BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
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  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  • Stewardship and Gift Policy
    • Saints We've Known
    • Charitable Giving and the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
  • Sermons 2022-23
    • The Seventh Principle
    • Make Light of It
    • A Turn of the Screw
    • America: Part II
    • What Do You Expect?
    • Good Mourning
    • Beyone Repair?
    • No Signal
    • Absolutely, Maybe, Definitely Not
    • Do Guardian Angels Exist?
    • Right Here
  • Our Covenant
  • Minister's Welcome
  • Religious Exploration
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  • We Rise: Social Justice Resources
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  • Making the BUUC Accessible
  • LOVEUU
  • Community Resources
    • Mental Health Providers, Worcester MA
    • Southern Worcester County Parent Guide
  • Contact Us
    • Sermons 2021-22
  • Sermon Archives
    • Finding Joy in Uncertain Times
    • The Arithmetic of Joy
    • Of Muck and Martyrs
    • Doing Dishes
    • Idle Worship
    • The Fear of the Refugee
    • It's Not Just You
    • If We Choose
    • Lazy Busy
    • A Most Human Season
    • Running on Empty
    • Alone Together
    • Come Home
    • Winter Warmth
    • How Big Is Your Circle?
    • Thanksgiving Life
    • Kurt Vonnegut: Humanist Hero
    • In Costume
    • Again
    • Borderland
    • The Geometry of Life
    • Transformation and Growth
    • Come Build a Land
    • Our Brains, Our Minds and Our Hearts
    • Gifts
    • Repairers of the Breach
    • The Times They Are A-Changin'
    • Mission Possible
    • It Matters
    • Thanksgiving Reflection
    • Shoes That Fit
    • Winter
    • Ignorance, Answers, and Bliss
    • Questions, Questions
    • Living to the Point of Tears
    • Lost in the Shuffle: UU's Less Popular Principle
    • On the Turning Away
    • A Matter of Degree
    • A Collection of Near Death Experiences
    • I Know Her So Well, I Think. I Thought.
    • Faith-based Resilience
    • To Abet Creation
    • Who Cares?
    • A Matter of Life and Depth
    • Pass/Fail
    • Enough
    • O Holy Light
    • With New Eyes
    • Coming Alive
    • Beyond Words
    • Becoming
    • A Miracle Even Thomas Jefferson Could Embrace
    • Fear Not!
    • The Miracle of Change
    • Meeting Grace
    • R-E-S-P-E-C-T
    • Serving with Grace
    • The Pursuit of Happiness
    • When Heresy Met Sally
    • The Souls of All Living Creatures
    • What Are You Looking For?
    • Beloved
    • Let Me Count The Ways
    • Happiness
    • Chosen
    • Faith and Belief
    • Room To Grow
    • Blessed Fools
    • Don't Be a Superhero
    • Getting There from Here
    • Unfinished Business
    • Universalism's Origen
    • Yearn to Learn
    • Beauty Saves
    • Commentary on Freedom
    • Being Human: Religious Community in a Plastic Age
    • Questionable Certainties and Faithful Doubts
    • Commentaries on Murphy's Law
    • Children of a Lesser God
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Life Incarnate
    • So You Want to Be Happy
    • A Year's End Resolution
    • Where Stars Are Born
    • Thanking Eve
    • Anger, Our Teacher
    • Everlasting Punishment
    • Comprehending Moral Imperatives in a Me-centered World
    • Promises Kept
    • Dancing With The Stars: Science and Religion
    • Two Steps and Missteps: Church Membership for Human Beings
    • Light of the World
