The Serenity Prayer

THE CONCEPT of acceptance used to trouble me. It was not until I looked deeply into the Serenity Prayer that an answer began to appear. "The serenity to accept. . ." Somehow, I think, I had unconsciously imbued that phrase with a meaning it just doesn't have. I thought of it as saying "to accept serenely," and pictured a blissful Buddha smiling at his navel while "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" glanced off his impervious sides. Then I caught a glimpse of truth: My image could be correct only in the case of a sculptured Buddha, never in the case of a living, breathing, fully human being.