Just for Fun: The "Vanity Prayer"
July 1 is International Joke Day: so please, don't take this one seriously!!!
Okay, friends, I know us mystical and contemplative types can sometimes take ourselves just a wee bit too seriously. I’m hoping this post, offered here in honor of “International Joke Day” (July 1), will contribute to alleviating that particular affliction.
Here’s the backstory: back in April I led a retreat for the southeastern association of Theosophists, and as part of their annual retreat they host a talent/variety show the last night of the gathering. It’s meant to be playful and tongue-in-cheek (for example, I contributed by reading T.S. Eliot’s classic poem “On the Naming of Cats”). At some point during the weekend I had made a reference in one of my talks to the Serenity Prayer. Someone misheard me, and during the Q&A asked me if I would recite the “Vanity Prayer” that I had alluded to. I explained their understandable mistake, but the genie was out of the bottle — and the woman in charge of the evening’s festivities asked me to write a “Vanity Prayer” as part of the fun.
So I did. And here it is. You will see how I used the Serenity Prayer as my starting point, although the prayer quickly went in a direction all its own…
Remember: just for fun!
The Vanity Prayer
(with apologies to Reinhold Niebuhr and Madame Blavatsky)
God, I cannot help it that you have made me beautiful.
I know that this is one of those things that I cannot change.
So grant me the serenity to accept my sheer vanity,
And the courage to put up with those who don’t understand.
May their eyes be opened to just how wonderful I truly am,
So that they may be astute in seeing how cute you have made me.
May they understand how deplorable it is to miss how adorable
I truly am, as the fairest of your many lovely creations.
Grant me the wisdom to immediately tell the difference
Between those who recognize my prettiness,
And those who are stuck in their pettiness.
From one tall cool drink of water to another I pray,
Amen!
Disclaimer: No serious theologians were harmed in the creation of this Substack post.