Thanks! 

 

The Rev. Ron Sala

Unitarian Universalist Society in Stamford

November 24, 2002 

 

A friend of mine once told me that he’s not happy unless he has something to complain about. I guess I’m the same way a lot of the time, grumbling to myself if to no one else. Maybe you can relate.

But it is refreshing, once in a while, to reflect on everything that’s good in our lives. An anonymous writer once put down a list of some things to be thankful for right in the middle of the stuff that bugs us. He or she writes:

I am thankful…

For the spouse who says it's hot dogs tonight because she (or he) is home with me, not with someone else. 

For the teenager who is complaining about doing dishes, because that means she is at home & not on the streets. 

For the taxes that I pay, because it means that I am employed. 

For the mess to clean after a party, because it means that I have been surrounded by friends. 

For the clothes that fit a little too snug, because it means I have enough to eat. 

For my shadow that watches me work, because it means I am out in the sunshine. 

For a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing, because it means I have a home. 

For all the complaining I hear about the government, because it means that we have freedom of speech. 

For the parking spot I find at the far end of the parking lot, because it means I am capable of walking and that I have been blessed with transportation. 

For my huge heating bill, because it means I am warm. 

For the lady behind me in church that sings off key, because it means that I can hear. 

For the pile of laundry and ironing, because it means I have clothes to wear. 

For weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day, because it means I have been capable of working hard. 

For the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours, because it means that I am alive.

Meister Eckhart, the medieval German mystic, wrote that if the only prayer you say in your life is, “Thank you,” it's enough. What could he have meant? He was a monk who spent his life in prayer. Could he have possibly been serious?

Let's look at what that phrase, “Thank you,” implies. First, it calls to mind an instance where we've received help. Anything from passing the salt to years of dedicated service to saving one's life should elicit a thank you. Even someone pointing out where we're wrong might bring a thank you if we take it in a non-defensive way. Saying thank you implies maturity. It's a recognition of another's service, literally, “re-cognition”—thinking again. We bring into our mind someone's kindness and don't take it for granted.

But when we pray, Thank you, or to put it another way, when we recognize and contemplate those forces outside of ourselves that have led to our well-being, we live our happiness again and thereby double it. Thankfulness is a pausing, a remembering of that for which we are grateful, for that which has been given us beyond what we have earned.

The holiday we call Thanksgiving is a collective time to call to mind everything that's right in our lives. We all move so fast. I know I do. So much of my day involves running from appointment to appointment, making phone calls, writing sermons, doing the laundry, that I forget to remember. I forget to remember my friends, I forget to remember my family, I forget to remember the blue jay out the window, I forget to remember the music on the radio, I forget to remember how lucky it is to be living right here, right now, I forget to remember how good it is even to have struggles to match my strength against.

Every holiday is a call to remember: Wake up! Look around! See the season in nature! see the season of your life! Rejoice! Our existence here is not in the amnesia of mere survival, but in the waking up to how things really are and seeing that despite the routine and despite the hassles, it's something to be glad about. It's in realizing with Alexander Woollcott that, “There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.”

Our Thanksgiving Day stands in a line of harvest celebrations thousands of years old. This doesn't mean Thanksgiving has to be in the fall. In fact, in 1795, George Washington put it in February, but it didn't last. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have Thanksgiving twice a year, just to remind us to be grateful for all we have, especially here in America. But there's something that does fit between Thanksgiving and harvest. No doubt harvest rituals began in some ancient time as stroking for the temperamental Gods, positive reinforcement, if you will, so that they might repeat the successful crops next year. What I'm sure they found out in ancient times, as we do today, is that celebration is as good for humans as it is for the Gods.

A memorable quote from Scott Alexander's book, Salted with Fire, comes from a Latin American who says, “The problem with you gringos is that you don't fiesta enough!” Through celebration, we wring every bit of life from the present and build our hope for the future.

The traditional Jewish Thanksgiving is the fall festival of Succoth, the Feast of Tabernacles. In the past, each family would build a succah, a booth made of branches and leaves. Now this is usually done by the entire synagogue together. The children decorate the succah with fruits and vegetables. The roof is open to the sky. One lesson that the flimsy shelter of the succah provides is the impermanence of all things. We are not to put our trust in material goods but in the Spirit. But in spite of the shortcomings of the succah as housing, it's to be a place of rejoicing and community.

