Reinhold Niebuhr

Most people, I believe, are familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

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

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

It's a beautiful prayer, adorning the walls of many homes across the country. I find myself pretty connected to it as well, as it pretty accurately describes my thought process when I assess problems; I avoid stressing out about things I can't change by acknowledging the fact that I can't change them. Stress, for me, mostly comes from that third line: when I don't yet realize I'm trying to change something that can not be changed.

Anyway, the prayer above is adapted from a 1937 prayer written by a man named Reinhold Niebuhr. The original goes, "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other."

Niebuhr is an interesting fellow, it turns out. He's probably best known for the Serenity Prayer, but his other work influenced much of modern public policy, foreign policy, and major historical figures including Martin Luther King Jr. as well as modern political figures like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. So, I thought it would be interesting to dig into this guy.

Stoicism

I've been listening to The History of Rome podcast for the past month or so. I'll be doing a full review of the series once I'm done with it (Atilla has just been introduced, so the end is nigh), but a while back during the reign of Marcus Aurelius I learned that he was a fan of Stoicism. Marcus himself, the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome, was by most accounts an intelligent, good man whose greatest failure was not keeping his son, Joaquin Phoenix, from succeeding him as emperor.

I have often been called stoic myself, and though that word means something different today than it meant 2,000 years ago, I feel a deep connection with that ancient philosophy.

Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin, Part 2

Yesterday I began this discussion by talking about the origin of the phrase, what I believe to be its intended meaning, my personal history with it, and the backhanded way it's often used today.

Today I want to alter the perception of the phrase to hopefully give it a more positive application.