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BY JANE RZEPKA, SENIOR MINISTER, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
Those of us who were able to attend the UU General Assembly in St. Louis this past summer had a great time. But for the majority of you who weren't able to make it, we'd like to share the homilies from this year's CLF worship service at GA. You can view the whole service, as well as find other CLF highlights from GA, at www.clfuu.org/gatherings/GA2006.html.
So Rosemary and I—Rosemary Bray McNatt here—were sitting on the floor last year. Sitting on the floor in the convention center eating sandwiches between things at GA, and we had the best time. Talking, talking, talking. Not about our kids for once, not about the best-new-book-ever or anything delicious or funny or sweet. What we were talking about was theology. Unitarian Universalist theology. Though we were about the same height sitting there on the carpet, theologically we did not see eye-to-eye—that right there was a lot of the fun. So, on the spot I asked Rosemary if she would join us here at this service in St. Louis, and she readily agreed.
Along about Thanksgiving time we got to emailing, and that was when Rosemary had her excellent sermon topic idea: We would model the conversation that addresses the problem. We would, as she put it, "talk about the problem, blasting through the tensions and the cold sweats." As I say, I recognized this suggestion as an excellent plan, in spite of the dawning awareness that I had no idea what "the problem" in fact was. What problem were we going to address?
Helping me along, Rosemary informed me that the problem was the theist/humanist controversy.
Oh that. I reviewed. I have heard sermons from newer ministers that place the problem between humanists and theists in the 1980s. Some UUs put the controversy in the present tense. Historians of our movement date the theist/humanist controversy round about 1916 through 1933, where it ends. Me? I visualize this discussion, between people who believe in God and people who don't, as having happened, in, oh, 1959.
We are sitting at the dinner table, my mom and dad and the five children ranging in age from zero to nine. It's me who is nine. Over the din of the kids, over the instant mashed potatoes, the meatloaf, and the canned peas, I can hear my dad saying to my mom, "But Helen, there just has to be something—some god—that started it all, that designed all this complexity. The universe couldn't have just happened. The people and the buffalo and tadpoles and everything couldn't have just evolved on their own. It doesn't stand to reason."
And there's Mom, dishing out the red Jello with the fruit cocktail inside and the Cool Whip on top, allowing how there's simply no evidence to support god. None. That this marvelous world and beyond came about naturally, and we need to be good to it and to each other.
My parents embodied a version of the humanist/theist controversy. As they talked, we five little UUs-in-the-making picked up the sense that talking about this religious stuff was fun—not tense or disagreeable. Everybody chimed in with age-appropriate comments that, coming as they did from younger brothers and sisters, I secretly thought were…well, maybe I could have been more charitable. But the point is that nobody felt they didn't belong at the table, nobody was going to leave the table sulking or exasperated, and only the very "immaturest" among us were going to fling the Jello across the table for whatever reason.
Let me be clear. My folks did not invent this discussion topic, and it's not a product only of the 1950s, or the eighties, or the immediately pre-Humanist Manifesto era of the thirties, or however it might be manifesting in Unitarian Universalism last Sunday or next.
How about we take St. Louis and its larger neighborhood for example? Let's plunk ourselves down right here in the latter part of the 1800s. Around these parts they really did have a theist/humanist problem. Out here in the "West," a lot of Unitarian ministers favored a religion of ethical principles, rational thought, and inclusivity. The Rev. John Learned, minister of the Church of the Unity here in St. Louis, was that sort of minister. Others, personified by the Rev. William Greenleaf Eliot, minister of the older Unitarian church in town, the Church of the Messiah, insisted that Unitarians believe in God and call themselves Christians. The two factions were fed up with each other.
One liberal leader, William Channing Gannett, noted that we need to keep moving on, theologically. He said that at one time we stood for revelation, but the times forced us to move on. Then the denomination stood for miracles and the supernatural, but Emerson and Parker came along, and we moved on. Then we took another stand, this time for the divinity of Jesus, but again our religion moved itself on.
