-- Cicero
Meditation: by the Unitarian Universalist minister Richard Fewkes
We lift up our hearts in thanks
For the sun and the dawn which we did not create;
For the moon and the evening which we did not make;
For food which we plant but cannot grow;
For friends and loved ones we have not earned and cannot buy;
For this gathered company which welcomes us as we are, from wherever we have come; ... For all things which come to us as gifts of being from sources beyond ourselves;
Gifts of life and love and friendship
We lift up our hearts in thanks this day.
Reading: by Dana Jennings from a piece entitled “After Cancer, Gratitude for Simple Pleasures” (New York Times, Aug 4, 2009)
I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately, trying to put my finger on what exactly I’m grateful for in the year since I had surgery to remove my cancerous prostate.
When you have cancer, when you’re being cut open and radiated and who knows what else, it can take a great effort to be thankful for the gift of the one life that we have been blessed with. Believe me, I know.
And sometimes, in the amnesia of sickness, we forget to be grateful. But if we let our cancers consume our spirits in addition to our bodies, then we risk forgetting who we
truly are, of contracting a kind of Alzheimer’s of the soul…
Gratitude is an antidote to the dark voice of illness that whispers to us, that insists that all we have become is our disease. Living in the shadow of cancer has granted me a kind of high-definition gratitude. I’ve found that when you’re grateful, the world turns from funereal gray to incandescent Technicolor.
Reading: by Sonja Lyubomirsky from The How of Happiness (p. 89)
Gratitude is many things to many people. It is wonder; it is appreciation; it is looking at the bright side of a setback; it is fathoming abundance; it is thanking someone in our life; it is thanking God; it is “counting blessings.” It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is coping; it is present-oriented. Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, avarice, hostility, worry, and irritation. The average person, however, probably associates gratitude with saying thank you for a gift or benefit received. I invite you to consider a much broader definition…
Expressing gratitude is a lot more than saying thank you. Emerging research has recently started to draw attention to its multiple benefits. People who are consistently grateful have been found to be relatively happier, more energetic, and more hopeful and to report experiencing more frequent positive emotions. They also tend to be more helpful and empathic, more spiritual and religious, more forgiving, and less materialistic than others who are less predisposed to gratefulness.
Reading: by Mary Oliver a poem entitled “The Place I Want To Get Back To”
is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness
and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me
they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is
and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;
and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way
I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward
and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years
I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.
If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.
Deep Gratitude
A Sermon Delivered on January 5, 2013
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
There is nothing quite like the blast of icy wind from an arctic cold-front, and the threat of a blizzard, to make you appreciate being indoors, and having a boiler that works.
Yesterday’s News-Gazette said a combination of factors, including a “polar vortex,” will drive temperatures way down. They offered dire weather warnings: life-threatening wind chills, an historic cold outbreak. We can expect tundra-like temperatures…
Years ago, when my wife, Elaine, and I lived in upstate New York, near the Canadian border just east of Lake Ontario, I remember we were clobbered one winter by an ice storm that was so severe, the weight of ice accumulating on trees and branches caused enormous limbs to come crashing down, tearing down power lines in the process and blocking roads.
For several bitterly cold days most homes – ours included – didn’t have electricity, heat, or hot water. Honestly, I don’t remember how we got by. I do remember spending a lot of time in bed, under our big feather down comforter, wearing three sweaters and a knit cap. And I remember spending long hours visiting friends, who were fortunate enough to have had power restored quickly.
During those days of crisis, the whole community pulled together, pooling resources, checking in on neighbors, generously extending helping hands, and gratefully accepting them. Throughout the whole city there was a palpable sense that we were in this together, and would pull through together.
It was odd, almost disappointing, when the streets were finally cleared, and electricity was on again, how we all withdrew into our solitary homes and our separate routines. Many remarked on their sense of sadness, when the exceptional community spirit suddenly disappeared again. But what stuck with me for a long time was a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for friends and neighbors. Gratitude for a heated home.
