Thanks for the Memories
Reflection for All Souls Thanksgiving Service
November 22, 2020
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
Rev. Craig M. Nowak, with Zoey A., Jack A.,
Brigid C., Avery A., Teagan A., Jefferson U.
We’re about midway into that period in American life we pass through each year that stretches from early October to late December. A period in which we celebrate three culturally significant, but historically dubious, myths. I am speaking of course about Columbus Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas -which while not an American holiday, is arguably one of the most culturally influential religious holidays celebrated in the United States.
Now, traditionally, a myth is simply a story that points to or is employed to convey a deeper than literal truth. This is why we still study the world’s mythologies and why religious stories endure and continue to instruct and inspire people to this day. However sometimes the story itself is taken as the truth to be conveyed or is used to mask a complicated or less admirable historical reality.
We see this with the Christmas story where the pursuit of spiritual truth is too often abandoned in favor of defending or refuting the literal accuracy of the story's details. And we know Columbus neither discovered America-there was already a native population here- nor was he even the first European explorer to reach the Americas. As for Thanksgiving, well, it turns out the Thanksgiving story those of us over a certain age grew up with is more revisionist than actual history, obscuring a painful and unjust legacy of occupation and oppression.
So what are we to do in such cases? Well, rather than abandon myth altogether, we might grow in our awareness that sometimes we need to take a closer look at how we engage myth and the impact our engagement has on the truth it contains, that we may again (as the choir sang) “walk in beauty”, that is, in harmony or right relationship with all.
Thanksgiving Day is only four days away. And justice demands we acknowledge that the traditional retelling of the story obscures a tragic legacy of injustice perpetrated against indigenous peoples. But the origin of the holiday isn’t the only story connected to the Thanksgiving myth needing our attention, particularly this year.
Indeed, perhaps even more present in the minds of many than the story of Thanksgiving’s origin is another about family. Thanksgiving is, after all, traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year, when family, given and/or chosen, some of whom we may only see once a year, gather from far and wide to be together. A part of the Thanksgiving myth that Covid-19 promises to disrupt this year on a scale rarely encountered in most of our lifetimes.
Simply put, many people will not be able to engage the Thanksgiving myth around family the way we’re used to this year.
Undoubtedly those who are able will utilize Zoom, Facetime or some other similar technology to connect with those whom they can’t be with physically this year, but there’s another way we can engage regardless of whether or not we have an internet or phone connection, and that is via gratitude.
Writing on gratitude, the poet David Whyte states, “Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness.”
Presence here doesn’t mean physical closeness, but refers instead to showing up and giving life our full attention. Gratitude then, according to Whyte, concerns not so much recognizing and appreciating something we receive but rather, that we and others are… or as he writes, “that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. Even”, he notes, “if that something is temporarily pain or despair….”
And indeed, rare it seems, even in years uninterrupted by a global pandemic, is a Thanksgiving, that we’re not met by some degree of pain. Part of that familiar blend of joy, melancholy, and nostalgia, that seems to accompany every holiday. The exact proportions of which depends on any number of life events..births, deaths, marriage, divorce, graduations, and, of course, the passage of time.
Behind all of these life events are people. People as varied as the flowers, fruits and vegetables to which they are likened in Max Coots beloved Thanksgiving poem and are described as feisty, generous, crotchety, gorgeous, silly and so forth. Similarly, Maya Angelou, in her poem “Human Family”, reminds us of the many diversities of human beings, noting what she calls, “obvious differences” in temperament, skin color, and life philosophy. Both Coots’ whimsical comparisons and Angelou’s straight forward enumeration of human difference teach us something essential to gratitude: paying attention. As David Whyte observes, “gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.
One of the things that lives within us are memories. Which need not be a perfectly accurate record of what or whomever is remembered to have meaning for us. There are people, even pets, who may not be around our table on Thanksgiving because of illness, breakups, separation, divorce, work, or because they or we can’t travel this year. And there are others, as Max Coots writes, “now gone”, who won’t be there because they have died. Whatever the reason we can’t be with them physically, we can, by being awake in the presence of their memory living within us, be with them in gratitude.
At this point I should tell you I’m not the only one who has been thinking about these things as Thanksgiving approaches. Our children and youth have been giving this some thought as well. In fact, as part of their exploration of Samhain and El Dia de los Muertos (or The Day of the Dead), which, like All Souls Day, seek to remember and honor the dead, the children and youth were asked who they are missing, person or creature, that has passed away.
Here is how they responded…
Zoey (remembrance of her cat)
Jack (remembrance of his grandfather)
Brigid (remembrance of her triops with hand drawn picture)
Avery (remembrance of family dog)
Teagan (remembrance of family dog with hand drawn picture)
Jefferson (remembrance of Ruth King)
Using words and images Zoey, Jack, Brigid, Avery, Teagan and Jefferson show us how by paying attention, by being present to the memories that live within us, gratitude arises and connects us with those we’re unable to be with as usual this year or forever more. Indeed, they remind us all that in the absence of our loved ones physical presence we can still be present to, and say thanks for, the memories.
Gratitude, we learn, is restorative as well as sustaining. It is the harmonizing effect of paying attention, that, as David Whyte says, “shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.” A profound realization that, as Maya Angelou reminds us and repeats in “Human Family”, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
And indeed, it is so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
Reflection for All Souls Thanksgiving Service
November 22, 2020
Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church
Rev. Craig M. Nowak, with Zoey A., Jack A.,
Brigid C., Avery A., Teagan A., Jefferson U.
