There was a shortlived but wonderful show on Fox some time ago called Firefly. It must have corresponded to one of the many times in my life that I've been without a television, because somehow I missed it entirely. When I was finally introduced to it on DVD, I fell instantly in love. It was a silly space-bandit sort-of-sci-fi series by Joss Whedon. I never got into any of his more famous shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but this one caught my imagination in a special way. When a movie based on the series came out last year, called Serenity (the name of the space bandits' ship), it was a great event. I found myself looking forward to the movie with childlike anticipation. I could hardly remember ever being more excited to see a film. *cough*travestyofstarwars*cough*
When we saw the film, I was enraged and horrified to see my favourite character die a stupid, senseless death right before the end. His death didn't move the plot forward, he didn't die in any heroic way, it was just...
Well. It's become a running gag among the friends who went to see the movie how upset I was about this. For weeks *cough*months*cough* after I saw the film, I'd blurt out non-sequiturs about this character's death. Other people praised the death scene, saying it was just like life, that it pointed out how senseless most death is, that it was the way things worked in the real world.
"Not my world." I'd think. I leaned into the joke, becoming a caricature of indignant grief. I railed against Joss Whedon in a way that most people reserve for an unjust creator. If I was Joss Whedon, this would never have happened. If I were Joss Whedon, I would do things very differently. If I were Joss Whedon, I would change things. Stupid Joss Whedon.
Why am I blabbering about defunct sci-fi?
This morning I was in the kitchen of the Friend's Center as the weekly A.A. meeting was winding up. People had moments of revelation over donuts. They cried at the drop of a hat. (or, more like it, at the drop of crumbs all over my freshly swept floor). They hugged each other constantly. They were so intense. They spouted slogans at each other without irony, and what was worse, they accepted being sloganed at without irony. Someone would lean in, fix the other's gaze, and repeat a well-worn phrase. The other person would react with shock and awe as if they'd just been offered a new and profound truth that would change their whole life! I found myself unreasonably annoyed. I didn't know what it was that was triggering such irrational irritablity and ill-nature. I was suprised to find so little compassion running in my bloodstream at that moment. As I washed dishes I lectured myself and tried to turn my attitude around, reminding myself how good and brave and strong these people were to be working so actively at improving their lives. From the other room I could hear them recite another slogan in unison. I cringed. Finally, the Serenity prayer. I cringed a little more, involutarily.
In my childhood I spent a lot of time around people in Recovery. I read most of the A.A. canon before I was ten, just because it was around, and I read everything that was around. I've seen the twelve steps help people make amazing changes. So what was my problem this morning? Why the sudden anger and distain for something so overwhelmingly positive?
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.
Okay, let's take the middle part first. I'm cool with the middle part. I've got lots of courage. I will change any damn thing I can. If I can change a thing, I'm there. Look, I'm changing it right now. No problem.
But I hate the first part. (And I hate the third part.) I have no serenity. I claim to want serenity. I checked out Zen--they are supposed to have lots of serenity. But I it turned out there was one thing I didn't like about Zen. They didn't want to change anything. Or something to that effect. I didn't stay long enough to figure it out.
And now I'm a Quaker. Once again, serenity. Serenity/Peace, Peace/Serenity. Really?
serene
adj 1: characterized by absence of emotional agitation; "calm acceptance of the inevitable"; "remained serene in the midst of turbulence"; "a serene expression on her face"; "she became more tranquil"; "tranquil life in the country" [syn: calm, tranquil] 2: completely clear and fine; "serene skies and a bright blue sea"
Etymology:
serene
1508, "clear, calm," from L. serenus "peaceful, calm, clear" (of weather), of unknown origin. Applied to persons since 1635. Serenity (1538) is from O.Fr. serenite, from L. serenitatem (nom. serenitas) "clearness, serenity," from serenus.
Hmm.
The things I cannot change.