Finally, after the Civil War, the liberal wing of our religious movement was ready to move on again here in "the West"; it was time to move away from Christian theism. Understandably, this pushed the conservative ministers over the edge. "Now," lamented one of them in 1886, "the stand is made at Christian theism, and once more, we are asked to move on. Move on where? We are told we must move on from our Christian theism to freedom, fellowship and character in religion, that is, to non-theism.… There is nothing about which there is more mental confusion than about this whole moving on idea." Another colleague concluded, "Truth, Righteousness and Love is a humbug basis!"
At their wit's end, the conservatives wanted to establish a creed. They wanted to draw the line: If you don't believe in God, you're out. At a conference here in St. Louis in1885 it got pretty rough, what with some Christian theists insisting that the non-Christians and non-theists should be excommunicated, and some of the radicals threatening, in fact, to excommunicate themselves and split the denomination.
I wish I could tell you that here in St. Louis they figured it out for all time. They did not. But Gannett came up with a statement in 1887 that did calm the waters, and it said in part, "Whoever loves Truth and lives the Good is, in a broad sense, of our religious fellowship…."
That statement included everyone who was in the fray at the time: the theists and the Christians, the ethical humanists, the Universalists, the Unitarians, and the non-Christians. That statement opened its arms to the theological diversity among us. That statement, its sentiment handed down through the generations, welcomed and included both my mother-the-humanist and my father-the-theist in Unitarian Universalism well over a hundred years later.
It was as if those ministers looked around the room and suddenly realized that most of the people they saw are very probably theological relatives. It was as if on some level they understood that religious liberals are uncannily alike, and in the most fundamental sense, all family. They knew then what Rosemary-the-theist and I-the-humanist know today: We are family to one another within Unitarian Universalism, Rosemary and I. We are close relations. And we are part of a religion that in the 21st Century knows how to embrace us all.
From my parents, the theist and the humanist, I learned about our religion of gratitude and awe for life itself in all its crazy manifestations, for love and for wisdom, for the miracles and mysteries. As Unitarian Universalist children, we learned to talk about how grateful we felt, so lucky, so stunned by the wonder of it all.
Language of reverence for all of us.
From my parents, the theist and the humanist, I learned about our religion of compassion and care and kindness that's founded on respect and easy embrace. As to Unitarian Universalists, we wanted to get to know the human family, all kinds of people, one-to-one, and do right by each other.
And from my parents, the humanist and the theist, I learned about our religion of justice, and how the energy needs to be nimble and fierce. We learned that Unitarian Universalists do our best to act with integrity for fairness and for dignity and for peace.
When we look around, yes—just look around this room—when we look around we suddenly realize that most of the people you see are very probably theological relatives. We are in the most fundamental sense, all family.
BY ROSEMARY BRAY MCNATT , MINISTER, FOURTH UNIVERSALIST SOCIETY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Given June 22, 2006, at the CLF worship service at General Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri.
So, what do you get when you bring together a Pentecostal and an evangelical Baptist and a Roman Catholic and a Unitarian Universalist and an agnostic and seat them at a dining room table? Well, you get my family of origin at Thanksgiving dinner. Every year the four of us, along with our respective children, converge on Mama's house in Chicago to eat till we can't move, gossip about everybody we haven't seen for a year, and talk about our two favorite topics—politics and religion. It doesn't really seem like Thanksgiving until we stand around the table crammed with food, until Mama asks me to say grace, because as the minister in the family I am the designated prayer; it's not Thanksgiving until my mother picks up where I leave off, ending her prayer with her heartfelt "In Jesus' Name," and until one of my brothers, the only Republican in a houseful of Democrats, says something nice about the president and sets the rest of us off into howls of exasperated laughter.
