Serenity....Are You Kidding?

Everything is worse than expected. Hearts are breaking; many are confused and afraid. A late night reflection.

I hope you didn’t watch the news today.

Because today is one of those sorts of Trumpy Fridays — tariff insanity, stock market decline, a dismal jobs report, firing the director of the bureau who produced honest unemployment numbers, moving a convicted human trafficker to a cushy prison (most likely to pardon her), continuing crisis around the Epstein scandal, threatening Russia with nuclear submarines, $10 a pound ground beef, the dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, altering history, extortion of universities, and innocent people arrested and detained for no reason at all (except that they speak Spanish).

Welcome to America.

Here in the United States, we’ve just passed through the first six months of the second Trump term. If you are a reader who lives in a different nation, it is probably difficult to understand how difficult it has become here.

In May and June, I spent nearly a month in Europe. It was lovely being in places where people were laughing in the streets, who enjoyed being together and were not consumed with politics. Speech wasn’t guarded; no one cast furtive glances to see if ICE might suddenly appear.

When I returned home, it felt as if I’d been dropped off in a toxic waste dump. The air itself seemed poisoned in comparison to the month I’d just experienced. I couldn’t sleep. I was shaking. It was hard being here.

Shortly after my return, I was out to lunch with a friend. With her eyes downcast, she told me that she was having terrible nightmares, felt overwhelmed with sadness, and struggling with intense grief. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she confided. “Every story about immigrants being snatched by ICE, the cruelty of it all….” Her voice trailed off. “Am I going crazy?”

“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “Not sleeping, crying over the suffering of others? That seems pretty normal in these abnormal circumstances. You’ve got a soul.”

She lifted her gaze. “I’m serious,” I said, “if you weren’t sleepless and depressed, I’d think something was really wrong with you. All you’ve described only proves you are a moral human being.”

“But I can’t live this way,” she protested. I nodded, “I know. I feel the same way.” Then she asked, “What should I do? I can’t do anything. I don’t know what to do.” She seemed a bit lost, maybe somewhat guilty or perhaps even shamed by not knowing.

Although I didn’t say this to her, I remembered that before Trump was elected, one of the authors of Project 2025 bragged about how, if Trump won, their initial goal was to put Americans into trauma. He gleefully talked about wanting to traumatize federal workers and their families. But, even then, it seemed obvious that there were even more human targets for purposeful trauma. Millions of traumatized Americans, unable to function or respond in any meaningful way, would give them a clear pathway to execute their plans.

There are many ways to traumatize others — violence, abuse, witnessing or participating in harm to others, psychological manipulation. We’ve seen them all in these six months. These days, I’m less focused on those enacting all this evil than I am on the rest of us.

The victims of such behavior often suffer moral injury, a real condition, often associated with PTSD. The Veteran’s Affairs department defines moral injury: “In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”

Moral injury is just that — trauma that violates one’s core ethical beliefs.

And that’s what we’ve been suffering for the last half year. A government that is purposefully, cruelly, and maliciously creating trauma to make millions of us transgress or shift our own moral boundaries — to inure us to their destruction of democracy and the harm being done to our neighbors.

If you feel bad, it means you haven’t yet been broken. It means you still have a soul. Your moral core has not been breached.

Six months of Trumpism and you have a beating heart. It is, however, probably suffering from moral injury.

But you are still the beautiful, compassionate, empathetic human being you have been.

I didn’t say all of that to my friend. I may recognize the outlines of this mass trauma event and the impact it is having on all of us. But I’m not a therapist — and I certainly can’t help others process this moral heartbreak in any kind of professional way.

Instead, I shared a simple practice that is helping me right now.

“Do you know the Serenity Prayer?” I asked her.

“The AA prayer? That’s your suggestion?”

