Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A Message from Dan Barrett
By DAN BARRETT

          While casting about on Wikipedia (not the worst way to spend time that one should be spending doing something else), I came upon the entry for the Serenity Prayer. Most of us are at least passing familiar with the short version, which goes like this:

          God, grant us the
          Serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
          Courage to change the things we can, and the
          Wisdom to know the difference.

The extended version adds these lines:

          Patience for the things that take time,
          Appreciation for all that we have, and
          Tolerance for those with different struggles,
          Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the
          Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other, and the
          Strength to get up and try again, even when we feel it is hopeless.

          There are secular versions that remove reference to divine guidance (which brings the “Tolerance” line from the extended version to the forefront for many). Even an old Mother Goose rhyme advises the same attitude adjustment:

 For every ailment under the sun
 There is a remedy, or there is none;
 If there be one, try to find it; and
 If there be none, never mind it.

          Most sources attribute the origin of the prayer to a twentieth century theologian named Reinhold Niebuhr. Others say it was St. Francis of Assisi. I’ve even seen one that claimed it to be really old – a Sanskrit verse of undetermined origin. Not that any of that really matters. Whether expressed eloquently as in the prayer or more colloquially as in “Don’t get your nose out of joint over stuff you can’t do anything about,” I’d guess that the sentiment has been around for as long as folks have realized that their influence is frustratingly limited. The comprehension of a disconnection between the way things are and they way we wish them to be is ancient and perennial.

          And these days, there is plenty to be frustrated about. The environmental tragedy of seemingly unstoppable, inexhaustible crude oil fouling beaches and destroying wildlife; immigration fear-mongering; skewed regressive taxation; the ever-widening, previously unimaginable chasm between worker and executive compensation; world-wide economic instability; ubiquitous Chinese-rather-than-American production (not to mention the associated toxicity); religion-based terrorism, domestic and foreign; bad air, bad water but love-me-some-gas-drilling; heliports before libraries; the starvation of our public education system. From traffic gridlock to man’s inhumanity to man, from mundane to profound, reasons for aggravation and dissatisfaction abound.

          But there is much good, too. There exists the constant potential for a positive outcome – or at least a minimizing of the negative – in almost every situation. There are people who care. The more people who care, the more likely we can start doing something about them.

The ability to vote decreases the universe of things requiring the acceptance sought in the serenity prayer. Representative democracy theorizes that every individual’s sphere of influence is magnified by the ability to elect someone who will speak with a collective voice. The authority of a single person gains mass and power by its combination with like-minded individuals selecting an agent to act in the interest of all. The power to delegate, then, should be exercised with exactly as much care as the individual would employ in personally dealing with any of the weighty issues of the day.

Sitting in a local restaurant the other day, not trying to eavesdrop but unable to avoid doing so, given the volume of the conversation at a neighboring table, I overheard a fellow loudly announce his choice in the upcoming election for Governor of Texas. When asked by one of his companions the reason for his endorsement, he replied, “Because I won’t ever vote for a Democrat for nothin’.”

God, grant me the serenity …