No wonder Jane and I had so much fun at lunch last year, sitting on the floor and talking theology—though we grew up under vastly different circumstances, we share the common ground of big families, lively dinner conversations and a certain courage when it comes to speaking about matters of faith.
Now, our churches or congregations or fellowships are not families, they are spiritual communities of choice. Neither is our association a family, but it really is hard not to see us —just for a second—as a big noisy family, clamoring for attention and space, cross with each other on occasion, but quick to love and to defend one another against those who would impose rigid doctrine on our spiritual brothers and sisters, even if we don't always agree with what they're talking about. It's kind of neat to think of us all at some enormous dinner table, passing the Brussels sprouts and candied yams and speculating about the existence of heaven.
Sitting at a table, talking about theology—there are moments when I wish I could spend my whole life that way, because for me, theology is so much fun. I love trying to figure out why we're all here, and what we're meant to do, and compare notes with folks who are sure we are born with a mission, and folks who think life is all one big random roll of the dice, and folks who just don't know, but who still want their lives to count for something.
I love the idea of worshipping with people who can feel the heart of God beat within them, with those who hear the voice of the goddess whispering to them in the dark womb of night. I admire the courageous clarity of the atheist, who thinks life is too important to threaten people with stories about it, who lives with rigorous honesty about creation, unwilling to embrace what cannot be proven. I hunger after the simplicity of Buddhist practice, its clear-eyed and hard-won serenity about the terror and the beauty of life. As for myself, I hold close the memory of my experience of God as an all-loving, all-embracing Presence, one that never forgets us, never abandons us, a Presence that, even in the midst of sorrow and failure, showers us with blessing. One of the biggest blessings of my life is getting to serve as a parish minister, working in community with people who think and believe all kinds of things about God.
On the best days of my ministry I love it—it's just like Thanksgiving at my mom's house—only at a bigger table. But that's not always the ministry I get to do, and as I travel and preach, it's not always the ministry I get to experience. That's what gave me so much energy on the floor with Jane: it was all kinds of little moments I've experienced over the 20 years I've been a Unitarian Universalist, moments that exemplify what we collectively call "the theist-humanist controversy," words that sound intellectual, but that we experience personally.
I don't know anyone who hasn't had such a moment: the whispered conversations I have had with members of churches that I visit who thank me for using the word God in my sermon and say with a kind of yearning, "We don't get to talk much about that around here." The member of my congregation who told me, a couple of years after I'd been called, "When we looked at your packet, the fact that you were Black wasn't a problem, and the fact that you were a woman wasn't a problem. But the fact that you believed in God had us worried."
I won't even touch on the list of more egregious comments, including someone who suggested that I might not want to talk so much about Jesus in future sermons; it is a comment I might have been able to hear with better grace had I not been preaching about Jesus on Easter.
I am one of those people who are grateful to our president, Bill Sinkford, for opening the conversation on the language of reverence. It has been clearing the air in congregations across the country and I thank him for starting it every chance I get. But the more I have thought about it, the more I have come to believe that ours is not a language problem; ours is an attitude problem. The word God is not the enemy; our fear of it is. Christianity is not our enemy; fundamentalism of every kind is. Yet some of us are so afraid of being thrown back into the irrational religious past that we have succumbed to a curious fundamentalism of our own. Some of us have oh, so quietly made our congregations into bunkers to protect us from contamination by believers in anything different than our own postures of faith. Instead of living as communities resistant to the current culture of disrespect, we have embraced one of our broader culture's most destructive qualities—we have stopped listening to one another, in an effort to protect our own hearts and the fragility of our own spiritual journeys.
And we have been cheating ourselves spiritually as a result. We have forsaken the gifts of religious hospitality and the blessings that come from hearing each other into speech about our differing beliefs: the blessings of a broader view, a wider embrace of this wonderful world and its people, which are only some of the fruits of a genuinely open mind and a genuinely open heart.