* * *
Sonja Lyubomirsky makes the case that our capacity for gratitude plays a significant role in how happy we are likely to be in life. The point of departure in her book is conveyed by the picture on its cover. It’s the picture of a cherry pie, round and tasty looking, with a rather large slice of the pie being lifted out of the pan. The piece looks like it is about a third of the whole pie. But it’s actually a bit more. I know this, because right next to the picture it says in small print: “This much happiness – up to 40% is within your power to change.”
The pie picture is inspired by recent research on what makes people happy. It turns out, most of us are mistaken about what it takes to be happy. Most people may think that if only they were rich, if only they won in the lottery, if only the worries of work and earning a living were removed from their lives, they would be happy. And most people think that a serious accident would make them very unhappy.
Actually, it turns out that many lottery winners, after an initial period of euphoria, end up basically pretty much just as happy as they were before they won the jackpot. And it turns out that many who have suffered accidents that left them with serious physical disabilities, after a period of rehabilitation and adjustment, returned to the same level of happiness as before their accidents.
We each have a biologically programmed “set point,” a certain degree of happiness, that will remain the same no matter what we do, and no matter what good or bad fortune life holds for us.
If we imagine three main factors that account for our happiness, the first and largest is this biologically determined “set point.” It accounts for 50%, or half of our relative happiness. The second and smallest factor is made up of external life events – the lottery jackpot or the tragic accident. Such events, in the long run, shape only 10% or one tenth of our sense of happiness. The remaining 40% are what we have the capacity to influence, to change, and to improve.
So while we can’t completely reinvent ourselves, we can intentionally significantly influence our sense of satisfaction and happiness in life.
Sonja Lyubomirsky fills her book with many useful practical and substantive suggestions on how we can do this. She proposes twelve concrete exercises we can practice. She calls them “Happiness Activities.” They might involve practicing kindness, learning to forgive, or savoring life’s joys. I am happy to say that “practicing religion and spirituality” is on her list. (Unfortunately it places second to last: activity 11 of 12.) The very first and most effective happiness enhancing activity is expressing gratitude.
* * *
Recent research is offering insight into the positive effects of gratitude. But psychologists today aren’t the first ones to recognize the value of an attitude of gratitude. The 13th century mystic, Meister Eckhart, said: “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” And in the 1st century BCE the Roman philosopher Cicero said: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all others.”
The value and virtue of gratitude has long been recognized by wise women and men. And I certainly believe them. I have preached about the value of gratitude many a time over the years. Nevertheless, I confess, it is an ongoing effort for me to practice what I preach.
After having survived surgery and treatment for cancer, Dana Jennings found himself more thankful than before. In his case, the misfortune of his illness served to deepen his appreciation for instances of good fortune in his life. He says,
“There are, of course, the obvious things to be thankful for. There’s the love and care of my wife, sons and extended family; the concern and support of my friends, colleagues and community; the skill and insight of the doctors and all the other medical staff who have brought me to this very moment…. [But] the small moments of gratitude are the most poignant to me because they indicate that I’m still paying close attention to the life I’m living, that I haven’t yet succumbed to numbing obliviousness.”
So he says, for instance, he now finds himself truly grateful for his Friday morning breakfasts with his friend Gary, who also had his prostate removed last year. As they both recover, he says, they have turned into “prostate cancer cronies.” He finds himself grateful for a glass of iced green-tea lemonade, sweetened; and for the healing sound of his dog, Bijou, drinking water from her bowl.
* * *
It is an odd paradox that those of us who have never suffered serious illness, may find ourselves less grateful for the gift of life, and the countless small pleasures every day holds.
“Youth is wasted on the young,” we say. And this thought has sometimes passed through my mind, when I watch how my teenage kids choose to spend their days – with a lot of sleeping and lounging on sofas over winter break. Maybe it is equally true that health is wasted on the healthy. And good fortune is wasted on the fortunate.
The more blessings we are granted, the less we seem to appreciate them. There does seem to be a human tendency to “succumb to numbing obliviousness,” or to develop “a kind of Alzheimer’s of the soul.”
