Sermon- November 16, 2025

“And We Give Thanks”

It’s 4am Sunday morning, and I’m struggling to finish my sermon that I’ll be delivering in a few hours. The house is dark and quiet, and it seems my brain is also dark and quiet! Suddenly I hear the pitter-pat of the dog’s feet coming through the kitchen and into the TV room, where I’m working. Harley sticks his head around the corner, sees me, his ears go down, and his tail starts to wag uncontrollably. He comes over and sits next to me, looking for a few pats on the head, grateful that he found me.

There’s a powerful message in this interaction. If only we could be as thankful and filled with gratitude as our pets are!

I have found it particularly difficult lately to be thankful – for almost anything. The weight of the craziness in our world, especially in our country, is sometimes too much. I find myself complaining more and more, unable to grasp the beauty around me, unable to be thankful. How do I change that? What practice or practices do I need to develop to not go down that bah-humbug rabbit hole?

John O’Donohue writes “There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.

Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is welded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing.

We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us. The gift of the world is our first blessing.”

There is a blessing for almost everything in Judaism. There is a blessing for getting up in the morning, for going to sleep, for eating, for seeing wondrous things, for experiencing new things, for the occurrence of good things, for the unfortunate occurrence of bad things, for hearing the news of someone's death, for seeing someone you have not seen in a long time, for going to the bathroom, for studying Torah, for going on a journey, for fulfilling almost any religious commandment, and for just about everything else in life.

In the Talmud, one Rabbi instructs us to recite one hundred blessings throughout the day. His teaching is seen as a way for us to develop a posture of gratitude, Jewish tradition encourages a daily practice of reciting blessings of thanksgiving to God for the goodness in our lives each day.

I’m wondering how many of us do actually recite one hundred blessing throughout our day? 

Although our Unitarian Universalist faith is void of any creeds, dogma, or doctrine, being thankful – giving thanks – is a good starting place to ground our faith. Heading into the cold, darker days, it becomes easy to succumb to grey. The leaves are off the trees, the flowers are all dying or dead, and our heating bills go through the roof!

Yet when we stop for a moment, look around and pay attention, there is unimaginable beauty in front of us. The way the frost sits on the drying hydrangea flowers. The sound of the leaves rustling down the street in the wind. And the spectacular light as the sun sets each evening. 

But the biggest blessings we need to be thankful for are the blessings of each other. That we have been given in our human relationships the ability to love, to be proud, to empathize, to be kind – and even to dislike or disagree. 

Which brings me back to the one hundred blessings in Judaism. Being thankful for the unfortunate occurrence of bad things, for hearing of the death of someone.  Or even when the world, our country, our lives are in turmoil. Developing a practice of gratitude or thankfulness is not always about the good things – it must also include the unfortunate things, the challenges, the hills we climb. Being thankful for even these propels us forward, and hopefully makes this a better world, a better country, or better people.

In a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving. Certainly it’s a good time to remind ourselves of all of the blessings in our lives – to be thankful for our family, our friends, all of the good things that surround us. But let me tell you a story…there once was an older man who lived by himself, so he bought a parrot as a pet and a companion. But all this parrot did was complain and insult his new owner. So the man got so fed up with all of the complaining and insults, he put the bird in the freezer. After a few seconds the complaining and insults stopped, but the man thought I’d better open the freezer door. I may have killed that parrot. So he opened the freezer door, and there stood the parrot shivering. The parrot said “so-o-o so-oor-y for a-l-l the com-mp-pllaining aaa-nd insults. Pl=lle-ase foor-give me.” And then the parrot said “bbbu-tt whh-at ddid thaaa-t tuurk-ey do?”

This story reminds us that perhaps sometime – metaphorically – we need to put ourselves in the freezer. We need to stop, take a step back, and see what is around us, and sometimes it’s not so good. Sometimes, like that frozen turkey, it’s not looking good at all!

Yet these challenges give us the opportunity to grow, to view the world through a new lens. As John O’Donohou writes “There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.”

One of our new UU shared values is Generosity – we cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope. I see gratitude as the ability to see, to recognize what makes up our lives. But I see generosity as giving that gratitude, playing it forward. It’s an action, movement. Not only are we thankful or grateful, but we are actively moving that gratitude or thankfulness forward. Not only does our faith call us to a practice of gratitude but also calls us to be generous with it. Through the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, to be generous with our hearts. To give freely.

So whether it’s your pet sitting at your feet at 4 in the morning, or your recognition that maybe it’s time for a freezer break, or you’re trying to get in one hundred blessings in a day, remember the world is good, there is beauty everywhere we look. Take a moment to be present in those moments. Take a moment to be thankful in those moments. Remember that even in our uphill battles, we try. We are called to no less.

I’d like to end this morning with this poem Miracle Fair, by Wislawa Szymborska:

Commonplace miracle:

that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:

in the dead of night

the barking of invisible dogs…

First among equal miracles:

cows are cows.

Second to none:

just this orchard

from just that seed…

A miracle, just take a look around:

the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:

the unthinkable

is thinkable.

May we make it so.