It is my honor to serve as minister at the church that ordained Clarence Russell Skinner, perhaps the greatest Universalist of the 20th century. He wrote these words about God that have guided many of us in our congregation as we work to move on:
The Universalist idea of God is that of a Universal Immanent Spirit whose nature is love. It is the largest thought the world has ever known; it is the most revolutionary doctrine ever proclaimed; it is the most expansive hope ever dreamed.
There are many Unitarian Universalist communities that have actively chosen to embrace Skinner's revolutionary and expansive hope. They are choosing to move on from fear; they are choosing to do church differently. There are atheists sitting next to followers of Jesus, and they are in real conversation. Theists are learning ritual from their pagan sisters and brothers. Ministers are preaching about the Hebrew Scriptures and quantum mechanics. There are prayer groups and healing circles and sanghas too, and best of all, best of all, no one is apologizing to anyone else for being fully who they are. Unitarian Universalists are moving on again, this time by bringing together the very best that human beings have learned about how to live and how to die and how to care for one another. We are moving on by creating community among those for whom community was said to be impossible. We are moving on by modeling in church what Jane and I learned at home, what I am reminded of every Thanksgiving, what many of us have learned in our families and in our lives—it is amazing what can happen when we let love lead the way. Not that sticky, icky sentimental and anemic love, but gritty, hands-on, long-haul love that may give us the only glimpse we ever get of what heaven looks like. It is that kind of love that changes everything.
BY HAROLD BABCOCK , CLF NOMINATING COMMITTEE
The Church of the Larger Fellowship nominating committee seeks nominations of CLF members to fill these positions on the Board of Directors for the year beginning June 2007:
Board members set CLF policy and approve the budget. Board members meet in Boston twice annually, at General Assembly, and periodically by conference calls.
The CLF also seeks to fill one position on the Nominating Committee:
The nominating committee nominates new board members. Most of its meetings are conducted by telephone and email.
You may nominate yourself or another CLF member for any of these positions.
Please contact the CLF office at clf@clfuu.org or 617-948-6166 with your nominations. Deadline for nominations is January 1, 2007.
BY DENISE TAFT DAVIDOFF , CHAIR OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
10. Receiving the UUA Distinguished Service Award on Friday evening with my husband, Jerry. 9. The Rev. Jane Rzepka's stunning readings at the Sunday community worship. 8. Watching and hearing our CLF delegates at plenary microphones. 7. Standing at the procedural mike on Thursday and announcing myself as Board Chair of the CLF to applause. 6. Visiting the CLF booth in the exhibit area several times to greet our wonderful staff and committed volunteers. Thanks, all. 5. Visiting the Church of the Younger Fellowship booth in the exhibit area several times and seeing the spirited young adult volunteers in their bright red "Keep the Faith" shirts—and seeing their increasing membership reports. 4. Greeting the faithful at our annual meeting and turning the agenda over to the ever-faithful Nelson Simonson, elected to be our Moderator. 3. Hearing the two movements of composer Jason Shelton's and writer Kendyl Gibbons's cantata based on the seven Sources of our UUA Principles, previewed at the CLF Worship. (Can't wait to hear its entirety next year in Portland, Oregon.) 2. Watching the Revs. Jane Rzepka (our very own!) and Rosemary Bray McNatt preaching inspired homilies in dialog at the CLF worship service on Thursday: crowded, creative, spiritually nourishing. 1. Seeing our CLF delegates everywhere I was, whether plenary floor, convention center corridors, hotel lobbies, programs and events—even the airport.
10. Receiving the UUA Distinguished Service Award on Friday evening with my husband, Jerry.
9. The Rev. Jane Rzepka's stunning readings at the Sunday community worship.
8. Watching and hearing our CLF delegates at plenary microphones.
7. Standing at the procedural mike on Thursday and announcing myself as Board Chair of the CLF to applause.
6. Visiting the CLF booth in the exhibit area several times to greet our wonderful staff and committed volunteers. Thanks, all.