Oh my God, I hate the things I cannot change. There are so many things in my life that I hate, that I want to change, that I work very hard to change, that I pray for God to change. I do not want the wisdom to know that there are things I cannot change, things that God cannot change, things that God and I cannot change.
I can't be serene in the face of that.
I had a little nervous breakdown, realizing all of this today. I realized I was angry at the A.A. people for the circumspect way they were going about changing, for their firm belief that if they applied a certain set of proven principles, rules, and slogans to their life, things would change. I saw the futility of so many of my own efforts at change. I saw the seemingly immovable things that are in the way of the life I want to have. I saw how my faith in rules and slogans has been betrayed, and how I've had to let go of so many of the things I was sure would change my life for the better. I resented the placid faith that I was projecting onto the A.A.ers, because it is one that I have lost, for better or for worse.
I've been purged this year of so many of my ideas about an omnipotent God. I have no hands but thine. So often I look at my hands, or worse...at other people's hands, and I think, well then, if that's the case, God is totally screwed.
I've learned how small and diffident God can seem. I've finally come to understand the gruesome side of "free will" and seen that actually, yes, my almighty God can be thwarted. We can thwart God. We thwart God every day. I can thwart God. God knows how often or in how many unimagined ways! Or worse, other people can thwart God, and I won't be able to do a damn thing to change it.
It burned me up.
Jeff listened to my tantrum, not unlike the one I'd had when my pet character was so ignobly impaled in the film. He pointed out that everything I said was true, but that the important thing was that God isn't thwarted in the end. In the end, God wins. Love wins. Life wins. Things change. Believing that=faith.
Crucifixion/Resurrection et al.
Argh! Bah! I always want to read the last page first. I read articles backwards.
In meeting last week I gave a message. A psalm rose to my mind:
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help
and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your waterfalls; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock, "Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?"
As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, "Where is your God?"
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.
My message was about desert, and about rushing water. About manna from heaven and not turning stones into bread in your impatience, but waiting to be fed. About how the landscape of your soul is transformed by the flood of the spirit, fixtures and buildings and earth washed away, and new features arising.
And I think I ignored every word of it after it came out of my mouth. Where is this living water? Where is this living God? The movement of God at times feels like water-torture, one slow drip at a time, slowly wearing away stone, s-l-o-w-l-y changing it. Over eons.
I am not afraid of the torrent. "I pant", says the psalmist. "I thirst", says the Christ. "Me too!" I whine. I'm not afraid of the flood...I long for it.
What I fear is the waiting.
Oh, ironic Quaker Amanda!
And I wonder, do I need more Water, or do I need to be softer Stone? Neither? How do I change? How am I being changed? How long do I have to wait? How on earth can I find serenity when there are things outside of my power to change, things that desperately need changing, things that must be changed? And I'm not even talking about the Big Things that need to be changed--things like war and injustice and poverty, at least not yet. I'm talking about horrible little banal internal things that I can't seem to change. How can I accept that there is a difference between what I can and cannot change? How can I remain peaceful, clear and calm?
I am finding shocking comfort in the old testament. For every jubilant shout of praise there is an equal and opposite cry of longing and pain.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.
There is little serenity in the psalms. There are moans and supplications, there are wishes for vengance. There is gloating and grieving in equal, gorgeously human amounts. But the serenity, when it is to be found, always comes tagging along at the end, and it always comes paired with the word "trust", "hope" or "faith".
Sigh.
Of The Best Stuff, but Cracked
11 comments:
Ouch. Yes. I also violently resist the idea that there are things I just can’t change, and that nobody else seems to be changing them either. I desperately want the world to be just, to be whole, to make sense. Usually this doesn’t come up so strongly in response to huge catastrophes and injustices. Sometimes it’s myself-- I want to stop undermining the things I love, care about and work for by my own impatience, laziness or self-deception. I want to stop fearing and craving. Then, I must admit that I don’t *always* want these things enough so that, whenever a choice presents itself, I make the choice that will move me in the right direction—sometimes I pretend there is no choice and dig myself in deeper.. I think if I were consistent enough in my choices, my wants and fears and phantasms would come closer to right order. I don’t know.
