I remembered this prayer the other day, it's called The Serenity Prayer, I find it quite Taoist in it's sentiment. Nobody is really sure who wrote it, some credit Reinhold Niebuhr, some Friedrich Oetinger in the 18th century, still others credit the philsopher Boethius in the 6th Century.

There are various versions in existance, I've chosen a short version as I like to keep things short and fairly simple, I've found this prayer very comforting of late.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Women priests

I was reading a letter in the newspaper the other day a letter from an Anglican Bishop commenting on the division that the issue of women priests has caused in the church.

I find it odd that one gender should be considered more spiritual than the other, some of the most spiritual material I've read has been written by women!

It's tempting to take the cyncial Bill Hicks view: "Great, now it's priests of both sexes I don't listen to!", but I do find that the church has a great deal to say of spiritual benefit, if only it could get past its' issues.

Passing the spiritual buck

I was taking a Da Vinci Code inspired look at Christianity the other day, and was thinking about spiritual buck passing.

It's really quite a dangerous thing to do as it places the control of your spiritual development in someone elses hands. I find it quite unsettling, simply accepting what a pastor/priest/guru says without any form of critical examination.

What happens when the preconcieved code that is handed down from past times doesn't fit, or has doubt thrown on it's reliability? How long can you paper over the cracks?

It's for reasons like this that I think critical thinking and spirituality should go hand in glove.

Values and the tide

It's interesting to look at the truths we cling to.

These things look so solid, almost timeless, but are they? Lao Tzu warns us that our precious truths are totally subjective, they change with time and place. For example, what is considered beauty in one culture or era is not necessarily so in another. Many politicians try to play to the idea that ideals and values are always the same, changeless, "traditional values".

Of course, this isn't always the case. So called traditional values aren't always the best recourse, the best way is to adapt and change. A refusal to accept this puts you in the position of King Canute, trying to stop the tide, look what happened to him.