    • Dear God
    • Imago Hominis
    • CESA: Reflections on Drug Addiction
    • Falling in Love Again
    • How Does Your Garden Grow
    • Repent! No Guilt Trip Required
    • Go Out into the World
    • Thanks-living
    • Life and Not Life
    • Guilty As Charged
    • Dare To Hope
    • Don't Forget To Chew
    • Break the Silence - Stop the Violence
    • Living Among Strangers
    • What Is Religion Anyway?
    • East of Eden
    • Praying Attention
    • Wholly Human
    • The Healing Power of Forgiveness
    • All I Want for Christmas
    • Let It Be...Let It Go
    • Why Not?
    • People Like You
    • Vulnerable Trust
    • Thin Places
    • Now What?
    • Courageously Humble
    • The Last Butterfly
    • The Good, The Bad, and The Whole
    • Sacred Souvenirs
    • Made Whole
    • This Wild and Precious Life
    • Fragile Nets of Meaning
    • Where Our Future Can Begin
    • Taking Stock: Managing Our Spiritual Inventory
    • To Convert Life into Truth
    • Are We There Yet?
    • Family Matters
    • Ordinary Saints
    • All I Wanted Was Everything
    • Giving Thanks
    • To Be or Not To Be
    • Entering the Christmas Story
    • A Great Light
    • What's Real?
    • Troubling the Water
    • The Amazing Mr. Wedgewood
    • Lend Me Your Ears
    • Work That Is Real
    • Happy Melba Toast Day
    • The Great Pacific Garbage Dump
    • Plastics, Benjamin!
    • Surprise Beginnings
    • A Place at the Table
    • Norbert Capek’s Flower Communion: A Call To Honor Life
    • Voices of God
    • Hold On To What Is Good
    • The Little Stone Church That Rocks
    • What Would Jean-Luc Do?: A Tribute to Humanist Hero Gene Roddenberry
    • From Who am I? to Whose are We?
    • Turning
    • Spirituality
    • R & R
    • Spritual F-Words
    • Does Anyone Really Like Herding Cats?
    • Prepare to Be Amazed
    • The Greatest Gift
    • The Impossible Will Take A Little While
    • Taking Sides: Journey to the Center of the Universe
    • Help Wanted, Apply Within
    • Two Truths & Plastics and Water Don't Mix
    • The Third Conversation
    • Good People >
      • UU You >
        • Twitter and Covid and Wall Street, Oh, my!
        • I Do Believe in Spooks >
          • Holy Homophones >
            • What's in a Name?
            • So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!
            • Open-Mindedness, As Assigned
            • Going on a Journey
            • Cheap Love
            • Nonproductive Delight
            • The Persistence of Memory
            • Thoughts about the Historical Jesus
            • Lindens and Tiarella and Bearberry, Oh My!
            • Season's Greetings
            • I Still Have A Dream
            • Peace Corps - A Lesson in Caring
            • Spiritual Engineering
            • Thanks for the Memories
            • Our Stories, Ourselves
            • Anxious Gardeners
            • The Best Sermon Ever!
            • UUnited
            • We Are Courageous
            • A Right Way to Be Wrong
            • Sacred Ideals
            • This Wild and Precious Life Revisited
            • 20/20
            • Home
            • What About Now?
        • Fragile
        • Time Ravel
        • Now Is Not the Time for Hope
        • The G Word (It's Probably Not what You Think)
    • No Thanks, I'll Walk
    • Be the Change
    • I Don't Know
    • What Lies Within
    • Guest Perspective
    • Growing Panes
    • De Colores
    • Roots and Wings
BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH

Enough
 
Sermon given at the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
November 24, 2019
by The Rev. Craig M. Nowak
 

 
Quid pro quo.
 
A Latin phrase, which until recently, didn’t come up much in most ordinary private conversations, let alone public ones between press, pundits and politicians.
 
But thanks to a certain someone, it has experienced something of a resurgence of late.
 
Literally, quid pro quo translates as, “This for that” or “something for something.” In other words, an exchange. Typically it describes a situation where a favor or advantage is granted or expected in return for something. And it generally carries a negative connotation.
 
We seem, at times, to have a problem with certain things being subject to what appear to be self-serving conditions.
 
Things like the release of military aide to a vulnerable ally conditioned upon an investigation of a political opponent.
 
Or a promotion conditioned upon acceptance of unwanted or inappropriate attention.
 
But what about gratitude conditioned upon having or getting things we like or want?
 
Wait.
 
What?
 
Let me repeat that.
 
Gratitude conditioned upon having or getting things we like or want.
 
Now surely most of us here, at one time or another, has been advised or have advised another to, “count your blessings.”  We may even, like the author of our first reading, “Some nights lie awake counting gifts instead of counting sheep.” Indeed many of us, were we to pause and count our blessings right here and now, would likely name some of the same blessings the author mentions, a roof over our heads, a warm place to sleep, a family of friends. 
 
And certainly some of us would recognize as a blessing, a heart that can love and a mind that can think, and give thanks for those too.
 
Last week, Laurel Burdon, (our Director of Children’s Religious Education) talked with children and youth about the things they are grateful for.
 
David shared he’s grateful for getting his front teeth, legos and his parents.
 
Zoey expressed gratitude for good things that happened in the past and will happen in the future. For being able to think and learn and for her school and rainbows.
 
Jack said he’s grateful for having a place to sleep, Italian food and the hand of the spirit. A man after my own heart. Oh, and Jack also said, “I need to remember to be grateful for having one candy bar and not think about the hundreds more I could have.”
 
Brigid shared she’s grateful for growing, new shoes… size 2, her pet mice Fuzzy and Dinosaur. And….backwards rainbows.
 
And Jefferson offered, home, his school and his cat as things he’s grateful for.
I love the balance of diversity and commonality in what the children and youth count as blessings or things they are grateful for.  A balance we too might find were we to name and share what each of us here is grateful for.
 
That most of us can quickly generate a list of blessings perhaps explains the appeal of Meister Echkart’s oft quoted observation, “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice.” Great!  Thank you; that’s it; that’s enough.
 
When blessings are obvious or seemingly abundant, when they can be reliably counted upon day after day or have been present for as long as we can remember, “thank you” may not always feel sufficient perhaps, but it is an easy prayer nonetheless.
 
And so we, some of us, say or think a few words of thanksgiving before a meal.
 
We express appreciation in words or deeds, send thank you cards, hold and attend public ceremonies recognizing people’s efforts or sacrifice.
 
Some of us may keep a journal or maintain a daily list of blessings for which we are grateful.
This is the transactional nature typical of gratitude as we commonly understand and practice it. We get or recognize something we have that we like or want and in return we give thanks. For most of us, the ability to easily name things, many things, we are grateful for, is the low hanging fruit of gratitude.
 
And just as some of us might begin to feel like just maybe “thank you” isn’t enough, that perhaps our response to all our “easy” blessings requires a little more of us than, “thank you”, along comes this important sounding guy from the middle ages telling us…no, no…trust me, “thank you” is enough, just “thank you.”  Well, that’s a relief.  Nothing else to do except express gratitude for our blessings.
 
But is that what Meister Eckhart is really saying?
 
What about people for whom that list if blessings is not so easy to come up with? Who don’t have a roof over their head, a warm bed or a family of friends? Or people who are sick and lack adequate care or people living in war torn countries, people dealing with daily BS and trauma of racism trans or homophobia, domestic violence or any number of other injustices which can make transactional gratitude…count your blessings…ring hollow. Because for a lot of people gratitude can’t be and isn’t a quid pro quo.  It cannot always be simply something given FOR something.
 
Indeed, Unitarian Universalist minister Peter Fleck, in his book The Mask of Religion, asks, “... do we have a right to be thankful as long as others are excluded from sharing in the blessings we enjoy?” “The answer to this question”, he writes, “lies in the realization that thankfulness, while it may relate to specifics, has an absolute character. To give thanks is a basic human need, an essential element in our relationship to the universe. Thankfulness is independent of specifics.”
 