“Yes,” I replied, laughing a little, “I’m not in AA! But it is a really good prayer: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’”

She looked at me quizzically. I explained, “I think I’m a bit ‘addicted’ to fixing things. But it is too much, too fast, too overwhelming. I can’t fix it. I can’t fix anything. These are powerful people and they are purposefully destroying things — including our hope. The first part reminds me that I can’t fix the economy, starvation in Gaza, all the lying and chaos, the blatant racism and misogyny…the list is long. I can’t send Trump or Stephen Miller or Russell Vought or Hegseth to therapy — or jail. I can’t remove any of them from office. I can’t change these things.”

I took a breath. “Accepting the things I cannot change doesn’t mean being passive or complicit. It means recognizing that I’m not God, I’m not that powerful, I’m just one limited human being.”

“I get that,” she said.

“But,” I continued, “there are things I can change. Those things that I am called to do, relationships in my part of the world. I can give, volunteer, write, be generous and kind, stay informed, tend to my soul and my own fears and griefs. I can even take some risks. I can still vote. I can speak out. I can do my work well. I can love. I can do good, even when it seems too little. I can’t change everything. I can change some things. And that’s where wisdom comes in.”

She said, “I hadn’t thought about that prayer as a guide for now. Yeah, I can’t do everything. But I can do those things right in front of me.”

I like the Serenity Prayer. But I also think it should be called the Serenity-Courage-Wisdom Prayer, because it doesn’t ask for one thing. It asks for three! The trio of dispositions work in concert to shift our own perspectives and attitudes. It isn’t about fixing anything. Instead, it opens a path of resilience and appropriate action that we may be transformed.

The prayer is attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, the great twentieth century American theologian. Niebuhr’s theology, richly imbued with irony and humility, emphasized the tensions and contradictions of human sinfulness and the necessity of social justice, communal ethics, and the practice of love. You sense that in this prayer — the recognition of our limits and the summons to genuine courage. But the paradox of serenity and courage must work tandem with wisdom, the ability to both accept and act in difficult and emotionally trying circumstances.

Niebuhr’s daughter thought that her father’s 1943 version of the prayer was his best — and is closest to his intention. It is notable that this version is a communal invocation, not an individual petition:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

And that’s what I’m wondering. Of course, the prayer is a good guide for these hard days. It helps me. I think it is helping my friend.

But what of us? Can we pray the prayer together? In community, sharing our restless fear and relentless sorrow?

Give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. Like there’s no real going back. We can’t live in some nostalgic America. We’re going to have technology and AI. We’re going to be living with the consequences of climate change. We can’t change the past mistakes and sins of our ancestors. We need an honest assessment of reality. We will shed many more tears over what cannot be changed.

What must we learn to accept?

Give us courage to change the things that should be changed. Not what we can change. But what should be changed. We might feel we can’t do big things. But there is so much that should be changed — for future generations to thrive, for the planet to flourish, for humanity to live justly and in peace. What should be changed? Do we even have the courage to ask the question?

What should be changed?

Give us wisdom to distinguish what cannot be changed from what should be changed. Only in that tension, the deep irony of the human condition, between the realism of what is and the dream of what should be, will our nightmares cease and our love increase. Wisdom, oh wisdom, we need you.

How would knowing the difference shift our lives and communities?

If enough of us embrace serenity, courage, and wisdom, things will change. But not because a some Golden Age is dawning or a political savior will save us. There’s only the long, hard work of being human — of striving toward love and justice, accompanied by the tender compassion of grace.

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Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore we must be saved by love.

No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint.
Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History

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INSPIRATION

If you are one who has practice
meeting the pain of the world,
we need you. Right now we need you
to teach us it is possible to swallow
what is weighty and still be able to rise.
We need you to remind us we can
be furious and scared and near feral
over injustice and still thrill at the taste
of a strawberry, ripe and sweet,
can still meet a stranger and shake
their hand, believing in their humanness.
We need you to show us how
we, too, can fall into the darkest,
unplumbed pit and learn there
a courage and beauty
we could never learn from the light.
If you have drowned in sorrow
and still have somehow found
a way to breathe, please, lead us.
You are the one with the crumbs
we need, the ones we will use to find
our way back to the home of our hearts.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Please”

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