Aa history Lovers 2004 moderators Nancy Olson and Glenn F. Chesnut page
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is, read literally, "things not up to us" vs. "things up to us." And the goal of the good life in Stoic philosophy is always described as the attainment of "serenity," which in ancient Greek was apatheia, which meant freedom from overwhelming emotional storms (what were called the pathe in Greek, that is, the fierce passions like the furious and insane rage which drove Medea to kill her own children and Clytemnestra to murder her husband, King Agamemnon, by chopping him up with an ax as he lay soaking in his bathtub). To see what they meant by the pathe, the overwhelming "passions" which led us to our destruction, see the Roman tragedies written by Seneca. His plays usually focus on the destructive power of ira (out of control anger) and furor (which is out of control anger carried to truly insane lengths). But the Stoics knew that there were a lot of other passions which could destroy you when they got out of control, such as desire, grief, fear, and even joy (modern drug addicts can assure you that this is so). And the ancients knew about sexual lust of course! They had felt its power too. At any rate, any ancient Greek philosopher who looked at the Serenity Prayer would note these two items - - the distinction between the things we cannot change and the things we can, and the idea of serenity as the goal of the good life - - and nod his head and say, "Yes, this must be by a Stoic." These were technical terms which these ancient philosophers argued over, and everybody knew that this was the Stoic position on those issues. St. Augustine, who knew his ancient philosophy thoroughly, later on attacked the idea of serenity as the goal of the good life in his City of God, which he wrote at the beginning of the fifth century A.D., specifically identifying this as a Stoic idea. The Discourses of Epictetus is the best Stoic work to look at to see how the ancient Stoics understood these terms. Epictetus had once been a slave in the mad emperor Nero's palace, and knew whereof he spoke when he talked about being in situations where we had no control over people, places, or things. (This observation was a standard part of ancient Stoic belief also. The only thing we ultimately have real control over, they taught, is what is going on inside us, inside our own heads.) How did these ideas get down to the twentieth century? By the end of the Greco-Roman period, most philosophers were teaching mixtures of Stoic and Platonic (and sometimes Aristotelian) philosophy. They were called Late Stoics or Middle Platonists or Neo-Pythagorians or other technical terms like that, but all of them had mixed a lot of Stoic ideas into their thought. Even the writings of an Academic Sceptic like Cicero were filled with references to Stoic ideas. And by the second century, Christian theologians were using a mixture of Stoic and Middle Platonic philosophy to explain their own Christian ideas. In the eastern end of the Mediterranean most early Christian theologians taught that serenity in the Stoic sense was the goal of the Christian life, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity still teaches that to this day. And the revival of the Greek and Roman classics in the Renaissance, beginning in the 1300's A.D., meant that you can find Stoic ideas coming out in all sorts of Renaissance and Early Modern literature from western Europe for a number of centuries afterward. Reinhold Niebuhr was probably the greatest American-born theologian of the twentieth century, and had a deep and profound knowledge of ancient philosophy as well as the history of Christian theology. There is a little bit of the Stoic approach in the early medieval philosopher Boethius (who is sometimes cited as the source), but he really doesn't use the Stoic technical terminology, and he was also not very apt to have been on Reinhold Niebuhr's reading list. Boethius just did not show up on the standard reading lists at either Protestant or Roman Catholic seminaries in the early twentieth century. They might mention his name in a general history course, but would not go into any detail about his ideas, or require the students to actually read anything Boethius wrote. But Reinhold Niebuhr could have picked up these ideas from so many different Late Ancient and Medieval sources, that I think tracking down the particular one that suggested the prayer to him is impossible. There were just too many places he could have found the basic ideas. Originally though, if we take the ideas in the Serenity Prayer back to their beginnings, it was a very distinctive and easily identifiable Stoic philosophical position. It wasn't just vague talk about men and women sometimes being at the mercy of forces they cannot control, which was something which thoughtful human beings in all cultures at all periods of history have talked about (Egyptians, Persians, Buddhists, Hindus, the classical Greek tragedians, and so on). Glenn Chesnut, Professor Emeritus of Ancient History, Indiana University IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1957. . . . . . . . . . . . Report from the moderatpr From: NMOlson@aol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/29/2004 8:46:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII The group keeps growing. Today there are more than 910 members from all over the world. Lately I have not responded to new members with welcoming messages. So this is for the new members, and a reminder to the others: Welcome to AA History Lovers. We are not an AA group: The list is open to anyone interested in AA history whether AA members or not. We are not a chat room: Please do not use the list to comment on other people's posts. Comment on the post ONLY if your message has additional history on the subject. Personal Opinions Are to be Avoided: No personal opinions, or posts based just on rumor or vague memory of what someone told you will be posted. To the extent possible please list the sources for any information you send. Messages that repeat history already on the list will not be posted: Please use the search box to make sure the information is not already on the list. Also please search the list before posting a question which may already have been answered. Subject Lines: Please identify the subject in any post that you send. Those that say "A question" are not helpful. Are you getting too much mail?: You can always change your setting to get a daily digest or to receive no e-mails but only read the messages on the website. Read old posts by going to: Yahoo! Groups : AAHistoryLovers Messages : 1-31 of 853 [89] Also, I do not always post questions about how a particular local custom got started. There are far too many of them and they would crowd the list with nothing but local customs. Please do not argue when your post is not approved. I do not have time to respond to such complaints. As some of you know, I have not been well lately and considered turning the group over to someone else. But now I have decided I want to keep control of it until it is absolutely necessary to turn it over. But I may not be as efficient as I have tried to be in the past. Please be patient with me. Nancy Olson Moderator IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1958. . . . . . . . . . . . Serenity Prayer and New York Herald Tribune
From: Glenn Chesnut . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/28/2004 12:11:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Cora F. seems to have discovered what may be yet a new problem in tracking down the origins of the Serenity Prayer. So far, everyone has taken as a starting point the tradition that the prayer came from a newspaper clipping described as follows: Nell Wing for example, in Appendix B to Grateful to Have Been There (p. 167), says that the prayer was discovered in 1941 in the "In Memoriam" obituary column of an early June edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Cora F., whom I already know to be a very careful researcher with really sharp eyes, says "I copied down the relevant dates, went to the library at the big university, and spent several hours over two afternoons with a diabolical microfilm viewer. No luck." Has anyone else in our web group tried to verify that the copy of the prayer which came into the New York AA office in fact came from an obituary in the New York Herald Tribune in 1941? If it cannot be found in that newspaper during that time period, was the person who brought it in to the AA office mistaken in saying that it came from the Herald Tribune? There were a lot of newspapers in New York in those days. Or did the date perhaps get remembered incorrectly? Or was the newspaper clipping which was brought into the office in June 1941 a memento which the person had kept from a much earlier time? Cora F. says that she was looking at the obituaries in and around early June 1941. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1959. . . . . . . . . . . . CHARACTERS IN TWELVE AND TWELVE From: jacqueline belgium . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/28/2004 1:42:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII One of a good reference to AA history is the Bill W.'s biography published by A.A. i.e. «PASS IT ON» where a lot of names is mentioned together with the role they played in A.A. first days of AA history. just for your information, the French-speaking European countries (i.e France, Switzerland and Belgium) translated, a few years ago, the only existing French version known up to now. Regards.
Jacqueline - Brussels - Belgium _________________________________________________________________ Ne cherchez plus. Trouvez. http://search.fr.msn.be/ IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1960. . . . . . . . . . . . Price of the Big Book From: Susan Krieger . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/28/2004 5:57:00 PM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Starting in 1939 when the book was published is there any way of finding out the original price and a history of GSO's price changes throughout the past 65 years?
