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.
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
When I first read this prayer, the thoughts or ideas in the prayer seems to almost be clustered. I had to break it down to truly understand its meaning. First, we are asking for comfort to accept things that cannot be changed, which is pretty straight forward. This is very comparable to the "bugs in amber" symbolism that we are stuck in the moment and cannot change it. The next line asks for the courage to change things that I can. People go through the problem of being scared to make changes in their life that can better them as a person. The last line is confusing in asking for the wisdom to know the difference between the two. After reading the line again, it is important to know the difference so people do not waste time on unchangeable problems, etc. It is kind evident that Kurt Vonnegut believes in the meaning of the prayer, and it is shown throughout the novel.
I liked your analysis of the Serenity prayer Jake! I remember Mrs. Lauck often reading this to us in Religion class and the same thoughts occured to me. I agree that the whole key to the Serenity Prayer is for us to be able to recognize the defference between what we can and can't change so that we don't fret over things outside our control.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you broke down your understanding of the prayer. Prayers usually have many different meanings to each person that reads them which can be difficult to understand.
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