Serenity, courage and wisdom when the light turns green

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2020 (2321 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The rules of the children’s playground game Red Light, Green Light are fairly straightforward. You can go on green and you need to stop on red.

It’s not a bad lesson for when you leave the playground, like during a pandemic.

In our community, we’ve been pretty successful with being told to stop. Almost everything that wasn’t required for the essentials of living came to a stop. And for the most part, everyone obeyed the rules.

But while we were stopping, I think we all hoped that a day would soon come when the rules would turn to “go.” But it doesn’t look like we are getting the green light. Resumption of activity and mobility needs to be done slowly and cautiously.

That is going to apply to worship as surely as it applies to restaurants and transit. Even as our church council began to think about what worship might look like as restrictions are eased, we have found consensus in an understanding that “go” doesn’t mean picking up where we left off. There is a lot of time and prayerful reflection to be done before that part of our life together can resume.

So what do we need within ourselves as we enter into a time of slow resumption, an amber time rather than the green one hoped for?

Recently, my thoughts brought me back to the familiar verse sometimes called the Serenity Prayer. It is often understandably associated with 12-step recovery programs, but it was written in the 1930s by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr for a much broader audience. It goes like this: “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.”

All three of the key words — serenity, courage and wisdom — will serve us well. We need serenity to accept that there is much about life in the present that we have no power to change. This can help us be free from the anger or frustration that can arise when something is utterly out of our hands.

We need the courage to act with conviction in the easing of restrictions precisely because green won’t mean “go.” None of us want to live with yet another health risk in our lives, but whenever and however we return to activity courage will be a necessary asset.

And wisdom is the voice within which will help us discern what each of us should do and when we should do it.

Wisdom is the most spiritual of these attributes. In the Old Testament, wisdom is thought of as nothing less than an aspect of God that can be incarnated in humankind. In First Kings chapter three, Solomon dreams that God will grant him whatever gift he asks for to aid him in assuming the responsibilities of his father David. He asks for “a heart with skill to listen.”

God is so pleased Solomon wants wisdom above all that the request is granted in such a manner that no one before or after will be as wise.

We are blessed with wisdom all around us from which to draw inspiration. There is wisdom in the community and traditions of faith. There is wisdom in the knowledge of experts. There is wisdom in loved ones with whom we share our lives.

But above all, there is wisdom in each of us. God dwells within each and every one of us and wishes to speak if we will listen. Listen for the wisdom within you. It will tell you when green means “go.”

Rev. Dr. Michael Wilson is the minister at Charleswood United Church.

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