My Pocket Prayers

Colleen Scheck, Producer

This week’s program “Approaching Prayer” is on my list of SOF classics. It’s a busy program: three interviews, readings and poetry, chants and music, biblical stories and Rilke quotes.

I love Anoushka Shankar’s description of Hinduism’s connection to nature and how prayer is about sound as much as words. I appreciate Stephen Mitchell’s story of how encountering the Book of Job was a “spiritual riddle” for him — a form of prayer. And I’m drawn to Roberta Bondi’s generous philosophy of prayer: “However we are, however we think we ought to be in prayer, the fact is we just need to show up and do the best we can do. It’s like being in a family.”

Colleen's Pocket Prayers

This program always makes me reflect on what I consider prayer to be in my life. I’m reminded this time of the pocket prayers I keep in my wallet — the Irish Blessing (my heritage) and the Serenity Prayer (authored by Niebuhr, popularized in addiction recovery programs, cherished by me for its simple, versatile message to consider what is and isn’t in my control on a daily basis):

My guess is many of you have pocket “prayers” that you keep with you — hanging on a wall, stapled in a hall; tattooed on your chest, knitted within a crest; stuck to the bumper of a car, in restroom of a bar; on a church, or a yurt; whatever shape to which it may convert.

We’d love to see them and know how they reflect creative and generous approaches to prayer. You can submit your images a couple of ways:

The Serenity Prayer. One Step Closer?

Trent Gilliss, online editor

Several years ago when we first produced our biographical program on Reinhold Niebuhr, we did a considerable amount of research trying to verify the source of the Serenity Prayer and arrived at this understanding. Even Reinie himself questioned his inspiration.

For many others, the provenance of the oft-quoted verse remained uncertain, including Fred Shapiro, the Yale librarian who edits The Yale Book of Quotations. Skepticism reigned when it came to attributing the prayer to Niebuhr. But, with one graduate student’s research, Shapiro’s mind has been changed. With no clear-cut originating source, I’m sure most skeptics will never be fully comfortable proclaiming Reinie as the definitive source.

When we were producing this show, I planned on creating a way for people to submit photographs and descriptions of all the creative ways the Serenity Prayer has manifested itself in daily life — from home decor to bumper stickers, from church banners to working mottoes. I ran out of time. Perhaps this is a project worthy of reviving?

Image caption: portrait of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr preaching at Union Theological Seminary. (photo: Gjon Mili//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)