The History of AA using the Serenity Prayer
Via - Joe McFadden
Just before Ruth Hock (AA's 1st secretary) left, a news clipping whose content was to become famous was called to our attention by a New York member, news man Jack. It was an obituary notice from New York paper. Underneath a routine account of the one who had died there appeared these words: “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Never had we seen so much AA in so few words. While Ruth and I were admiring the prayer, and wondering how to use it, friend Howard walked into the office. Confirming our own ideas, he exclaimed, “We ought to print this on cards and drop one into every piece of mail that goes out of here. I’ll pay for the first printing.” For several years afterward we followed his suggestion, and with amazing speed the Serenity Prayer came into general use and took its place alongside our two other favorites, the Lord’s Prayer and the Prayer of St. Francis.
No one can tell for sure who first wrote the Serenity Prayer. Some say it came from the early Greeks; others think it was from the pen of an anonymous English poet; still others claim it was written by an American naval officer; and Jack Alexander, who once researched the matter, attributes it to the Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr of the Union Theological Seminary. Anyhow, we have the prayer and it is said thousands of times daily. We count its writer among our great benefactors. ~AA Comes Of Age, Page-196
Step Eleven suggest prayer and meditation. We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter. ~Alcoholics Anonymous, Page-85&86
There is a great hue and cry today on the part of some people about those who seek benefits from God. I would like to know where in Heaven’s name a bewildered and defeated person is going to go for the help he desperately needs if he doesn’t go to God for it. Of course he is concerned about himself. He can’t help it. He ought to be. He must be, if he is ever going to be made useful to other people. But later on he must also grow up and stop just using God and begin to ask God use him. Stop asking God to do what he wants, and begin to try to find out what it is that God wants. Many people tell you they’ve given up faith. They prayed for something they wanted and it didn’t come, and either there is no God or else. He has no interest in them. What childish nonsense! How can anybody expect God to acquiesce in the half-baked prayers that a lot of us send up to Him. He would have the world in a worse chaos than it is now in five minutes.
Real prayer is not telling God what we want. It is putting ourselves at His disposal so that He can tell us what He wants. Prayer is not trying to get God to change His Will. It is trying to find out what His Will is, to align ourselves or realign ourselves with His purpose for the world and for us. That’s why it is so important for us to listen as well as talk when we pray. That’s why it is good to begin these meetings with silence. Oftentimes we come feverishly and willfully, and we have just got to quiet down before God can do anything for us. While our own voices are clamorous and demanding, there is no place for the voice of God. That is the thing most of us non-alcoholics get drunk on, just willfulness, just waiting life on our own terms, and it is as neurotic as any neurosis ever was. Everybody that is away from God and tries to do his own will in defiance of God is half crazy. Till our own clamorous, demanding voices quiet down we cannot hear the voice of God. When we let willfulness cool out of us, God can get His Will across to us as far as we need to see ahead of us. Dante said, “In His will is our peace.” ~AA Comes Of Age, Page-265&266-
Prayer, either private or group or public, is the place where we get in touch with God and God’s power. God’s power is always there, as there is always potential electricity in a wire that’s plugged into a socket that is in touch with a dynamo. But you don’t get the power until you close the circuit by turning the switch. Prayer, in ways which to me are theoretically quite unfathomable but which are always open to us actually, turns on the switch, opens up the power by closing the circuit. We do not so much “get what we want” as find out what we should do. Awakening—in the individual or in companies or in nations—always includes discovering the power that is in prayer. ~AA Comes Of Age, Page-268-
USE PRAYER. Our ritual can include prayer. Our daily meditation and practice can include prayer. We’ll also talk about prayer in connection with the Seventh Step, but it is essential in the Sixth. As in all the Steps, prayer as a part of ritual is doubly potent and can add depth and meaning to any commitment we decide to make (for example, willingness to be or stay willing).
Use prayer to ask for awareness and willingness to receive. Use prayer to ask for depth and clarity. Use prayer to ask to become a better channel for our Higher Power. Use prayer to ask for ease and grace in surrender. Use prayer to ask how to pray. Use prayer to ask how to think and act. Use prayer to say thank you. Use prayer. Prayer can be considered cheating because of how much easier it makes the process go.
Prayer is of no use when it is not used. Prayer is not only a matter of belief, it is a matter of practice. We can’t get caught in the trap of dogma or method. Prayer is not about right or wrong or “should” or “only.” It is about a personal or individualized way to talk with God or our Higher Power or Universal Energy or is not about someone else telling us how to pray or what to say. It is about communication.
There are some extremely effective prayers from many spiritual traditions. These prayers became effective because the people who wrote them or said them practiced them daily. The saints who used prayer were not worried about doing it right. They were concerned about communicating with God and gaining clarity for their own action. We continually need to take a closer look at prayer and its place in our life. It can be revealing.
Many members become boosters of prayer only after having resisted using it. It just didn’t seem necessary or even admirable to them. People who needed and used prayer seemed to be a rung lower on the ladder that those who could get things done.
Self-will versus God’s Will
It was only after getting involved in prayer through a spiritual search and surrender, then practicing it, that we come to understand its depth and meaning. Prayer is not something to be intellectualized and analyzed. It can only be realized through practice. The Program urges us to take action. Pray. An often quoted prayer goes like this:
“God give me the courage and strength to know who I really am;
to act accordingly in my life,
and to refrain from diverting my time, energy,
and interest into my character defects.”
~From The Book ‘Drop The Rock’-
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