And here we get closer to what Meister Eckhart is pointing us toward. That there is an aspect of gratitude that transcends the habitual, transactional way in which understand and approach it.  Few people understand this better than those for whom, on the surface, gratitude, as we typically understand and approach it, would seem nearly impossible to muster. 
 
In her book, Grateful, noted historian and scholar Diana Butler Bass, offers the example of holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. She writes, “Understand, Elie Wiesel is not thankful for the Holocaust. He would have rather had the Holocaust not happen. But at the same time, he talks of how, when they were in the camps, it was the people who could wake up in the morning and see the sunshine and say, “Thank God I’m alive one more day” or, “Look at how lovely that cloud is” [who were more able to carry on].”
 
“It was those people”, Bass, says, “who could see through the evil and find that there was a moment of grace or the presence of wonder or a token of love even in the midst of the most horrible situations.  She adds, “We should never be grateful for suffering, but the truth is we can be grateful through suffering, and that little prepositional switch -- that’s where the empowerment comes.”
 
Again, with Bass’ observation, we’re moved closer still to what Meister Eckart is getting at. Gratitude as a means of empowerment.
 
Thanksgiving is just a few days a way and if is taught or talked about in school the way it was when I was growing up, then most us likely still have a sentimental, romanticized image of that feast that would become a national holiday. But if we delve a little deeper into what life was like in the 17th century, let alone in the wilderness that was 17th century New England, a different image emerges. 
 
A plump golden brown turkey with stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and corn followed by coffee and pumpkin pie.  Um, no. try venison, probably duck, maybe wild turkey and some seafood including shellfish. No bread stuffing, but probably nuts and herbs. No potatoes, white, sweet, mashed or otherwise and no corn, but probably wild onions, leeks and beans. And pumpkin pie with a dollop of whipped cream? Not so much. More like native fruits to satisfy your sweet tooth.
 
Even knowing that life, let alone the first Thanksgiving meal, was quite different and undoubtedly harder and harsher in the absence of modern conveniences we enjoy today, many people, writes, Peter Fleck, “assume that the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving feasts because they were so grateful for having survived their first winter in the New World, when so many of the others who came over with them died.” But Fleck suggests otherwise, “It seems to me”, he writes, “that they were able to survive because they were thankful.”
 
And is this not the same sentiment expressed in our first reading when the author shifts from naming things he’s grateful for to proclaiming, “In a world that can bring pain, I will still take each chance…For I believe that whatever the terrain our feet can learn to dance. Whatever stone life may sling, we can moan…or we can sing!”
 
We can almost hear that last line in the background of our second reading as we imagine Jane Rzepka, reading those old church minutes in her kitchen, noting, with a hint of suspicion any but the most naive minister would harbor, “In the entire history of our church…we have never had a murky dilemma, been a little short of cash, or even stumbled upon an intriguing situation. Except twice (.….when the organist lost a couple fingers and some pews that tipped backward).  On the surface it would appear, Rzepka writes, “We look on the sunny side.” 
 
But she knows that’s not the whole story. 
 
Congregations, like people don’t survive by counting their blessings alone. For as she later observes, “One has to conclude that when the sun stopped shining, the organ stirred our singing nonetheless, and most feet stayed firmly on the ground.”  Such gratitude is not something given only for something you get. It is a radically different way of living. Living detached from any notion or need for a quid pro quo, gratitude that does not deny difficulty, even tragedy, but can see through it and anything else that attempts to obscure abundance in our lives. This is the thank you to which Meister Eckhart is referring.  A thank you that liberates and empowers us to live abundantly, always. A thank you that must be cultivated patiently through practice in good times and bad, “independent of specifics.”
 
And so, this Thanksgiving, count your blessings, but remember it is the thank you we live as a way of life, not that we give only for what we get, that is truly, should it be our only prayer, enough.
 
Happy Thanksgiving.
 
Amen and Blessed Be
 
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