* * *
Psychologists who have studied the benefits of gratitude have also examined the very real phenomenon of ingratitude. Robert Emmons, for instance, has concluded that we have a universal human tendency to ignore our blessings, and to even complain about them. That’s our default frame of mind. Emmons writes:
“Psychologists have identified a natural tendency of the mind to perceive input as negative. This “negativity bias” means that incoming emotions and thoughts are more likely to be unpleasant rather than pleasant. ….The negativity bias appears to be a very real phenomenon with a solid neurophysiological basis. In layman’s terms, this means that for some of us being a grouch comes naturally… In the absence of conscious efforts to build and sustain a grateful worldview, we lapse into negative emotional patterns, including taking goodness for granted.” (Thanks! How the new science of gratitude can make you happier, p. 127-128)
An attitude of ingratitude is something we fall into naturally. It is a kind of inertia of the spirit.
But there are also other forces that conspire against gratitude. A study comparing attitudes of gratitude in different countries showed that Americans see gratitude as less desirable and less constructive than people in Germany and Israel, for instance. American men in particular, experienced gratitude as unpleasant. For some, gratitude felt humiliating. Being grateful undermined their self-image of self-sufficiency. It made them feel uncomfortably dependent on others, indebted, vulnerable, and weak.
* * *
Scientists have confirmed that being grateful makes us happier people, healthier, more energetic, more hopeful, more helpful to others, more generous, and more kind. And yet, despite these explanations and entreaties, we resist being grateful, like a child who doesn’t want to eat the vegetables on her plate, no matter how persistently her parents tell her, “they’re good for you.”
Robert Emmons writes,
“people cannot be commanded to be grateful, any more than we can command people to love or forgive. Rather, gratitude is a feeling that stems from certain perceptions and thoughts. Therefore, in order to become more grateful, we need to look at life in a certain way, and one tangible way we can do this is through the lens of gifts and giftedness.” (p.37)
In one study Emmons explored what most of us consider our greatest gifts. The instructions he gave to study participants were this:
“Focus for a moment on benefits or “gifts” that you have received in your life. These gifts could be simple everyday pleasures, people in your life, personal strengths and talents, moments of natural beauty, or gestures of kindness from others. We might not normally think of these things as gifts, but that is how we want you to think about them. Take a moment to really savor or relish these “gifts,” think about their value.” (p. 36)
Then he invited folks to write them down.
The results were fascinating, he says.
“Nearly [half] of all the gifts listed fell into the “interpersonal” or “spiritual” categories… Significantly, it is precisely these categories of blessing that we have found to be related to superior well-being... Faith, friends, and family were frequently mentioned gifts. There appears to be something inherent in relationships, whether worldly or transcendent, that encourages people to cloak themselves in the language of gifts and givers.”
It is fact: our lives are filled with gifts. The sun and the dawn which we did not create, the moon and the evening which we did not make, are gifts. Friends and loved ones we have not earned and cannot buy are gifts. All things which come to us from sources beyond ourselves are gifts. “All life is a gift,” we sing in one of our hymns.
Marge Piercy writes, “Life is the first gift, love the second, and understanding the third.” Understanding means piercing the illusion that we are independent or self-sufficient. Understanding means recognizing the reality that we are all profoundly interdependent. From the day we are born, our very lives depend on the care and concern of others, the give and take of love and affection.
Gifts that deserve our gratitude are all around us, always. Even when we don’t notice them, even when we don’t see them, they are there. Like deer in the woods, often hidden in the underbrush, but always there. Only far too rarely are we calm and quiet enough, so that the gifts of our lives rise to the level of our consciousness. Only rarely do our abundant blessings come into clear view, and nuzzle our hand.
* * *
It is an odd paradox, that we are often more likely to notice our gifts when we are in danger of losing them. Like Dana Jennings, whose unfortunate illness deepened his gratitude for countless instances of good fortune.
At memorial services here, we often light our chalice and read these unison words by Albert Schweitzer: “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”
We don’t have to wait for death to draw near, before appreciating the blessings of our lives. We don’t need to wait for the arrival of a winter storm to appreciate the gifts of friendship and family, and the gifts of our home, safe and warm.
May we count our blessings.
May we cherish our countless gifts.
May we find the happiness of deep gratitude,
And the give and take of love.
Amen.
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