"Conscious Hearts"

A family service

delivered at

The Unitarian Universalist Church

Rockford, Illinois

11/20/05

This morning’s service has its roots with words by Thornton Wilder that Colleen found of the website of the Church of the Larger Fellowship – the church-by-mail that serves isolated Unitarian Universalists.

Wilder said, “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

I don’t know where Wilder said it - I found the quotation repeated 632 times on the internet, but the specific source was not noted in the first 100 which I tried.

It is an insightful statement. One of the curses of our society is our abundance. It is hard for us to keep our balance in the midst of plenty. We have so much that we lose track of the fundamentals with which we are blessed.

This morning, we are not going to try to tally all of the privileges which are ours. Our focus is going to be on some of the ways in which we can express our gratitude.

Colleen has a story to share which speaks of the circle of giving and receiving.

Duane Wilke recently traveled to Europe and while he was there he went to visit our partner church in Nadas, Romania. He is going to be telling and showing us a little about their lives, and he has brought back a suggestion about a material way in which we could help them.

The Stear family has been communicating with a member of the Nadas church, and Cindy, who could not be with us this morning, has left a message about that process and its value which Colleen will share along with an invitation for us to participate.

David Black is our church’s liaison with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. Our participation in the Guest at Your Table program is one of the ways in which we, in this church, reach out to people around the world who are less fortunate than we.

We are glad to be together and we lift our hearts in appreciation of the ways in which our lives are enriched by this religious community we share.

I find it significant that Thornton Wilder spoke of being truly alive when our hearts rather than our minds are conscious of our treasures. Intellectual awareness is important, thinking about the plenty with which we are blessed (and cursed) is nothing just something to sneeze at, but being aware does not necessarily result in the response that consciousness in our hearts implies. We are not just thinking of a good idea, but what has been called “an attitude of gratitude,” a deep and dare I say, “spiritual” response to the gift of life.

The challenge that plenty presents tends to be a shutting down rather than an opening up. We become intoxicated by things and when your focus is on objects, you can never be satisfied – we have the embarrassment of our congressional representatives this week having decided to reduce benefits for those among us who are most needy in order to reduce what they choose to call the “tax burden” on those who could not possibly spend all their money in a lifetime no matter how hard they try. And when we look at the measures of generosity, they continually reveal that those who have the least tend to share the most.

It is a moral disgrace to take food from the mouths of hungry children to increase the luxuries of those feasting at a table overflowing with plenty. This is not what America is about, not what the season of Thanksgiving is about, not what loving our neighbor is about, and not what family values are about. There is no moral path our legislators can take to defend a reckless, mean-spirited budget reconciliation bill that diminishes our compassion, as Jesus said, “for the least of these.” It is morally unconscionable to hide behind arguments for fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. It is dishonest tpo stake proud claims to deficit reduction when tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit are the next order of business.

But that is the cost of abundance: the brilliance blinds us to the misery of others. Charles Hadden Spurgeon observed:

You say, “If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.” You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.

The truth of that is demonstrated daily, and that points to the importance of Thanksgiving. To truly have our hearts conscious of our treasures, by which I do not mean stock portfolios or mega-horsepower in our SUV’s, to be conscious of the gift of life itself, the blessings of family and dear friends, this is what it means to live, not as consumers, but as human beings. And when we experience that kind of consciousness, we discover that gratitude triggers our generosity.

Gratitude . . goes beyond the “mine” and “thine” and claims that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always though of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

In this service we have extended to you some simple opportunities to express your gratitude: adding to the books that the children of our partner church can experience; establishing contact with our brothers and sisters in Nadas, taking home the Guest at Your Table boxes and truly treating them as opportunities through this holiday season to be conscious in our hearts of those who live on the brink of disaster on a daily basis.

We are, indeed, blessed and cursed by abundance, yet we still have opportunities to develop and exercise the discipline of gratitude. To do so not only has the potential to transform the world, it has the potential of transforming our own lives and increasing the joy we experience.