By Michelle Nichols
REUTERS
Posted using ShareThis
Alcoholics Anonymous has used the serenity prayer in its program around the world for many decades. The prayer is “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.”
In the January, 1950 edition of Alcoholics Anonymous magazine The Grapevine, Niebuhr said of the prayer: “Of course, it may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don't think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself.”
“Reinhold Niebuhr was a very honest person and he was modest,” Shapiro said. “He didn't appear to claim anything that wasn't truthful, so I believe that he probably unconsciously picked the Serenity Prayer, he heard it, or read it somewhere and forgot that he had seen it or read it somewhere.”
He likened the prayer to a proverb, “often used for a long time before anyone writes them down.” But as for who came up with the Serenity Prayer, he says: “That's the big mystery.”
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