trudgetheroad IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1961. . . . . . . . . . . . RE: Serenity Prayer and New York Herald Tribune From: Tim Sheehy . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30/2004 7:43:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII There is a grapevine article in the January 1950 edition describing the origins of the serenity prayer as we know it. -----Original Message----- From: Glenn Chesnut [mailto:glennccc@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 10:12 AM To: AA History Lovers Subject: [AAHistoryLovers] Serenity Prayer and New York Herald Tribune Cora F. seems to have discovered what may be yet a new problem in tracking down the origins of the Serenity Prayer. So far, everyone has taken as a starting point the tradition that the prayer came from a newspaper clipping described as follows: Nell Wing for example, in Appendix B to Grateful to Have Been There (p. 167), says that the prayer was discovered in 1941 in the "In Memoriam" obituary column of an early June edition of the New York Herald Tribune. Cora F., whom I already know to be a very careful researcher with really sharp eyes, says "I copied down the relevant dates, went to the library at the big university, and spent several hours over two afternoons with a diabolical microfilm viewer. No luck." Has anyone else in our web group tried to verify that the copy of the prayer which came into the New York AA office in fact came from an obituary in the New York Herald Tribune in 1941? If it cannot be found in that newspaper during that time period, was the person who brought it in to the AA office mistaken in saying that it came from the Herald Tribune? There were a lot of newspapers in New York in those days. Or did the date perhaps get remembered incorrectly? Or was the newspaper clipping which was brought into the office in June 1941 a memento which the person had kept from a much earlier time? Cora F. says that she was looking at the obituaries in and around early June 1941.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1962. . . . . . . . . . . . Another "Original" Preamble From: Lee Nickerson . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/31/2004 6:59:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Can anyone identify the source of the following. Its language appears to be close to Oxford Group principles? "Alcoholics Anonymous is a group of people for whom alcohol has become a major problem and who have banded together in a sincere effort to help themselves and other problem drinkers recover their healthy and maintain sobriety. Definitions of alcoholics are many and varied. For brevity we think of an alcoholic as one whose life has become unmanageable, to any degree, due to the use of alcohol. We of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the alcoholic is suffering from a disease for which no cure has yet been found. We profess no curative powers but have formulated a plan to arrest alcoholism. The only requirement for A.A membership is a desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees in A.A. Activities are supported by the voluntary contributions of the members.
Alcoholics Anonymous does not perform miracles, believing that such power rests only in God. We adhere to no particular creed or religion. We do believe, however, that an appeal for help to one's own interpretation of a Higher Power, or God, is indispensable to a satisfactory adjustment to life's problems. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a prohibition or temperance movement in any sense of the word. Neither have we any criticism of the controlled drinker. We are concerned ONLY with the alcoholic. From the vast experience of our many members we have learned that successful membership demands total abstinence. Attempts at controlled drinking for the alcoholic inevitable fail. We attempt to follow a program of Recovery which has for its chief objectives, sobriety for ourselves; help for other alcoholics who desire it; amends for past wrongs; humility; honesty; tolerance; and spiritual growth. We welcome and appreciate the cooperation of the medical profession - the clergy, and the public in general." unknown IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ++++Message 1963. . . . . . . . . . . . Re: Serenity Prayer and New York Herald Tribune From: Cloydg . . . . . . . . . . . . 7/30/2004 10:58:00 AM IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Here's a selected contribution I found on the net, hope it will help? Clyde The Origin of our Serenity Prayer As published in August/September 1992 BOX-459 (Reprinted with permission) AA History.com [90] For many years, long after the Serenity Prayer became attached to the very fabric of the Fellowship's life and thought, its exact origin, its actual author, have played a tantalizing game of hide and seek with researchers, both in and out of A.A. The facts of how it came to be used by A.A. a half century ago are much easier to pinpoint. Early in 1942, writes Bill W., in A.A. Comes of Age, a New York member, Jack, brought to everyone's attention a caption in a routine New York Herald Tribune obituary that read: [91] "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference." Everyone in A.A.'s burgeoning office on Manhattan's Vesey Street was struck by the power and wisdom contained in the prayer's thoughts. "Never had we seen so much A.A. in so few words," Bill writes. Someone suggested that the prayer be printed on a small, wallet-sized card, to be included in every piece of outgoing mail. Ruth Hock, the Fellowship's first (and nonalcoholic) secretary, contacted Henry S., a Washington D.C. member, and a professional printer, asking him what it would cost to