first year accomplishments, is found in Richardson’s 12/22/21 “letter” (see here).

Thankful for Social Security

You probably have never heard of a fellow named Ernest Ackerman, but he was the first person in the U.S. to receive Social Security benefits. That was in January 1937—and he received 17 cents! But that was a good return: he had been a member for just one day and had contributed only five cents. 

Creation of Social Security

The Social Security Administration has an online 40-page document titled “Historical Background And Development Of Social Security.” For those who want (and have the time to read!) detailed information, that is the place to go. Here I will just write briefly about the years from 1933 to 1940.

There had long been a dire need in this country for financial help for the elderly. One of the most popular plans before 1935 was the Townsend Plan as proposed by Francis Townsend (b. 1/13/1867).

In 1933, Townsend launched his career as an old-age activist, proposing that every retired person over 60 be paid $200 per month—with the stipulation that they had to spend the money within 30 days (to stimulate the economy).

Within two years, there were over 3,400 Townsend Plan Clubs in the U.S. Their popularity prompted FDR to propose Social Security and then spurred Congress to pass the Social Security Act (SSA), which President Roosevelt signed into law in August 1935.**

Taxes were collected for the first time 85 years ago this month, in January 1937, including Ackerman’s nickel. However, the first monthly retirement check was not issued until January 31, 1940. That check was sent to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, and was for $22.54.

Opposition to Social Security

As you might well guess, there was considerable opposition to the SSA of 1935 as there was to most of FDR’s New Deal proposals. From the very beginning, one of the main arguments against Social Security was that it was a form of socialism. 

But by 1936 economic conditions in the U.S. had improved considerably and Roosevelt was widely popular. So, in spite of the opposition to the New Deal by Republicans and criticism of Social Security as being socialist, Roosevelt was re-elected by a landslide.

In July 1965, under the leadership of President Johnson, Congress enacted Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people aged 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. 

Opposition to the federal government passing legislation for the benefit of the general public increased after 1981, with President Reagan declaring in his inaugural address “. . . government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” 

Conservative Republicans ever since have consistently used Reagan’s words and their opposition to socialism to oppose greater levels of healthcare, such as their unified opposition to “Obamacare” in 2010, and some even wanting to alter or dismantle Social Security.

Gratitude for Social Security

Millions and millions of USAmericans (including me), though, are deeply grateful for Social Security and Medicare. And for the benefit of a wider public, many (again, including me) are in full support of expanding Medicare and “Obamacare,” which has steadily gained in popularity.

A 2019 Gallup poll indicated that “Social Security is a mainstay of older Americans’ financial wherewithal, and . . . a system Americans greatly value.”

The same article reports that some 57% of retirees indicated that Social Security is a major source of income in their retirement, eclipsing by far the second and third sources—retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs, and work-sponsored pension plans.

Similarly, Medicare/Medicaid also has widespread public support, and a strong majority now believe that those benefits should be expanded.

And then according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in Oct. 2021, nearly 60% of all U.S. adults approved of “Obamacare,” the highest percentage of approval since its beginning. It was opposed, though, by 72% of the Republicans polled.

But yes, along with so many others I have great gratitude for Social Security (and Medicare) which has provided so much financial help through the years since June and I turned 65.

_____

** Here is the link to Heather Cox Richardson’s informative four-page “letter” posted on Aug. 14, 2021, the anniversary of Roosevelt’s signing the SSA into law. It is partly about Francis Townsend, but has more about Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor.

A New View of the Beatitudes

The most basic teachings of Jesus Christ are found in what is known as the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in chapters five through seven of the Gospel according to Matthew. What is generally called the Beatitudes are found in that fifth chapter, and I invite you to consider, newly, those verses. 

Following the Call: A Good Old View

On Jan. 2, the first Sunday of this new year, I started reading the book Following the Call (2021), edited by Charles E. Moore and issued by Plough Publishing House.**

There are 52 chapters in Moore’s new book (and I plan to read a chapter every Sunday morning this year). On the page before the first chapter, the “overview” begins with these words:

The beatitudes are a summary of the entire Sermon [on the Mount], shorthand for what is to come. They describe Jesus himself . . . . And they depict the character of those who strive to follow Jesus.

Each chapter of Moore’s book has one to four brief excerpts from the writings of a wide variety of notable Christians. Chapter 1 begins with words by E. Stanley Jones (1884~1973), the venerable Methodist missionary to India. Jones wrote:

Here is the key to the Sermon on the Mount. We mistake it entirely if we look on it as the chart of the Christian’s duty; rather, it is the charter of the Christian’s liberty—his [or her] liberty to go beyond, to do the thing that love impels and not merely the thing that duty compels.

American Saint: A Good New View

One of the intriguing novels I read last year was American Saint (2019) by Sean Gandert, about whom I was unable to learn much, even from his website.

The “saint” in Gandert’s book is Gabriel Romero, who was “raised in a poor neighborhood in Albuquerque by his mother and curandera [= medicine woman] grandmother” and who “grows up fervently religious, privately conflicted, and consumed by what he’s certain is the true will of God.”

