What is serenity?

serenity: (n.) the quality or state of being serene

serene: (adj.) marked by or suggestive of utter calm and unruffled repose

Don't we all wish we had serenity in our lives? I'm not just talking about you and I being serene (as defined above), but in the world around us. Unfortunately, life doesn't seem to work that way.

As a college student, life never seems to get to that point for me. After all, any of you who've lived on a campus know exactly what I mean. There are constantly people around, whether it's walking the hall they live in, passing by on the way to class, or even class itself, and it seems to feel like sometimes you can't catch a breath for all the people around.

How does one find themselves when surrounded by, well, this chaos?

I've come to the conclusion that it takes faith. Faith in self, certainly, but also in God. How intriguing faith is. Does faith bring serenity? I don't know, but I want to find out.

I'm reminded of a quote from one of my favorite shows, Firefly while talking about faith. Let me set up the scene.

Shepard Book, who is a Christian pastor has taken on the duty of babysitting River Tam. River is not exactly, well, normal, and is for our purposes, not quite all there in the head. River gets a hold of Book's Bible, and to her logical mind, it is broken. Book is horrified. She's ripped pages out, marked through sections, and continues on her tirade, and finishes by telling Book that "Noah's ark is a problem." Book: "Really?" River: "We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat." And then she rips out another page.

It's at this point that Book decides to make a move. He tells River that she cannot fix the Bible, and she responds that it is broken and doesn't make sense. (Ok, if you've ignored my backstory to this point, read the next sentence.) Book explains, "It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you."

How profound. You cannot fix yourself. None of us genuinely can. We're all a bit broken, all a bit lost, and that's what makes us so human.

Anyway, back to serenity. I might be on a quest to find it and faith. Faith in myself, confidence to be who I'm meant to be, and unerring faith in God.

The name for this blog, and the inspiration for this first post comes from the show Firefly (which if you couldn't tell, is a favorite of mine). The title song has the lyrics, "There's no place I can be/Since I found Serenity/But you can't take the sky from me. . .".

Now those who know the show know that Serenity is the ship. But for the crew, that ship symbolizes freedom, and the chance to find themselves. And I want to find serenity for myself.

Definitions at beginning taken from m-w.com, anything from Firefly is owned by Joss Whedon, and I used IMDB to verify I remembered correctly.