5. Visiting the Church of the Younger Fellowship booth in the exhibit area several times and seeing the spirited young adult volunteers in their bright red "Keep the Faith" shirts—and seeing their increasing membership reports.
4. Greeting the faithful at our annual meeting and turning the agenda over to the ever-faithful Nelson Simonson, elected to be our Moderator.
3. Hearing the two movements of composer Jason Shelton's and writer Kendyl Gibbons's cantata based on the seven Sources of our UUA Principles, previewed at the CLF Worship. (Can't wait to hear its entirety next year in Portland, Oregon.)
2. Watching the Revs. Jane Rzepka (our very own!) and Rosemary Bray McNatt preaching inspired homilies in dialog at the CLF worship service on Thursday: crowded, creative, spiritually nourishing.
1. Seeing our CLF delegates everywhere I was, whether plenary floor, convention center corridors, hotel lobbies, programs and events—even the airport.
Hope to see you next year!
We've all been to someone's house where saying grace is a mandatory practice before the meal. It's not always a comfortable moment, and not because it's a grace, but because it is mandatory. In my experience, it seems these mandatory graces are divided into a couple of categories. The first is the "sectarian blessing." For example, this one might be addressed to the (your faith here) God to make the meal suitable and sustaining to the (your faith here) people around the table. These blessings make me nervous. The second category is the "speed-reading blessing," spoken so quickly that you have no clue what was said. These make me dizzy. And then there are those occasions where the host or hostess can't resist asking me, a minister, to offer a professional prayer over the pot roast. These usually make me feel inept.
If there is ever a time of year when dining rooms all over America set a place at the table for religion, it's at Thanksgiving. As anachronistic as it may feel, some sort of prayer can be a meaningful ritual by which we might acknowledge the blessings of human companionship and love, the sustenance and strength derived from the earth, and the magic and mystery of our relationship to Creation. It's big stuff. It's there without our having created it or without our having invoked it. It's sitting right there beside us. It seems, at the very least, that we might give a nod in its direction, and recognize all we have been given, unbidden.
My Thanksgiving blessing is already figured out. It'll be the same one my family uses every time we sit at the table together. But it's not a prayer I lead. I have a young zealot that set our tradition in place. When she was three, my daughter Emily must have been to a young friend's house where they said a prayer before eating. She returned home, took our hands, and said, "Praise! Praise!"
So that is what we started to do.
I recommend it. Let us praise.
From A Temporary State of Grace, by the Rev. David S. Blanchard. Published by Skinner House in 1997, this book is available through the CLF library (www.clfuu.org/library or 617-948-6150) or the UUA Bookstore (www.uua.org/bookstore or 800-215-9076).
The CLF has a number of Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) in which members share community and email conversation around a particular interest or life experience that they have in common, such as being retired, or a theological stance such as UU Christians or humanists. (To join a Shared Interest Group, look under "Online Community" on our web site, www.clfuu.org.)
A member of our UUpagan SIG raised the question: "What, if any, daily spiritual disciplines do you practice?"
The community responded (in part):
The ritual that seems to have most meaning for me is, each morning, to stand before a window and repeat to myself the following:
Goddess, thank you for this new day. God, thank you for the relationships I will nurture in this new day. Guide my feet and help me float in you through this new day.
Also, at mealtime I thank the plants, the animals, and the people that have provided my meal and ask that the meal nourish me well. I focus specifically on one certain plant, one certain animal (if any) on my plate, and one certain human role (perhaps the person who picked my coffee beans). It just keeps me mindful.
