Sunday Prayers January 17th, 2021

Still not getting the serenity prayer thing right, edition.

Dear God,

I’m struggling to “accept the things I cannot change” right now because those things are terrifying and are getting to me in a way that can feel debilitating:

Like maybe our country is going to erupt in more violence this week.

And there are people in my life who believe things that I find delusional.

And the vaccines aren’t getting into people’s arms fast enough.

And there are so many people who won’t get them anyway that maybe we won’t ever get back to having live events and dinner parties and a functioning fucking economy.

And my cousin in dying in an ICU ward in Tennessee right now.

I don't know how to create serenity out of thin air, so if you could send some my way that I might accept, not what’s happening, but accept that I cannot change what’s happening, that might help, Lord.

I’m struggling to “change the things that I can” because the things I can change feel so small compared to the things I can’t.

And yet:

I can go for a walk and breathe in the winter air rather than sit on the sofa.

I can choose to water the plants, rather than let them die.

I can choose to donate money to causes I believe in, rather than give it all to Jeff Bezos.

I can reach out to one person, rather than focus just on myself.

I can tune out Twitter, rather than have SO MANY FEELINGS about what other people say.

I can maybe even eat some fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than live on bread alone.

God, grant me wisdom to know which of these things I have wrong, and while you're at it, the strength to keep going, the humility to ask for help from you and from others and the forbearance to not project my anger and anxiety onto people who surely have struggles of their own.  Amen.

Things I loved this week:

The new film, Promising Young Woman is now available to stream at home (not for free). I found it brilliant and, in the same way Get Out looked at the racism of LIBERALS, PYM looks at the misogyny of “good guys”. It’s darkly funny and brilliantly acted.

The Netflix series LUPIN is an absolute delight: a handsome, Black, Frenchman as a gentleman thief. Wonderful.

This episode of the great NPR show, Reveal, dives into the growing threat of white supremacist terrorism in the U.S., and includes interviews with former members of hate groups. The following exchange really stayed with me as it seemed to reveal a very human tendency:

Josh Bates (former member of a hate-group): I guess that goes to show that I was playing a role, in a sense, and it's just you start to play this role and you start getting into it.

David Neiwert: That's the sound of someone who was enthralled with the idea of being a hero. That's how the whole heroism dynamic works, is that you are playing a role. You've created this image for yourself of being the hero, and now it's really important for you to live up to it. This is how people who've been radicalized can get talked into committing acts of violence, is that they feel like they have to. They have to prove that they are the heroes they've made themselves out to be in their own minds.

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