The Serenity 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…” –Reinhold Niebuhr

Alcoholics Anonymous uses this prayer in their meetings. Missionaries must use this prayer in life. For any missionary abroad, there are annoyances beyond belief that must be confronted, dealt with, or ignored.

For me personally, the driving behaviors of some Tijuanenses (as they are called) take me to my absolute limit. I would be lying if I denied thoughts of road rage. Of course I never act out on the premeditated, sick scenarios in my mind; yet Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:28 could hermeneutically be changed to, “But I tell you that anyone who day-dreams of road rage has already committed extreme violence in his heart.”

Without citing specific examples of ridiculous disorder, dangerous injustices, and me-first moves, two quick points should be mentioned. One, 99.9 percent of the time, I obey all traffic laws—especially yielding the right-of-way. And two, people drive without caution right next to me, behind me, and at me all day long. Generally my pattern has been like this: Someone tries to cut me off; I drive aggressively in order to prohibit their move; the sheet metal of both vehicles becomes bondo-close; I win or they win; my mind is filled with terrible thoughts; I continue to stew over the events; if I can, I give the other driver an ugly look…etc. I don’t even want to continue anymore as this is too darn embarrassing to have posted on the World Wide Web.

I spoke with my mechanic and friend, Carlos, about this subject last night. He passed along some wise shoptalk. “You will never have a rational conversation with a bad driver on the street—ever.” And I believe this to be true. Those who drive without consideration of anyone and everyone else on the road, do so because of deeply rooted issues that are unfixable in the middle of an intersection. On the screen of my laptop, this seems extremely obvious; but when Carlos slowly walked me through this over the landline yesterday evening, it was revolutionary!

There is a phrase in spanish—ni modo. It means, oh well—nothing you can do. In more advanced english—to accept the things I cannot change. I have to learn this if I’m going to make it long-term on the field. I have to get cut off, brave near misses, and be late or last to arrive—and have a good attitude in the process—so “that I may be reasonably happy in this life”—as says Niebuhr near the end of his Serenity Prayer.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Missionary Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.