Toward the climax of the novel, Gabriel preaches at the Sunday morning Mass in the unconventional (Catholic) church he started. In his sermon he paraphrases the Beatitudes, not as describing Jesus himself but rather suggesting what “love impels” (Jones). Here is what he says:

So who now, I ask, are those who Christ supports? Who are the meek, the hungry, the poor? Who are the pure in heart and the ones who mourn? I tell you they are the same now as they were two thousand years ago, and that God has not lost sight of them, no matter how much the rest of us have. God tells us this: blessed are the immigrants, for they shall find comfort in the land of God. 

Blessed are the homeless, for they shall find shelter. 

Blessed are the addicts, for they shall find relief. 

Blessed are those who suffer from racist oppression, for they shall find justice. 

Blessed are those who find themselves with child and choose not to carry to term, for they shall find compassion. 

Blessed are those whose lands have been stolen and colonized, for they shall own their own destinies. 

Blessed are the prisoners and the unjustly convicted, for they will find freedom. 

And blessed are those shunned because of their gender or sexuality, for they shall find love” (pp. 288-9).

Can We Agree with Gabriel?

As you might guess, some who heard Gabriel’s new view of the Beatitudes were offended and criticized his ideas as outlandish. In reflecting on that development, Anna, who was one of Gabriel’s most faithful supporters, declared,

You get a lot of hate for spreading a message of love. You get a lot of hate for acting out the words of Christ, who wasn’t particularly popular in His day either (p. 306).

So, what about it? Can we agree with Gabriel, or do we want to be judgmental of those who are hurting the most? Can we recognize and affirm God’s amazing grace?

_____

** (Moore, b. 1956, is a long-time Bruderhof member and currently is a member of the Durham House, a Bruderhof community in North Carolina. I first learned of him when I read Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, 1999, which he edited and which I highly recommend.)

Immigration Joys and Sorrows

One hundred and thirty years ago, on January 1, 1892, the first federal immigration station in the U.S. opened on Ellis Island in New York Harbor. That day nearly 700 immigrants started not just a new year but a new life in a new land (to them). That day led to joys for some and sorrows for others. 

Ellis Island federal immigration station, 1892~97

The First Immigrant

Annie Moore (1877~1924), an Irish émigré, was the first immigrant to pass through the new Ellis Island station. Here is the link to an informative History.com story about her. 

Annie Moore statue

Following Annie, and the 700 other immigrants who moved through the immigration facility on that opening day, that year over 400,000 immigrants were processed at the Ellis Island station. 

That original immigration station on Ellis Island was, sadly, destroyed by fire in 1897, but by that time it had processed a whopping 1,500,000 immigrants.

In memory of Annie Moore, in 1997 Irishman Brendan Graham wrote a poem titled “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” (which you can read at this link). Here is the first stanza and refrain of that poem:

On the first day of January / Eighteen ninety-two
They opened Ellis Island and they let / The people through
And first to cross the threshold / Of that isle of hope and tears
Was Annie Moore from Ireland / Who was all of fifteen years

Isle of hope, isle of tears / Isle of freedom, isle of fears
But it's not the isle you left behind / That isle of hunger, isle of pain
Isle you'll never see again / But the isle of home is always on your mind

The First Immigrants

Most of the immigrants in 1892, like Annie Moore, were from Europe. According to this History.com article, “The reasons they left their homes in the Old World included war, drought, famine and religious persecution, and all had hopes for greater opportunity.”

Some did well. Despite the various initial challenges, many went on to gain what they were seeking in the U.S. The stories we mostly hear, such as in this YouTube video, are by or of people who were successful. They, thankfully, experienced the joys of immigration.

But, unfortunately, there are other stories also. Many had a terribly tough life. They experienced the sorrows of immigration. Most of those, perhaps, did not have a life any worse than in the land from which they came, but it was certainly not the life they dreamed of upon reaching Ellis Island.

I first began thinking about this matter when doing research for my blog post on Walter Rauschenbusch last September. As I wrote then, from 1886 to 1897 he served as the pastor of the Second German Baptist Church, located in the slum section of New York City known as Hell’s Kitchen.

Many of those people had passed through Ellis Island, or had come through other facilities a few years before 1892. The unsatisfactory living conditions of many of those earlier immigrants are depicted in the book How the Other Half Lives (1890) by Jacob A. Riis.

Last year I read part of Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, and I soon will finish reading Mary Doria Russell’s captivating historical novel, The Women of Copper Country (2019).

The former “portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants” in Chicago, mainly in the meatpacking industry, and in similar industrialized cities.

Russell’s brilliant book graphically depicts the plight of immigrants who worked in the copper mines owned by the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Specifically, it is about the history-changing strike there of 1913-14, of which I had known nothing.

Many of those exploited immigrants had most likely entered the U.S. at Ellis Island. But their joy upon arriving turned to sorrow because of the harsh conditions they faced and had to endure for many years after arriving.

The Immigrants Now

The question for us now is this: how are we USAmericans treating the many immigrants who are entering our country now? Many don’t have immigration documents, but neither did the 1,500,000 who passed through the first immigration station on Ellis Island.