Interfaith Insight - 2025
Permanent link for "Stress, Serenity, and Pilgrimage" by Douglas Kindschi, Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, GVSU on January 6, 2025
For many, 2024 was a year of stress. And for many this coming year doesn’t look all that promising on the political front as well as in other areas. I’m reminded of the Serenity Prayer that is often invoked in times like these. The prayer was made popular by the famous theologian and pastor, Reinhold Niebuhr.
In 1915 the German Evangelical mission sent Niebuhr to Bethel Evangelical Church in Detroit to a small congregation of 66. Detroit was at the beginning of the auto industry boom and was attracting many Black people as well as Jewish and Catholic immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. White supremacists did all they could to oppress these “newcomers,” including growth of the Ku Klux Klan in Detroit. The Klan in Detroit grew to over 20,000 in the 1920s and even ran candidates for mayor, one of whom was elected in 1935.
Niebuhr took a strong stance against this prejudice, receiving national attention, and his congregation grew from 66 to nearly 700 by the time he left in 1928 to become Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Also, about the same time he wrote the Serenity Prayer as a part of a sermon. It became used over the years by many including the YMCA and Alcoholics Anonymous. It has various versions, but usually used is the following:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that
cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things which should be
changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
As we face the stresses and challenges of the coming year, may this be our prayer as well.
Niebuhr was also well known for his many books and influence on many others including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life and teachings will be celebrated with our national holiday on Jan. 20. In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, King wrote, “Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.”
Niebuhr was also an early advocate for not judging others and spoke against efforts to attempt to convert Jews to his own Christian faith. When questioned about others who don’t claim a faith, he responded, “How do I know about God's judgment? One of the fundamental points about religious humility is that you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.”
Another way to deal with stress is to “leave it behind” by taking a pilgrimage. Most religious traditions have a version of that. One of the Pillars of Islam is the pilgrimage to Mecca know as the Hajj. Muslims who are physically and financially able are required sometime in their lifetime to make that pilgrimage.
Jews often take a pilgrimage to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and there is a long tradition of Christian pilgrimages.
Among the many historic Christian pilgrimages, one that is well known and popular today, is the Camino de Santiago in the northwestern region of Spain. A friend of mine, and of our interfaith efforts here in Grand Rapids, took that pilgrimage a few years ago. Another former resident here and previous head of the Reformed Church in America, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, took that pilgrimage and wrote a book about it. In the prologue of his book Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage, he writes how pilgrimages usually start: “You are feeling dissatisfied, anxious, depleted, desperate, or just deeply discontented. In such a moment, you know that your present circumstances of life are simply not working.”
For Granberg-Michaelson it led to seeking a way to shed much of his baggage, intellectual as well as spiritual. In his words, “All my life I’ve carried weighty theological assertions — creeds and historic confessions … psychological baggage … political baggage: the weight of tribal politics, and the politics of my tribe. … My pilgrim path beckons me to unpack these weighty realities, leave behind what I can, and carry lightly what I need.”
His book title is based on a true story from the 9th century, when three Irish pilgrims “made the dramatic decision to set out into the ocean from their homeland in a boat purposely ‘without oars’ seeking God’s breath. In Hebrew, wind, breath, and spirit are all the same word.” This is the metaphor he uses for the task of pilgrimage, involving shedding so much of our baggage to find a deeper truth.
As we begin a new year, we may need to reclaim our serenity or shed unwanted baggage as we seek deeper truth. One effort in that process might be to join our book group discussion this January.
Click here to register for the book group discussion meeting alternate Wednesdays at 2:00 p.m. by Zoom. We will be reading the Granberg-Michaelson’s book, Without Oars.