Serenity vs. Chaos

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.


Serenity is also the name of a ship. (Firefly, Joss Whedon creation).  I was thinking about the significance of the name for the ship.  The setting for the tale is the future, after Earth is depleted of resources.  Man ventures out and populates other planets.  Its sort of a western in space.  Really cool.  So, there is a ton of violence and chaos in this future.  But this ship anchors the crew in a way.  It provides a way of life, its own little sanctuary for them.  A bit of Serenity and peace.  

But in a larger sense, I think Serenity does come from within us, or more specifically, how we deal with life.  Stuff happens to us all,  accidents, sicknesses, things break, keys get lost.  For me, it has been a conscious decision to not let circumstances stress me out, and not to make mountains out of mountains.  Yes, its all perspective. To view even the mountains as molehills, if you will.    If we view the life around us as being insurmountable, we will only end up dancing around the foot of the mountain, looking up at the loftiness of it all.  Instead, I try to not let situations affect me.  Especially things I can not change.  It won't change anything by worrying.  

This comes after a two year stint for my family.  Total confusion, chaos and mayhem should have resulted.  And we have been discouraged, depressed at times, sad, mostly confused.  But over all we just live in the day at hand.  Things work out.  Yes, the dishwasher and air conditioning may go out one day, the brakes in the car stop working the next, I can't motivate my kids to read (yes that bugs me).  But its a mental decision to not let it all defeat us.  It is strange when people tell me "I don't know how you guys are doing it, you seem so positive, when your life totally sucks"  (well they don't use those exact words, but thats what they mean.)  

We have our escapes... fixing things, art, movies, books.... prayer.  My husband does a lot better with the prayer thing than me though.  He aims at having a continual conversation with God... every thought type of idea.  Like Stonewall Jackson, General of the Confederate Army during the War of Northern Invasion... 

To sum it up, I think its a choice.  To choose to not drown. To choose to not be engulfed by sadness. To choose the positive way.  To just "keep on swimming".  And when we make decisions that are wrong or just not good, we learn from them instead of letting them ruin us.