this week I attended a workshop on "teenage suicide" It seemed to me that 
the problem that the Psychiatrist was dealing with was getting the 
patient to accept life and yet change life so it brought me back to this. 
Hope you like it. 


	Serenity Prayer Revisited

On this road from earth to heaven 
	We have come to nineteen-ninety-seven
And as 1996 begins to dissolve
	What will be your new year's resolve?

Oh, you say that you are not making any
	Because you have already made too many
So you won't try to change a thing
	As the New Year's bells begin to ring

Now why is that (I am prone to ask)
	That you do not enter on the task
Of trying to create some sort of change
	Or at least some things to rearrange

Is it because you have finally given up
	That you cannot control the "Lip or the Cup"?
Is it because you work until you feel deranged
	Trying to change what cannot be changed?

But are you accepting as fatal what must be
	Instead of trying to change, you see,
For there are things that we can do
	As we approach the year that's new.

Or is it now that you just don't care?
	That life has brought you to despair.
And you have concluded that each tomorrow
	Will only carry with it its load of sorrow.

Why not  resolve to try as you have never tried before
	Not to change the "wall" but to find the "door"
To change those things that are in your power
	As we approach the midnight hour.

And trusting God to give us the wisdom to know
	What we can change down here below
And what we can not, He will give us, of His abundant grace,
	All that we need of strength to run life's race.

So may each new day increase our resolve then
	To work on life's puzzles in order to solve them,
Seeking from God His wisdom so that we may know
	Which one to try to change and which to let go.

God bless you, Dr. Van the answer man

ghvs 12/5/96