I figured that was a better opening line than saying “We are a nation of mal-contents.”
All kidding aside, though, I have spent a lot of time wondering about just why that is, and how this is a core value to the American way of life.
We are a forward-looking people, who sometimes look back into our past, and the image we see is almost always more photogenic than reality. And this brings up a conflict for us.
In the past, our lives were better. We have the “good old days,” and from that false projection of the good old days, we forecast that today is not as good, and the world is just going to you know where in a handbasket.
I read a book once called “The Way We Never Were,” that sort of brought this idea to mind. I read easily over a decade ago, and so it is in storage back in the Mid-West, so I can’t quote it directly to you, but the gist of the book is that we have this false idea about who we used to be as a nation, and we liked that version better.
This happens to each generation in turn. Some long for the days before “horseless carriages” were everywhere, some long for a world that looked like Leave it to Beaver.
Personally, I’m hoping that my own generation will be cooler than that, but evidence to date shows that we are no better than anyone else,
so at the very least I’m hoping we long for something cool, like Rubik’s Cube or something.
It seems to be in our genetic code that live in the tension between nostalgia and pushing forth into a new world that we create, in which we can find greater happiness.
The very arrival of Europeans onto this continent was a giant experiment in “there must be something better, somewhere.”
For both commercial and spiritual reasons, Europeans risked weeks over an ocean to come to a place unknown to them. The Mayflower voyage, for example, was 66 days from England to the sighting of land at Cape Cod, which as you probably know, was not where they actually settled.
These dissenters who broke away from the Church of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first in a little village called Scrooby… these dissenters are part of our own theological ancestry.
I know it may be hard to hear for some, but we descend, in large part, from the Puritans. Theologically, we are very different from that group of ancestors, but in behavior, not so much.
Our Ancestors the Dissenters and the Puritans were so called because they led a movement within the Church of England to purify the church. They were trying to return the church to a “more pure” form of Christianity. To them the Church of England looked too much like that Church in Rome.
Having found the church of their youth so untenable, they left that church behind them and sought a new way of religious life.
Does that sound familiar to any of you?
They, like us, did this in part because of the pursuit of happiness and well-being. They were looking for a way to live their lives that would put them more in concert with their understanding of God’s will, a way to live that they could be grateful for.
Now, it’s fairly likely that your own definition of understanding the will of what is Holy, that which is of ultimate importance, is quite different from the understanding of William Bradford, the author of “Of Plimouth Plantation,” which records the journeys of the Dissenters from Scrooby to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
But your desire to live a life that is in concert with your values is likely VERY similar.
And you may not have left your home, moved to a foreign country for 17 years, and then left for an unknown land to bring the bright beacon of a City on the Hill into being, but you’ve made your own journey.
And now, like the Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock, we are in a new place.
We no longer have to be tied to a life directed by a tireless pursuit of happiness. We no longer have to look to the mall for guidance about what makes a good life.
As Rev. Meg Barnhouse sang to us during the offering, We have been thinking Mango thoughts in this meatloaf town. When I say “this town,” of course I don’t mean Modesto. You know how much I have enjoyed living here. “This town” refers to our whole culture.
Meg’s song is a song of joy and gratitude. She wrote this song for her Unitarian Universalist congregation, and it fits all of us.
She could’ve written a song about how much consumerism stinks. About the seemingly endless treadmill of advertisements offering us a new, quicker way to happiness. But she’s smarter than that.
Meg knows that a big part of happiness is looking around you and really loving what you’ve found.
And this can be a big challenge for people.
Even on regular days there are all sorts of things that can upset your apple cart. People drive poorly, people do horrible things to each other around the globe. The news is filled with misery.
And there are also sometimes internal forces that one has to deal with. Depression, a blue day, a broken heart.
But what I hope Meg’s song will get you to think about is how the everyday can offer you so much to be grateful for…if you can just see it in the ordinary.
In this very room there are dozens of things to be grateful for. There are people that we care about, and people who care about us.
Believe me, when you’re feeling friendless and alone, a room like this is a miracle.
Today’s sermon is called “The Spiritual Practice of Gratitude,” so I assume you guessed that you’d get some pretty concrete ideas about how to make this happen.
It’s very simple, really.
Take time to notice all the blessings of life around you.
In her Contribution to This I Believe, Mary Chapin Carpenter’s wrote:
One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic also told me to enjoy the rest of my day. I looked at him and I knew he meant it. It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and I sat in my car and cried.
What I want more than ever is to appreciate that I have this day, and tomorrow, and hopefully days beyond that. I am experiencing the learning curve of gratitude.
A moment that took Mary completely by surprise, the kindness and authentic wish that some stranger would enjoy the rest of their day, brought her to tears. Tears of gratitude.
You’ve already come so far from the Standard American Life of orthodox religion, stepped away from mindless consumerism, you think about the earth when you recycle. You are more awake to the world than many of the people we know.
This doesn’t make us better, of course. Being awake comes with it’s own price.
But being awake also comes with tremendous benefits.
One of those benefits could be a focus on gratitude.
Just like when you buy groceries, you make choices that are best for your body, and the body of those you love. So you can, at every instance, choose a path of gratitude.
When you take a walk around your neighborhood, instead of noticing that your one neighbor hasn’t taken care of their yard in the way that you would, focus on something that brings you joy.
You may remember back when I gave that sermon on Wonder Woman. During my research for that sermon, I came across an article that said “If you want to have the confidence of Wonder Woman, stand like she does. Your body will respond chemically to that stance, and you will, in fact, feel more confident.”
In a similar way, if you want to live a life deep in gratitude, you only need to assume the position of gratitude. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here are a few hints about what you might do to help you walk in gratitude.
At the end of the day, spend 5 minutes recording the good things that happened each day. Make a bullet list, or if only one good thing happened today, write about it great detail for 5 minutes.
If you’re like me, though, that practice will last about 3 days. I’m not a good journaler.
So now I do make a mental list while I brush my teeth before bedtime.
Though I can offer no scientific proof, I think this also helps me to sleep better.
When I wake up in the morning, I spend 5 minutes, after I let the dogs out, to sit in my quiet home and think about what makes me feel grateful.
This week while I’ve been doing this practice, there has been peppermint soap curing on the dining room table, so my nose is filled with one of my favorite, fresh clean scents.
These two, small, simple practices can take you a long way toward a greater awareness of the gratitude swarming around you.
If you get really ambitious, you might even try to take time during your lunch to notice what you’re grateful for. Or at dinner.
Denis and I say grace pretty regularly at home. It’s a grace that he introduced me to.
“Bless the Sun and the Earth and the marriage in between. Bless those who plant, those who sow, those who reap, those who buy, sell and transport this bounty which we are about to eat. May we take the energy from this food and use it to make good in the world.”
There are slight variations in it most days, but that’s the general idea of it.
If you want to live a life of radical gratitude, you must find a way that works for you, that brings gratitude to mind.
You can choose the default position of “what I have is not, and will never be enough,” or you can discover that in your life that which is enough.
And you can sigh with happiness.
I’d like to recommend one more radical act of gratitude, and that is to express it to others.
Don't think of gratitude as something you share only with yourself, as something that is only internal.
Think about what happened to Mary in that grocery store. Imagine what it would be like for a clerk at O’Brien’s for you to say to them, every time you see them, “Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day,” and you really, really mean it.
Amen.
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