Ellie Amico Wilson, Whitewater, Wisconsin
A "ritual" which I have forgotten to do of late is a morning greeting/ salutation. I walk forward and backward four times to each of the directions and say, "walking (change adverbs often) confidently/slowly/peacefully, etc. I reach out (stretch arms outward) to (some word for community) and upward to g-d/ g-ddess/divine/sacred. I return (walking backward to start point) to myself in peace/forgiveness/encouragement etc." Then I do namaste in all directions and begin my yoga routine.
susanna suchak, London, Ontario, Canada
I have a grace that I say at every meal:
Divine Creator, We thank You for the blessings of this day and the bounty of Your harvest. We ask that you would bless this food to our body's use—to make us strong and healthy. We thank You for family and friends; and ask for a special Touch of Your Grace upon any who might need it at this time, for whatever reason. Continue to bless and guide us along Your Path, according to Your Will. Amen. Dwayne Decker, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada
Divine Creator, We thank You for the blessings of this day and the bounty of Your harvest. We ask that you would bless this food to our body's use—to make us strong and healthy. We thank You for family and friends; and ask for a special Touch of Your Grace upon any who might need it at this time, for whatever reason. Continue to bless and guide us along Your Path, according to Your Will. Amen.
Dwayne Decker, New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, Canada
When I go to bed, my last thought (unless it's a night when I can't get to sleep) is "Thank you, Lady, for the blessings of this day." When I awake, my words are "I am awake and refreshed and I give thanks for this day, for this is the day that the Lady has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." (A little paraphrasing there that you may recognize!) I usually walk the perimeter of my large back yard several times. I think of it as exercise of my body and spirit. On rare occasions I actually complete an entire ritual while walking. But usually I just chant a few chants and pray for people—or ask for blessings for them or whatever. I still have a bit of difficulty with the concept of praying because of a lot of old baggage. But I focus healing energy on those in my circle who are in need.
Mary Ann Somervill, Lake Placid, Florida
One very low-key version of early AM practice is what I call "pillow prayer." To be used during those crunch times when you barely have time to bathe and things are feeling truly awful!! Get just the right pillow. Get just the right pillow case.
First thing in the morning: Oh, Goddess, help me through this one! Last thing at night: Thank you, Goddess, that that one's over. God receive me in your loving embrace of sleep. Sparrow F. Alden Norwich, Vermont
First thing in the morning: Oh, Goddess, help me through this one! Last thing at night: Thank you, Goddess, that that one's over. God receive me in your loving embrace of sleep.
Sparrow F. Alden Norwich, Vermont
I carve out about fifteen minutes in the morning of "me" time with candle lighting, to bless my home and family (human and furry). During my morning walk I pray for the rabbits and squirrels and living creatures (including humans) that I meet during my walk, and give thanks for the green things in the neighborhood.
Cathy Romach, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
For my daily ritual I go to my window and feel the sun touching my body, envisioning it as a warm stream like water that washes around and over me. I open my hands to let it flow into my hands, receiving it, feeling the warmth. You can never look this deity in the eye: it's too powerful, and you really must bow your head to avoid direct contact, which turns into a reverence: you can feel the power touching your eyes through closed lids. I then wash myself in the light as if it were warm flowing water: face, ears so that I may hear clearer, nose, mouth so I may speak better and be understood, eyes, body (yes, all parts). Then I take three deep breaths (in through the nose, out through the mouth) directing the healing sun to any problem areas and seeing in my mind's eye any irritations or illnesses coming up and out of my body in the exhaled breath where they are destroyed in the light. Recently I have begun to recite the grace I composed:
For each and every day; the light that folds aside the sheltering night. For health and rest and gifts and friends, For all that is and all that ends I give my thanks: by grace of the greater light. Patrick HB Porter, Ferndale, California
For each and every day; the light that folds aside the sheltering night. For health and rest and gifts and friends, For all that is and all that ends I give my thanks: by grace of the greater light.
Patrick HB Porter, Ferndale, California
.
BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
It seems like parents are always harping about "politeness words" like "please" and "thank you." After all, what do they really mean, anyway? Nothing so clear as "Let's go to the park." Or "I want another pancake." But, as is the case with most religious words, the reason that "please" and "thank you" don't have a single, clear meaning like, say, "table" is that they really are talking about some pretty big ideas.
