Serenity Prayer
The prayer has achieved very wide distribution, spreading through the YWCA and other groups in the 1930s, and in Alcoholics Anonymous and related organizational materials since at least 1941.
[12] It then also appeared in a sermon of Niebuhr's in the 1944 A Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces,[2] and was printed on cards for American soldiers in WWII.
[citation needed] Rhetorician William FitzGerald believes Wygal wrote the prayer, arguing sexism as the reason for misattribution.
Niebuhr's daughter in her book The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Time of Peace and War said: "... their message and their tone are not in any way Niebuhrian.
[23][full citation needed] Today, twelve-step recovery programs generally use a slightly different version, the text of which has been adopted in official publications from groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous:[24] 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.
"[26][non-primary source needed] The 8th-century Indian Buddhist scholar Shantideva of the ancient Nalanda Mahavihara suggested: If there's a remedy when trouble strikes, What reason is there for dejection?
[27][non-primary source needed] The 11th-century Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol wrote: And they said: At the head of all understanding – is distinguishing between what is and what cannot be, and the consoling of what is not in our power to change.
In 1801, German philosopher Friedrich Schiller wrote:Blessed is he, who has learned to bear what he cannot change, and to give up with dignity, what he cannot save.
[citation needed] Theodor Wilhelm, a professor of education at the University of Kiel, published a German version of the prayer under the pseudonym "Friedrich Oetinger" in 1951.
[34] Wilhelm's version of the prayer became popular in West Germany, where it was widely but falsely attributed to the 18th-century philosopher Friedrich Christoph Oetinger.
[21]: 343 The prayer became more widely known after being brought to the attention of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1941 by an early member,[35] who came upon it in a caption in a "routine New York Herald Tribune obituary".
"Never had we seen so much A.A. in so few words," noted Bill W.[38] The January 1950 edition of the Grapevine (The International Journal of Alcoholics Anonymous) identifies Niebuhr as the author,[10] as does the AA web site.