order a bulk printing. Henry's enthusiastic response was to print 500 copies of the prayer, with the remark: "Incidentally, I am only a heel when I'm drunk .. . so naturally, there could be no charge for anything of this nature." "With amazing speed," writes Bill, "the Serenity Prayer came into general use and took its place alongside our two other favorites, the Lord's Prayer and the Prayer of St. Francis [92] . Thus did the "accidental" noticing of an unattributed prayer, printed alongside a simple obituary of an unknown individual, open the way toward the prayer's daily use by thousands upon thousands of A.A.s worldwide. But despite years of research by numerous individuals, the exact origin of the prayer is shrouded in overlays of history, even mystery. Moreover, every time a researcher appears to uncover the definitive source, another one crops up to refute the former's claim, at the same time that it raises new, intriguing facts. What is undisputed is the claim of authorship by the theologian Dr. Rheinhold Niebuhr, who recounted to interviewers on several occasions that he had written the prayer as a "tag line" to a sermon he had delivered on Practical Christianity. Yet even Dr. Niebuhr added at least a touch of doubt to his claim, when he told one interviewer, "Of course, it may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don't think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself." Early in World War II, with Dr. Niebuhr's permission, the prayer was printed on cards and distributed to the troops by the U.S.O. By then it had also been reprinted by the National Council of Churches, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous. Dr. Niebuhr was quite accurate in suggesting that the prayer may have been "spooking around" for centuries. "No one can tell for sure who first wrote the Serenity Prayer," writes Bill in A.A. Comes of Age. "Some say it came from the early Greeks; others think it was from the pen of an anonymous English poet; still others claim it was written by an American Naval officer... ." Other attributions have gone as far afield as ancient Sanskrit texts, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza. One A.A. member came across the Roman philosopher Cicero's Six Mistakes of Man, one of which reads: "The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected." No one has actually found the prayer's text among the writings of these alleged, original sources. What are probably truly ancient, as with the above quote from Cicero, are the prayer's themes of acceptance, courage to change what can be changed and the free letting go of what is out of one's ability to change. The search for pinpointing origins of the prayer has been like the peeling of an onion. For example, in July 1964, the A.A. Grapevine received a clipping of an article that had appeared in the Paris Herald Tribune, by the paper's correspondent in Koblenz, then in West Germany. "In a rather dreary hall of a converted hotel, overlooking the Rhine at Koblenz," the correspondent wrote, is a tablet inscribed with the following words:
"God give me the detachment to accept those things I cannot alter;
the courage to alter those things I can alter; and the wisdom to distinguish the one thing from the other." These words were attributed, the correspondent wrote, to an 18th century pietist, Friedrich Oetinger (1702-1782). Moreover, the plaque was affixed to a wall in a hall where modern day troops and company com-manders of the new German army were trained "in the principles of management and . . . behavior of the soldier citizen in a democratic state." Here, at last, thought A.A. researchers, was concrete evidence-quote, author, date-of the Serenity Prayer's original source. That conviction went unchallenged for fifteen years. Then in 1979 came material, shared with G.S.O.'s Beth K., by Peter T., of Berlin. Peter's research threw the authenticity of 18th century authorship out the window. But it also added more tantalizing facts about the plaque's origin. "The first form of the prayer," Beth wrote back, originated with Boethius, the Roman philosopher (480-524 A.D.), and author of the book, Consolations of Philosophy. The prayer's thoughts were used from then on by "religious-like people who had to suffer first by the English, later the Prussian puritans . . . then the Pietists from southwest Germany . . . then A.A.s . . . and through them, the West Germans after the Second World War." Moreover, Beth continued, after the war, a north German University professor, Dr. Theodor Wilhelm, who had started a revival of spiritual life in West Germany, had acquired the "little prayer" from Canadian soldiers. He had written a book in which he had included the prayer, without attribution, but which resulted in the prayer's appearance in many different places, such as army officer's halls, schools and other institutions. The professor's nom de plume? Friedrich Oetinger, the 18th century pietist! Wilhelm had apparently selected the pseudonym Oetinger out of admiration of his south German forebears. Back in 1957, another G.S.O. staff member, Anita R., browsing in a New York bookstore, came upon a beautifully bordered card, on which was printed: "Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, give us Serenity to accept what cannot be changed, Courage to change what should be changed, and Wisdom to know the one from the other; through Jesus Christ, our Lord." The card, which came from a bookshop in England, called it the "General's Prayer," dating it back to the fourteenth century! There are still other claims, and no doubt more unearthings will Yüklə 1,35 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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