Did you hear me right? "Please" and "thank you" are religious words? Well, I think they are. When we say please and thank you, we act in a way that says we understand that people do things for us out of kindness, rather than just assuming that everything we want naturally belongs to us. Really, those seemingly-simple politeness words are about acknowledging that everything in the world does not belong to us—that everything life brings us is a gift. So when we say "thank you" to a friend or family member or stranger who helps us at the store we remember that that person didn't have to do what we wanted, but they chose to anyway. They didn't have to be nice, but they were, because that's how we all get along in the world, by helping one another.
But sometimes, like, say, the Thanksgiving holiday, we make a special effort to say "thank you" not just to the people around us, but to the Great Big Whole. Some people call it God, or goddess or nature or the universe, but however you choose to describe it, our lives and all the good things in them are made possible by something much larger than ourselves. We did not make the sun shine or the plants grow so that we could have food. We cannot personally take credit for the thousands and thousands of years of human creativity that brought us farming techniques to cultivate plants and animals, or the idea of cooking, or the technology of fire, not to mention ovens and stoves. We would not be here at all if not for the people who gave birth to us, and to our ancestors. Saying "thank you" reminds us that all we are and all we have is a gift: not something that belongs just to us, not something we have because we earned it or because it is our right, but something that has come to us as a privilege to be treasured.
The Jewish religion has a tradition of brachot, special blessings that are said for almost anything you can think of. There is a blessing for seeing a teacher or finishing a book, for eating and for going to sleep and even for going to the bathroom in the morning! There is an old Jewish saying that the person who neglects to say the blessings is a thief. Why? Well, the blessings are a way of saying thank you, of recognizing that all the pieces of life are really presents that come from beyond us. So if you don't say the blessings—if you don't say thank you—then you are acting as if something that isn't yours belongs to you. And that's stealing.
Imagine that your best friend loaned you their favorite toy—a brand new Game Boy or a stuffed animal that they've had since they were a baby. Wouldn't you be extra careful with it, making sure that it didn't get lost or stepped on or (in my house) chewed by the dog? If we think of this planet and everything on it as a precious treasure on loan to us, then we are more likely to take good care of it in every way we can, not using more than we need, so that the treasure will be there for the people who haven't been born yet. After all, it belongs as much to them as it does to us!
Unitarian Universalists don't have a set of blessings that have been in place for more than a thousand years, like the Jews, but lots of us have special ways to say thank you to the world. Some people take time at dinner or bed time to say the best thing that happened that day, or to name something for which they are grateful. Some people hold hands for a time of silence when everyone can just think about the things they are grateful for. Some people say a blessing, like:
For food and health and friends who care, For plenty so that we can share, For sun and rain and earth and sky, For searching minds that wonder why, We offer praise and thanks.
Some people sing their thanks, or even dance it or write it or draw it. Whatever works for you is great. But this Thanksgiving, maybe you want to think about the fact that every day, not just once a year, deserves to be Thanksgiving Day. Even if you have to wait until next year for cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.
I feed myself. I listen to the rain falling bright and furious. Rain remembers its falling for a moment, rippling, then forgets itself in the sheeting, sliding, silence.
It's four-forty. The sky reflects gray in the windows across the alley. I know my life is not and will not be profound but I adore it anyway – book strewn and poorly fed over-thought and occasionally betrayed; I adore it.
It doesn't matter that the difference between myself and the rain is a matter of a little salt and some organization. I love my skin and all it contains until the rain falls through it.
And I'll love it even then, if I may.
by Kendra Ford, minister, First Unitarian Society of Exeter, New Hampshire, from How We Are Called: A Meditation Collection. Edited by Mary Benard and Kirstie Anderson, and published by Skinner House in 2002, this book is available through the CLF library (www.clfuu.org/library or 617-948-6150) or the UUA Bookstore (www.uua.org/bookstore or 800-215-9076).
Last updated October 22, 2006
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