Post 6--2014 AD -- The Year of Our Lord

Post 6   2014 AD—The Year of Our Lord   

During the last few months of 2013 I was head over heels into writing projects, all of which had claim to some urgency. Well, I finished most of the work on them and I am now waiting for various odds and ends on each one of them, some of which will be done by Fran, my wife, while others require the input of “outsiders,” So, from here on those projects will be slow going, but in the meantime, I can pick up my blogging again with every intention and hope of being more regular. In fact, that’s one of my new year’s resolutions that I will take seriously.  

I have not been an ardent new year’s resolutionist over the years, but this year I decided to make some and to see if I can stick to them. One is actually a prayer, the Serenity Prayer which goes like this:

          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. 

How can a prayer be a resolution? There are many different kinds of prayers. Some you just pray them; others, like this one, if they are to be answered by God, must be incorporated in your life style. If you just pray it but do nothing towards its fulfillment, it will not be answered. So, in this case, both the prayer and resolution are the same: I pray that I will develop it into my basic attitude. 

You may be objecting that this is a pretty lame resolution, but for a guy like me, it’s an entire turn around in my life. I have always had the macho attitude that if we humans created a condition, we can change it. I have had brazen courage like few others to try to change things and have sometimes berated people who thought it couldn’t be done. But over the last decade or so I have slowly come to realize that not all things can be changed, at least, not the way you’d like to see them changed. That has introduced a kind of freedom in my spirit; I no longer have the urge that no matter what the condition, I can and therefore must try to change it. 

On the other hand, may this not lead to a false kind of passivism or quietism on my part so I just fold my hands. But, I guess, at age 76 one is allowed to occasionally just fold your hands and pray!

Happy New Year!