Much of our Thanksgiving lore and imagery goes back to the so-called “First Thanksgiving” of 1621, celebrated at the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Christian missionaries in Africa are often told that they did not bring God to the African people, that God had been worshipped there by various names for thousands of years. It's also been said that Native Americans discovered Columbus after he'd gotten lost. We could say something along these lines about the First Thanksgiving, too. Native Americans had held festivals of thanksgiving long before the Europeans came. The Algonquin tribes, who lived and life here in Connecticut, celebrate six thanksgiving festivals throughout the year: the late winter maple dance, the spring planting feast, the strawberry festival, the summer corn festival, the late fall harvest festival, and mid-winter. When the Indians sat down to the Puritan's First Thanksgiving, it was already their fifth of the year!

The First Thanksgiving wasn't even the first Europeans had held in the New World. Martin Frobisher declared a formal celebration in Newfoundland in 1578.

And we know now how badly the fragile cooperation between the Pilgrims and the Original Inhabitants would turn out. Squabbles would soon erupt and many of their children would kill each other in King Philip's War. But there's something in that picture of cooperation that still captivates us. No doubt, part of it lies in wanting to forget or even cover up the atrocities committed by Europeans on Native Americans. Even so, that 1621 Thanksgiving is one example of sharing and goodwill between Indian people and settlers.

The so-called “First Thanksgiving” of 1621 was with the Wampanoag tribe.

There are still Wampanoag people in Massachusetts. In the 1970’s, one of them was asked to speak at the ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of the Pilgrim's arrival. Here's part of what was said:

Today is a time of celebrating for you—a time of looking back to the first days of white people in America. But it is not a time of celebrating for me. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People. When the Pilgrims arrived, we, the Wampanoags, welcomed them with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end. That before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. That we and other Indians living near the settlers would be killed by their guns or dead from diseases that we caught from them. Let us always remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white people.

Although our way of life is almost gone, we, the Wampanoags, still walk the lands of Massachusetts. What has happened cannot be changed. But today we work toward a better America, a more Indian America where people and nature once again are important.

We realize that our thanksgiving cannot be complete until there is justice and equity among all people. It reminds me of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: If you are about to offer a sacrifice and remember that you have something against your brother, leave the sacrifice at the altar, be reconciled to him, and then offer your sacrifice. For if we are not in harmony with others, how can our hearts be free to offer thanksgiving?

As the First Thanksgiving was a time of harmony, albeit a brief one, so our contemporary official holiday was meant to be. But Thanksgiving has always been celebrated by less than perfect people in less than perfect times. In fact, Thanksgiving was made a national holiday by a man whom we might think had little to be thankful for.

When he was 7 years of age, his family was forced out of their home, and he went to work. When he was 9, his mother died. He lost his job as a store clerk when he was 20. He wanted to go to law school, but he didn't have the education. At age 23 he went into debt to be a partner in a small store. Three years later the business partner died, and the resulting debt took years to repay.

When he was 28, after courting a girl for four years, he asked her to marry him, and she turned him down. On his third try he was elected to Congress, at age 37, but then failed to be re-elected. His son died at 4 years of age. When this man was 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. At age 47 he ran for the vice-presidency and lost. But at age 51 he was elected president of the United States.

The man was Abraham Lincoln….⁰

He was someone who knew trouble as well as triumph. Lincoln’s proclamation of Thanksgiving Day in 1863 included a prayer for the healing of the nation, torn apart by civil war.

And so, even in the midst of pain, maybe especially in the midst of pain, it’s important to bring thanks. In thanksgiving, we recollect reasons for joy and hope. We realize now a part of that better future for which we work.

A number of years ago, a man was in a silent Quaker meeting. The only sound was a grandfather clock ticking. After a while, he felt moved to speak. “I’ve been listening hard and trying to hear what that clock is saying to me,” he said. “I think it’s saying, “Think, thank … think, thank … think, thank.” Thanksgiving is a time for thinking and thanking. What do you have to be thankful for? Think of all the things, and thank whatever Providence brought them, then celebrate, fiesta!

Amen.

⁰ John Yates, "An Attitude of Gratitude," Preaching Today, Tape No. 110.