THANKS BE TO WHOM?
A sermon by Rev. Robert M. Eddy
delivered 12 JANUARY 2002
at the Unitarian Universalist Church
Pensacola, FL

Seven years ago, Gerry and I were guests of the Unitarian Church of Adelaide, Australia. I was to begin a thirteen-week assignment as their supply minister, but this Sunday the program was being presented by their young people, so I sat with the congregation. When we arrived in Adelaide, I was worried that I might be too radical for that congregation, but when the young people used a MADONNA song as their reading, I knew I was home free. It was an impressive service, but the thing I remember most from that Sunday in Adelaide was the reply a member gave to a visitor’s question, “What is Unitarianism?” asked the visitor. The member replied, “Well, in most churches they say, ’If you have questions we have answers.’ In this church we say, ‘You have answers? We have better questions.’ ”

That, it seems to me is our way of being religious in a nutshell. It’s our job to ask better questions. “Thanks Be to Whom?” is not a good question, though it’s one whose possible answers we love to debate. A better question, is “When is it appropriate to feel gratitude?” My answer is: always

Shelly Jackson Denham’s hymn, number 354 in our hymnal whose chorus starts “And we believe in life.” It’s listed in our hymnal index as “We Laugh, We Cry,” Singing the Living Tradition, but I’ve given it a more proper title, And We Believe in Life. . Shelly’s verses recite the various reasons we come together in our congregations, but each chorus begins, “And we believe in life and in the strength of love.” This affirmation of life, all of life, is at the heart of our peculiar way of being religious.

The poem in Hymn 13, “Songs of Spirit,” by Marion Franklin Ham, that we sang earlier is another wonderful expression of that faith, but the tune written for the hymnal is about as inspiring as a dirge and about as melodic as a caterwauling cat. So I set it to the wonderful tune St. George's Windsor, which you probably know as the tune to the hymn “Come Ye Thankful People Come.” Think about these words:

Songs of Spirit, like a prayer
breathing in the ambient air;
singing in the morning light,
in the radiance of the day, [and]
in the twilight shadows gray,
in the brooding hush of night;
dark or light, or storm, or fair.
--singing, singing, everywhere.

In the burgeoning of spring,
in the summer’s scented bloom,
in the autumn’s mellow glow, [and]
in the winter’s ice and snow;
shade, or shine, or joy, or gloom,
as the seasons come and go,
bleak and bare, or blossoming
--still the songs that sing and sing!

Singing, singing everywhere,
at the heart of everything;
in my soul I hear them sing;
mystic music of the spheres;
songs that, with my utmost art,
I can only catch in part;
broken echoes, cold and bare,
of the songs my spirit hears.

Now some cynic might be thinking, “obviously bipolar, written during a drug-induced high.”

I think not! Like Shelly Jackson Denham, Marion Franklin Ham recognizes that life is not all springtime and summer. It is also fall and winter. But to forgo springtime and summer because fall and winter will inevitably follow is to adopt a gratuitous grumpiness that does no one any good.

Recently this congregation enjoyed the company of a group of visiting Tibetan monks. The thing that struck everyone was the transparent happiness in the faces of these men. Gerry and I saw that same transparent happiness in Tibet not only on the faces of the monks but in most of the lay people as well. Happiness shone—despite the most grinding poverty and despite an attempt at cultural genocide by a nearly heartless occupying army.

It is not because they do not know how to grieve. They do. But their default demeanor is happiness. Seems strange to Westerners.

There’s a wonderful story of a Buddhist Abbot, discovered inconsolably weeping one morning by one of his monks. “Your Reverence,” exclaimed the shocked monk, “why do you weep?”
“My only son has been killed!” said the Abbot.
“But you have taught us that all is illusion. Is this not true?” asked the monk.
“Ah, yes,” sighed the Abbot, “but bereavement is the most painful illusion of all!”

There are times in our lives when the reality of suffering drowns out all else. Even the great spirits like Jesus and Gandhi sometimes wept. I am not recommending an irrepressible cheerfulness. I’m not a Pollyanna. I’m not like the person who is alleged to have said to Mrs. Lincoln, “Well, my dear, apart from that, how was the play?”

What I am recommending is an attitude toward life that says to all of life, “Thank You!” Knowing that the tares grow with the wheat. Knowing that suffering is inevitable and painful--but not becoming obsessed beforehand with the transitoriness of all pleasures. I’m recommending that even in the deepest suffering we remember that “Even this shall pass away.”

Most human beings, like the Abbot, cannot remain philosophical under all circumstances. There was, however, an order of nuns who practiced perpetual adoration. But we need not achieve--or even desire--that superhuman state. We can cultivate thanksgiving, celebration of life, and gratitude, virtual synonyms, in the course of everyday life.

What I recommend, and cultivate, is “the practice of perpetual thanksgiving. Let me share a prayer by a woman whose name has disappeared into the maw of cyberspace, but her words exemplify what I am promoting. Define the word Lord as you will, Goddess, Spirit of Life, Universe, whatever gods may be, or that most UU of all appellations for the Divine: To Whom It May Concern. Whatever the object of your thanksgiving, hear this, a mother’s prayer:

Lord, thank you for this sink of dirty dishes,
We have plenty of food to eat.
Thank you for this pile of dirty, stinky laundry,
We have plenty of nice clothes to wear.
And I would like to thank you, Lord,
for those unmade beds.
They were so warm and so comfortable last night.
I know that many have no bed.
My thanks to you, Lord, for this bathroom,
complete with all the splattered mirrors,
soggy, grimy towels and dirty lavatory.
They are so convenient.
Thank you for this finger-smudged refrigerator that needs defrosting so badly,
it has served us faithfully for many years.
It is full of cold drinks and enough leftovers for two or three meals.

