Serenity Prayer (Unabridged)

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.

Living ONE DAY AT A TIME;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.

Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.

Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.

Amen

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)
Reinhold Niebuhr was a Protestant Theologian best known for his study of the task of relating the Christian faith to the reality of modern politics and diplomacy. He is a crucial contributor to modern just war thinking and a proponent of Karl Barth's neo-orthodoxy. Niebuhr was born in Wright City, Missouri, USA, the son of a liberally minded German-American pastor, Gustav, and the brother of Helmut Richard Niebuhr. Niebuhr decided to follow in his father's footsteps and enter the ministry. He attended Elmhurst College, Illinois, graduating in 1910 and then going on to Eden Seminary St. Louis, Missouri. Finally he attended Yale University where he received his Bachelor of Divinity Degree in 1914. In 1915 he was ordained a pastor and spent the next thirteen years serving the Evangelical Church in Detroit. During the outbreak of World War II, the pacifist leanings of his liberal roots were brought under challenge and he began to distance himself from the pacifism of his more liberal colleagues, becoming a staunch advocate for the war.