We’re about midway into that period in American life we pass through each year that stretches from early October to late December. A period in which we celebrate three culturally significant, but historically dubious, myths. I am speaking of course about Columbus Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas -which while not an American holiday, is arguably one of the most culturally influential religious holidays celebrated in the United States.
Now, traditionally, a myth is simply a story that points to or is employed to convey a deeper than literal truth. This is why we still study the world’s mythologies and why religious stories endure and continue to instruct and inspire people to this day. However sometimes the story itself is taken as the truth to be conveyed or is used to mask a complicated or less admirable historical reality.
We see this with the Christmas story where the pursuit of spiritual truth is too often abandoned in favor of defending or refuting the literal accuracy of the story's details. And we know Columbus neither discovered America-there was already a native population here- nor was he even the first European explorer to reach the Americas. As for Thanksgiving, well, it turns out the Thanksgiving story those of us over a certain age grew up with is more revisionist than actual history, obscuring a painful and unjust legacy of occupation and oppression.
So what are we to do in such cases? Well, rather than abandon myth altogether, we might grow in our awareness that sometimes we need to take a closer look at how we engage myth and the impact our engagement has on the truth it contains, that we may again (as the choir sang) “walk in beauty”, that is, in harmony or right relationship with all.
Thanksgiving Day is only four days away. And justice demands we acknowledge that the traditional retelling of the story obscures a tragic legacy of injustice perpetrated against indigenous peoples. But the origin of the holiday isn’t the only story connected to the Thanksgiving myth needing our attention, particularly this year.
Indeed, perhaps even more present in the minds of many than the story of Thanksgiving’s origin is another about family. Thanksgiving is, after all, traditionally one of the busiest travel days of the year, when family, given and/or chosen, some of whom we may only see once a year, gather from far and wide to be together. A part of the Thanksgiving myth that Covid-19 promises to disrupt this year on a scale rarely encountered in most of our lifetimes.
Simply put, many people will not be able to engage the Thanksgiving myth around family the way we’re used to this year.
Undoubtedly those who are able will utilize Zoom, Facetime or some other similar technology to connect with those whom they can’t be with physically this year, but there’s another way we can engage regardless of whether or not we have an internet or phone connection, and that is via gratitude.
Writing on gratitude, the poet David Whyte states, “Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness.”
Presence here doesn’t mean physical closeness, but refers instead to showing up and giving life our full attention. Gratitude then, according to Whyte, concerns not so much recognizing and appreciating something we receive but rather, that we and others are… or as he writes, “that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. Even”, he notes, “if that something is temporarily pain or despair….”
And indeed, rare it seems, even in years uninterrupted by a global pandemic, is a Thanksgiving, that we’re not met by some degree of pain. Part of that familiar blend of joy, melancholy, and nostalgia, that seems to accompany every holiday. The exact proportions of which depends on any number of life events..births, deaths, marriage, divorce, graduations, and, of course, the passage of time.
Behind all of these life events are people. People as varied as the flowers, fruits and vegetables to which they are likened in Max Coots beloved Thanksgiving poem and are described as feisty, generous, crotchety, gorgeous, silly and so forth. Similarly, Maya Angelou, in her poem “Human Family”, reminds us of the many diversities of human beings, noting what she calls, “obvious differences” in temperament, skin color, and life philosophy. Both Coots’ whimsical comparisons and Angelou’s straight forward enumeration of human difference teach us something essential to gratitude: paying attention. As David Whyte observes, “gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.
One of the things that lives within us are memories. Which need not be a perfectly accurate record of what or whomever is remembered to have meaning for us. There are people, even pets, who may not be around our table on Thanksgiving because of illness, breakups, separation, divorce, work, or because they or we can’t travel this year. And there are others, as Max Coots writes, “now gone”, who won’t be there because they have died. Whatever the reason we can’t be with them physically, we can, by being awake in the presence of their memory living within us, be with them in gratitude.
At this point I should tell you I’m not the only one who has been thinking about these things as Thanksgiving approaches. Our children and youth have been giving this some thought as well. In fact, as part of their exploration of Samhain and El Dia de los Muertos (or The Day of the Dead), which, like All Souls Day, seek to remember and honor the dead, the children and youth were asked who they are missing, person or creature, that has passed away.
Here is how they responded…
Zoey (remembrance of her cat)
Jack (remembrance of his grandfather)
Brigid (remembrance of her triops with hand drawn picture)
Avery (remembrance of family dog)
Teagan (remembrance of family dog with hand drawn picture)
Jefferson (remembrance of Ruth King)
Using words and images Zoey, Jack, Brigid, Avery, Teagan and Jefferson show us how by paying attention, by being present to the memories that live within us, gratitude arises and connects us with those we’re unable to be with as usual this year or forever more. Indeed, they remind us all that in the absence of our loved ones physical presence we can still be present to, and say thanks for, the memories.
Gratitude, we learn, is restorative as well as sustaining. It is the harmonizing effect of paying attention, that, as David Whyte says, “shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.” A profound realization that, as Maya Angelou reminds us and repeats in “Human Family”, “We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike.”
And indeed, it is so.
Amen and Blessed Be.
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