Thank you Lord, for this oven
that absolutely must be cleaned today,
It has baked so many things over the years.
The whole family is grateful for that tall grass
that needs mowing, the lawn that needs raking;
we all enjoy the yard.

Thank you, Lord, even for that slamming screen door.
My kids are healthy and able to run and play.
Lord, the presence of all these chores awaiting me
says you have richly blessed my family.
I shall do them all cheerfully, and I shall do them gratefully.

Look at the word gratefully. Grate is an old English word for grace. Gratitude derives from the same root as grace, which goes all the way back to the Sanskrit. It’s no accident that “Amazing Grace,” is a popular UU hymn despite its terrible theology. We all seek to experience grace, to feel grateful, but in order to do so we must cultivate the attitude of thanksgiving--of being grateful for all the delightful things so that we can learn to be grateful for the not so delightful, even the painful. This is possible not only for harried house spouses and over-stressed mothers. It’s even possible for creaky old men like me, whose joints crack when rising and whose breath sometimes comes painfully, whose sight is failing, and has one good eye.

Even we can pray, as one anonymous poet put it:

Even though I clutch my blanket
and growl when the alarm rings,
thank you Lord that I can hear.
There are many who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes closed
against the morning light
as long as possible,
thank you Lord that I can see.
Many are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed
and put off rising,
thank you Lord that I have the strength to rise.
There are many who are bedridden.

Even though the first hour of my day
is hectic, when socks are lost,
toast is burned and tempers are short,
and my [wife is still in bed],
thank you Lord, for my family.
There are many who are lonely.

Even though our breakfast table
never looks like the pictures
in the magazines
and the menu is at times unbalanced,
thank you Lord for the food we have.
There are many who are hungry.

Even though the routine of my job
is often monotonous,
thank you Lord for the opportunity to work.
There are many who have no job.

Even though I grumble and bemoan
my fate from day to day and wish
my circumstances were not so modest,
thank you Lord for life.


The proper question is not, “Thanks be to whom?” but “Am I thankful?”

Without dismissing the disabling nature of clinical depression, most of the time most of us have a choice. When we are in a “slough of despair,” so low that the bottom seems up; when we cannot find in ourselves the memory of joy and the conviction that it will come again, that’s when we should reach out to dear friends, As Shelly Jackson Denham writes, “And we believe in life, and in the strength of love, and we have found a need to be together. We have our hearts to give, we have our thoughts to receive; and we believe that sharing is an answer.”

Thanks be to whom? Those of us who believe in one or more benevolent gods or goddesses can reach out to Him or Her or It or Them for healing, but those of us who are non-theists have to look elsewhere. We have to look to our fellow members of UUCP; those who like us have covenanted to help one another. Gerry and I and our children have experienced how willing you all have been to help us in our time of trouble. But there’s another side to that third element of our covenant. We covenant together not only to help one another but to call on one another when we feel helpless. That’s in the small print. None of us can help when we don’t know that help is needed.

At the monthly gathering of the Pensacola Interfaith Clergy Association last Monday, some of us were discussing our frustration of finding that parishioners had been in hospital but had not given permission for the chaplain to let us know. They say, “I don’t want to bother him. He’s so busy.” No clergy person worthy of the title is too busy to respond to a call for help. The omniscient god of the Bible whose “eye is on the sparrow” is not serving any church or synagogue or mosque in Pensacola. Nor is any of us telepathic. Please ask! Even if you can’t conceive of a way I can be helpful, maybe I can think of a way. Perhaps another member can help. In our tradition, we are all ministers, each to all members.

There is no time more appropriate to ask for help than when you are despondent. Don’t feel you’re imposing. Sometimes the greatest gift you can give a friend is to cry, “Help!”

We UU’s look for encouragement from one another when we feel graceless, ungraced. We look to one another when we feel there is nothing for which we can say, “Thank you.”

This morning our service leader, read the words to Hymn 128, “For All That Is Our Life,” another set of wonderful words disfigured by an almost unsingable tune--or at least an inappropriate one. The poem is a hymn of rejoicing, a praise song the Pentecostals would say, but the tune is meditative at best and dribbles out at the end of each verse like a whining dog. And that’s my ration of spleen for the day. Seriously, Bruce Findlow has given us a great gift in these words: “all life is a gift.”

For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise;
for all life is a gift
which we are called to use
to build the common good
and make our own days glad.

For needs which others serve,
for services we give,
for work and its rewards,
for hours of rest and love;
we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life.

For sorrow we must bear,
for failures, pain, and loss,
for each new thing we learn,
for fearful hours that pass:
we come with praise and thanks for all that is our life.

For all that is our life we sing our thanks and praise;
for all life is a gift
which we are called to use
to build the common good
and make our own days glad.I believe it!

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Rev. Eddy is minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Pensacola, FL
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