Whether to Just Accept Or Embrace

In the season of Advent we hear a lot about the power of “yes,” in particular in the “Magnificat,” the beautiful Song of Mary.  But not all “yeses” are the same.

For example, Lutheran theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer famously asks, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change . . .”  Acceptance is a “yes,” but in this context, at least, it is an acceptance of resignation.

Compare it to the first lines of the Magnificat:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.

This goes beyond acceptance to embracing. For us it is a sign of Mary’s special Grace and love of God.

Embracing can be much more difficult than mere acceptance.  Consider the quote often attributed to Mother Teresa: “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”

Even if she did not say this, these words express the difference between accepting and embracing.  They voice the struggle it can take to move from obedient acceptance to joyful embrace.

When Acceptance Is Difficult

The poet Dylan Thomas made what might be the most masterful statement of refusal to accept in his poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.” In it, Thomas is expressing anger at the impending death of his father. He wants to see resistance and struggle against death, and outrage against its approach. This is human but in the long run, it is a futile reaction.

Compare that to Caesar’s words in Shakespeare’s play ”Julius Caesar” (Act II, Scene 2):

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

This sounds stoic and fatalistic, which is in character with a noble Roman – or at least in character with the ideals of noble Rome. It is also the attitude of some military men who have seen soldiers die in combat.  They develop a resignation to death of the “when your number is up there’s nothing you can do about it” sort.

But stoicism is not the default of our times, whether it is toward death or any number of other things.  And acceptance of a situation can even be an endorsement of injustice.  Historically this is all too often true, as veterans of the Civil Rights movement can attest.

Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is as powerful a rejection of unjust acceptance as has ever been composed.  Some things, like discrimination, ought not to be acceptable.  As such, paradoxically, they require us to accept them as unjust and accept the consequences for opposing them in real and visible ways in our lives.

But some things must be accepted and even embraced.  I refer here to morality and the moral imperatives being tested by temptation.

When Acceptance of What Is, Is Necessary

Lines outside the Confessional attest to the fact that people accept their fallibility.  People recognize their sinfulness and misbehavior and desire to embrace forgiveness. This is not easy.

I once heard our parish’s priest speaking about Reconciliation, and he mentioned the “cheeseburger confession.” In such a confession the penitent spends considerable time and eloquence describing the bun and the condiments.  Then the individual quickly confesses the meat in the briefest possible terms, “I shot a man and killed him.” Then the penitent quickly moves back to detail on the lettuce, tomato and pickles.

Clearly such a grievous sin is a difficult thing to accept and admit, but it is necessary for the health and salvation of the soul. Accepting (and admitting) what is necessary is not easy and not always done. Accepting the penance for a murder probably falls into that category.

As a convert to the Roman Catholic Church, one of the things I noticed about regular Reconciliation is how difficult it becomes to ignore one’s besetting sins. The act of preparing for Confession is a confrontation with my – widely shared – tendency to fall into the same traps time after time, no matter how often I pray to “avoid the near occasions of sin.” It is necessary to accept the reality of my besetting sins before I can really dig in to sincerely pray for help with the work of resisting them.

From Acceptance to Embrace

Here is where we move from acceptance to embrace. The third line in Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer is “courage to change the things I can.” The prerequisite for this kind of action is to embrace the reality of that which must be changed.

Action is frequently the result of acceptance and even more so the result of embracing. Beyond that, the difference between accepting and embracing can make a difference in the action that follows.

In the Gospel reading for the fourth Sunday in Advent, we hear that when St. Joseph learns of Mary’s pregnancy, he accepts it and decides to act with mercy and discretion.  He intends to seek a quiet divorce.  But then “. . . the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her” (Matthew 1:20).

Joseph embraced what the angel told him.  Instead of divorcing Mary, he took her into his home – a point driven home in our parish priest’s homily for that weekend.  That is definitely a step beyond mere acceptance!

Once Again We Are Called To Discernment

What do we accept when we resign ourselves to something?  Do we accept happily? What do we embrace? What action do we take when embracing something calls for consequential action?

A family member may have chosen someone to marry who some members of the family find difficult to accept, let alone embrace. The default action would be to give the new addition to the family the benefit of the doubt.  We should enter into a period of discernment as to whether the problem is with the new member of the family or ourselves.

A new company policy may strike us as unjust or improper. In such instances we should take time to discern whether our impression is valid or not.  We should also discern what, if any action to take in opposition to the policy (or whether to separate from the organization).

A physical ailment develops and we face some constraint for the rest of our life. We must discern the permanence of the condition and decide what our best response is.  This is for our own good and the good of those who love us.  Then we should embrace our discernment.

The need for acceptance and embracing presents itself to us in many ways at convenient and inconvenient times. Our response is a measure both of our spiritual and emotional maturity and of our willingness and ability to face the truth.

Prayer

Niebuhr’s original prayer has been expanded and modified over the years. According to Wikipedia the original reads as follows:

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.