And the kids I work with. I want the girl who was raped at age 8, and a few years alter was living with her assailant again, to be somewhere safe, to know that love is different from violation, to be able to reach out to other people without shame and without fear. I want the 5-year-old who has lived in 3 different family units that then broke up to have some place where he feels secure and knows that he is loved and will not be left behind or sent away. And I have no control over their lives—I can just be with them for a few hours a week until the vicissitudes of their lives move them out of my reach. I am not satisfied with the hope that ‘in the end’ it will be different. I don’t have the faith and certainty that in the end it will be different.
To accept the things I cannot change.. My mother and I talked about this not long ago, and she suggested that there were different possible meanings for the word ‘accept’. Often to accept someone or something means that they are deemed Ok, there’s no real problem with them. I can’t do that, nor do I think I should. But ‘accept’ can also mean something more like ‘recognize’ or ‘acknowledge’. Yes, this is really true, and no, I cannot change it. How do I live, then? What is my response to the situation that is given? I don’t like this, but I know what a mess I make of my life (and others’ too) when I pretend to have more control than I actually do.
And hope..I struggle with that. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” I am afraid of relying on what may not be true. I am tired of desiring what does not come to pass. I don’t know what to do about hope. I don’t know much about faith. I do know something of faithfulness, and to sustain myself;f in that I can cultivate joy, and see the light in the darkness. In 1513 Fra Giovanni wrote:
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present instant.
Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within reach, is joy.
Take joy.
I don’t know about the gloom being only a shadow, but I have known the joy that is not destroyed by the gloom. Even in the children who have had such hard and unfair lives, there is also the light, their delight in stars and wind and trees, their gradual opening gto trust and confidence. Even in the midst of my dividedness and distraction, there are the moments and the days of grace, of being prayed or acted through by God.
Fra Giovanni also wrote
“There is radiance and glory in the darkness, could we but see;
and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look.”
Thanks Amanda, a lot of what you say really speaks to me. I was very impressed by the film Serenity but had not seen the original series so did not have your reaction to the death of a favourite character. I'm more with your friends in agreeing that death is often like that - but the film also shows that the dead live on in the memory of those who love them. Do you know the Sondheim musical Into the Woods? Some of the lyrics in that always reduce me to tears - in a good way. 'People sometimes leave you halfway through the wood' 'You are not alone - noone is alone' The music helps too.
As for the Serenity prayer, I have always found the balance between the parts of it helpful. I have been in recovery from alcoholism for 24 years now although I have never joined AA. I know there are some things I cannot change but their number has diminished gradually over the years. In fact what I have had to accept is that change is possible for me at all!
I hope that you will keep on struggling with the possibilities of change within your life. Thanks for putting your thoughts into words
Hi Amanda,
This is a great post, as usual, and it raises a lot of important questions that I certainly don't have answers for. I am, however, able to make one observation that might be helpful. You say:
Oh my God, I hate the things I cannot change. There are so many things in my life that I hate, that I want to change, that I work very hard to change, that I pray for God to change. I do not want the wisdom to know that there are things I cannot change, things that God cannot change, things that God and I cannot change.
The possibly helpful observation I have to offer is that accepting the things you or I cannot change doesn't necessarily mean that they won't change at all - just that you or I might not have starring roles in bringing the changes about. Even the changes in ourselves sometimes occur without our making them occur. We grow, for example.
In the case of larger social changes this is even more clear. John Woolman couldn't end slavery and didn't try. But he could end his own complicity with it and he did. And he could influence the attitudes of other Quakers and he did. And these little changes that he and Friends could do, flowed together with many other things they had no control over and it came to pass (a hundred years and one bloody war later, I admit) that slavery was ended.
