January 1960

B Y REV. M O U N I R SA’ADAH Minister of the Universalist Church in Woodstock, Vermont and head of the history department at the Woodstock Country School Rev. Sa’adah was born in Damascus; before coming to the United States in 1945 he served for tlfteen yean on the faculty of the American University of Beirut. His concept of the spiritual way to serenity seemed a fitting companion piece to the medical view expressed in the item under “Outside AA” beginning on page 19-THE EDITORS. s

T HE Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things he cannot change and thus rendering his existence more precarious, and consigning himself to ultimate failure and destruction. things I can, and wisdom to know This makes the knowledge of what the difference,” has become so he can change and what he cannot much a part of the AA ritual that change imperative. It is a problem an examination of its basic assump- of survival. tions can be helpful. This article What are the things that we is intended to examine two key cannot change? First, we cannot phrases in the prayer: first, the change the fact that we are human things we cannot change; and see beings. Try as we may, we cannot ond, the things we can change. become horses or dogs or trees or Then the question that comes angels. We are human. to the mind is: Why change? The What does it mean to be human? answer to this lies in the fact that It means in the first place that we “man is a freak of the universe”; have self-awareness. We are conhe is not at home in the world scious of our being as separate and never has been. Rousseau’s entities, distinct from all. that is. “noble savage” is a myth, he is The individual can call himself I a figment of Rousseau’s romantic and thus step aside from all else mind. Left in the state of nature which is not himself. That is why and at its mercy, man will either man can find himself utterly lonely be destroyed within a short space and also why he is capable of of time or will return to savagery. bridging his loneliness in the free- His survival and his progress de dom of love. pend altogether on his willingness To be human means also to be and ability to effect changes. rational, to have the capacity of And yet man finds himself in a observing facts, comparing them, situation where there are a multi- finding the casual relationships betude of things he cannot change. In tween them and arriving at specific his ignorance of this fact he often conclusions that bear relevance to expends his energies tackling those the facts in hand.

ld * T o be human means to be imagi- himself side by side with oper to v r s i s t endlessly in pursuing the hopes and promises are awakened native, to have the capacity to pro- human beings who are not predict- impossible. Man’s ultimate aspira- and their fulfillment is intimated. ject one’s self into the future and able nor subject in their behavior tions are three: Third is happiness-a sense of into the abstract and to be able to to any fixed laws. First, a desire for fulfillment–a inner serenity and total integration. see with the inner eye that which The fourth unalterable fact is I meaningful organization of his en- This is not an aspiration that can is not available to the senses or is that man is born in a body and the I ergies in the realization of his dis- be achieved by being pursued. I t not yet part of reality. Man is a body dies. We may lengthen the I tinct potentialities. Man is born comes as a reward of the fulfilled dreamer who can make his dreams span of life, but ultimately all men into the world with i n f i ~ t epoten- life that has become assured of come true. die; they must die. One must con- tialities and a tremendous store of immortality. Secondly, we cannot change the front this fact’of death and accept energies. The potentials can be Fulfillment, immortality, happifact that each individual man has it before one can really cope with arranged in a multitude of patterns, ness: these are the highest aspirato live his life uniquely. No man’s life adequately. and his energies are sufficient for tions of human beings. These also life can be identical to that of any These are the absolutely unalter- effecting those arrangements. Like lie in the realm of personal characother man. Nor is any man’s life able facts; these are the things we a painter with all the spectrum of ter, which is the field that we are chartered for him. There is no im- cannot change: that we are human, colors at his disposal, man can absolutely free to cultivate. In perative wurse of behavior set for that there is no fixed blue-print to choose the pattern, he can formu- every other field, we are limited, any person. Unlike other animals guide our lives; that this is the late the ideal and apply his ener- in some fields we are absolutely who are wmpelled by instinctual only world in which we can spend gies to bring it into being. This prohibited. But in the field of impulsas from which they cannot the span of our lives; and that we choosing the pattern for a fully character, we alone determine the chooae to deviate, man has to create ultimately die. These facts spread meaningful life and realizing it is drives that make us what we are. himself by continuous rational ac- themselves over immense areas of the first great human aspiration. I t is we alone who take the blame tion. His existence is a problem to our being. To revolt against them, Second is immortality. In the or reap the joy of our character. himself and he cannot escape it. to refuse to accept them, is like course of working out the pattern We can hide our motives from the What he is and what he does are hitting our heads against the Hima- that his potentialities and his ener- eyes of the world, but ultimately his own responsibility. layas to move them. We are left gies promise, man finds that the we stand naked before ourselves; The third fact that man cannot dizzy, insecure, and frustrated. The span of his life, both individually if we have done well, the reward change is that he lives in this world wise muster the capacity and the and collectively, is too short for the is in the act; if we have done ill, ‘ and no other. As a part of this courage to see a fact, recognize it fullest realization. The strain of there is no one to blame but ourworld, he comes into direct relation- and accept it. How much misery urgency enters into his life and he selves. ship with nature which functions in and waste and crime could be arranges “first things first.” He God grant me the serenity to accordance with fixed laws that he avoided if we would face a fact and makes the most of himself because accept the fact of my humanity, of cannot change. To hope for accept it when it confronts us. of this presence of emergency of my free uncharted life, of my miracles, in the sense of the suspen- What then can we change? that knowledge that he must die. living in this world at this moment sion of natural laws for any pur- In order to answer this question But there comes a moment that of history, and of my ultimate pose whatsoever, is to exhibit a we shall examine the elements is intensely and creatively lived death. These I cannot change. But fertile, infantile imagination that which constitute the highest aspira- when a life becomes aware of its give me the courage to create my has no ground in the world of tions of a human being. This we own personal immortality. It is distinctive character, to select the reality. One may understand these can do because mankind could not only the crude, blustering, slothful drives for creative fulfillment, to laws and use them, but one cannot have gone on aspiring for these life that sighs resignedly, “Vanity taste of immortality, and to experialter them. ends had he found them unrealiz- of vanities, all is vain.” To the in- ence happiness. In this world, man also finds able. It is not in the nature of man tense, responsible, purposeful being, (The End)