The Road To Serenity – Haibun

Written In Response To:

V.J.’s Weekly Challenge # 50: Acceptance –  This week, examine the role that acceptance plays in your life. So looking forward to your responses.  

Reena’s Exploration Challenge #89 – PROMPT:  You could write a story or an anecdote with a Haiku as part of it. A Haibun or Alternating verse and poetry, of course works.

Over thirty-one years ago when I entered Alcoholics Anonymous to begin my journey with God, the “old timers” (very wise men of God), kept telling me over and over again to read page 449 in the back of the AA Big Book. So I looked it up and this is what it said;

 

“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation–some fact of my life–unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes.”  

 

Over the years that first line would come to mind whenever I was struggling with problems and it would remind me that the only way to acceptance is through humble surrender to my powerlessness…  

 

surrender to know

lack of power in all things

soul’s empowerment

 

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is only 164 pages.  The rest are wonderful stories that people from way back when shared and the wisdom gained through their experiences.

~ * ~

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.

~ * ~

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