Thank you all so much for your comments. i'd like to comment back at greater length but I've a paper to write and a bed calling out my name. Soon.
Rich, thanks for the growing analogy. I remember how much angst I spent, as a small child, wondering when I would grow up, how I could grow up, and what I could do to hurry it up. And I didn't add an inch to my height with all my worry.
But I got really tall anyhow. (5'9, ya'll!)
Funny how that happens.
Amanda, hi.
I think and believe it is a discipline--one in which we can receive instruction and therefore practice as well--to be able to acknowledge and hold the inward urgency we feel while also being able to turn it over to God: "I cannot know how this situation will be solved; thank you for being with me and helping me settle into your constant Love..."
Holding myself in the Light when I feel such angst and urgency often has helped me understand that mine is not to be SuperWoman. Mine--and ours--is to be faithful to the Light we have been given.
But oh! it is so easy to ignore my Light and my measure and instead covet someone else's!
Be gentle with thyself, and continue to pay attention to where God IS in thy life right now. Bidden or unbidden, God is with us...
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
Hi Amanda. Yes, we hate God and there's not a darn thing we can do about it. That's why I need a church that has objective knowing instead of subjective knowing. If my feelings are a reflection of my faith, then I'm screwed, cause the mountaintop experiences are few and far between. I'm like a drowning person who can't do anything to help themselves. Jesus plucked me out of the murk at my baptism.
Especially as mother, the news, and the horrible things that people do to children, is a real downer. When I was younger I wanted to change the world. Now I realize that thanks to original sin, nothing will ever change for the better in this world. All we can do is try to brighten our little corner through our vocations - just as you are doing with the little 8 yo girl. You are being a mask of God in your vocations as sister, daughter, worker, friend.
Hang in there.
When I first heard the Serenity Prayer, I thought it was a joke.
After all, who would accept the things they cannot change?
A lot of that has changed now.
"Favorite Apron" has said what I've been facing. I grew up taught that I could grow up and change the world. How many times have I heard that story about the starfishes getting thrown back into the sea? Enough to recoil when I hear it again. I took it as a given that I would "have the courage to change the things I can." That was what was valued. Not all of this came from Quakers, but a lot did.
And now I too have been learning acceptance. relate to what you say.
In fact I have managed to change my own relationship with myself. I do accept myself now in a way that once I couldn't. I'm thankful, always.
But this has screwed with my previous motivation. If I accept myself, I have to accept other people. And all of a sudden I realize that a good deal of my desire to change the world was based on my belief that I knew how things should be. My real ambition was to control - to tell people to do what I think they should. Of course I agree with myself - I do genuinely believe that they should do what I think they should do.
So now what?
Now what is that I have to take up my cross and follow.
Follow, where? Nowhere. I ask, hoping to get a commission again to change the world. But instead I'm thrown back on accepting.
Christopher
I also wanted to say, Amanda, that this is a beautifuly written post that deserves to be shared. Perhaps you should see if you could publish this. (No doubt Friend's Journal would like it . . . )
Christopher
Thanks, Amanda.
You wrote:
I'm talking about horrible little banal internal things that I can't seem to change. How can I accept that there is a difference between what I can and cannot change? How can I remain peaceful, clear and calm?
I think this is similar what Paul was on to when he said, "For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:19, NIV - not my fave version but it's online).
And you also wrote:
So often I look at my hands, or worse...at other people's hands, and I think, well then, if that's the case, God is totally screwed... We can thwart God. We thwart God every day. I can thwart God.
And by trying to personify evil -- whether that appears to a particular individual as Satan or GWBush or Hilary or "sinners" or bad rock albums -- aren't we trying to escape from that essential truth?
Chris M.
Tables, Chairs & Oaken Chests
Yes, agreed, unfortunately...
Why do I have to accept the things I can't change? Shouldn't I resist them with all my might? And where do I draw the line between active resistance and serenity?
Thanks for your honest struggling. Why is it so hopeful to be hopeless, I wonder?
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