My life on my cube wall

On my cube wall at work I have, among other things, two prayers. They're not just wall decoration to me. Significant parts of my life, of what's meaningful to me, is in those prayers. I say them often.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Those familiar with the origin of that prayer might guess I've had issues with alcoholism, and they'd be right. The prayer is strongly identified with Alcoholics Anonymous. Reinhold Niebuhr may have written it specifically for AA, and it's recited at most AA meetings (we wouldn't say it has to be said at all AA meetings, but that's because most of us alcoholics don't do rules well.) I don't know how much of my life I've wasted in frustration over being unable to change the unchangeable. I don't know how much I've ignored that in me which needed change, and was within my power to change. I do know that, even now, I occasionally find myself struggling with the difference.

When I wake up, I say an "Our Father", a "Hail Mary", and a "Glory Be" (yes, I am Catholic. You knew that.) Shortly after:

Step 1: Admitted I am powerless over alcohol, that my life had become unmanageable.

A tough step. We're not good at thinking ourselves powerless over anything. Frequently heard from alcoholics (and smokers): "I can quit anytime I want to. I'm just not ready yet." Yeah. Sure. There's a stage that recovering alcoholics and treatment professionals call the "want to want to quit" stage. There are those who don't even want to want to.

Step 2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

A tougher step. That sentence is loaded. We're not all that convinced that there is a "power greater than ourselves." A sign I used to keep around: "There is a God. You're not Him." And sanity? You're suggesting that we're insane? Wayulll. . .

A typical AA definition of insanity: repeat the same action. Expect a different result.

By the way, AA is not particular about how you label your Higher Power. I call mine God. For some who just cannot come to believe in a divinity, AA itself can be their higher power. You can use an old car radiator for your higher power if that works for you. The key concept: Whatever works.

But the first two of AA's steps are not on my cube at work, and they're not really a prayer. They're an acknowledgment. As one AA person observed in a meeting, for most of us church didn't lead us to sobriety. But for many of us sobriety led us to church.

The other prayer on my cube wall:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

This was the favorite prayer of one of my heroes in the faith, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. I remember a story told about him in his final months, while he was dying of cancer. Some 20 years or more earlier he'd attended a meeting. The discussion touched on an area of controversy in the Church. I've forgotten the specific issue. The meeting grew contentious, and obviously neither side had moved the other. Those 20 years later, Bernardin called one of the women who had been at that meeting, on the side opposed to him. He wanted to make sure that she knew he still thought of her as a sister in the faith and a valued member of the Body of Christ, despite their differences. She was not a prominent person. There was no reason he should even have remembered her. He not only remembered her, he reached out to her.

I think of Pope John Paul II - a little too autocratic to make my heroes list, but he's close - visiting the jail cell of the man who had tried to assassinate him in order to forgive. Mehmet Ali Agca never forgot that. Nor have many of us.

I think of others among my heroes in the faith. I came to Catholicism as an adult. I was drawn to the Catholicism of Thomas Merton (a huge influence on me), of Mother Theresa, of Pope John XXIII. I hope I find and emulate role models in all of the ones I've mentioned.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. . .