I have so much to be thankful for this morning, that I don't really know where to begin. This should be true of every day I am blessed to wake up and greet in the morning, but, human nature being what it is, that is not always the case. Sometimes I wake up out of sorts, with myself, with others, with the world, and often, in each case, with good reason. There are times when the dawning recognition that "today is the first day of the rest of my life," somehow doesn't manage quite to spirit me out of bed with a dance in my step and a song on my lips.
But today it did. And I give thanks for that. First and foremost for life itself, riddled during our darkest hours with possibilities, ever beckoning, awaiting us to rise to its occasion, whatever it may be, to love and to serve, to bless and to forgive, to become within the limits of our being who we might be.
I absolutely loved the last three days. All our children were with us. Now that three are off to school, this only happens on holidays and during the summer, which make both all the more precious. We played scrabble and hearts, did an impossible puzzle, ate an obscene and magnificent amount of food, and enjoyed the simple pleasure and familiarity of one another's company.
On Friday, Wally Klauss joined us for leftovers, a reminder of how grateful I am for my twenty-three years working beside him and all the rest of you in this wonderful church, in this vigorous, challenging and splendid city.
I am thankful for having missed three straight days of CNN updates on our endless election. American Chad Torture someone called it. I am even thankful for a dream I had, in which I shared with my best friend, Peter, a fellow whose political prejudices closely match my own, five good reasons why it would be better if the candidate we both voted for, even if he actually did win the election, ends up losing. Yet further evidence for the incredibly creative and sometimes soothing power of the human unconscious.
So the world looks good to me this morning. I even love the rain.
My optimism is back in full stride. Both the Jets and the Giants are going to win this afternoon, and if they don't, it won't matter. Two of my parents' oldest friends, Stan and Mary Lou Burns, almost lifelong friends, dating back to high-school, are in town celebrating their 50th anniversary, and we'll have brunch together. This year Peter and I celebrate our 40th year of friendship. I give thanks for friends, for their unconditional love, for the stories we remember and embellish over the years until we get them just right.
I know that some of you this morning are suffering, some so deeply that thanksgiving, even for the gift of life itself, may come hard right now.
It is especially hard to be alone on Thanksgiving. It is always hard, but more so during the more festive of our holidays, to be sick, out of work, suffering loss, or simply lost, without moorings, without hope. I'm thankful you are here. I pray that at least the music will lift your hearts a bit. And the fellowship. Please don't hold your pain within. Great pain is too much for us to bear alone. When we reach out to another, even for help, our lifelines are strengthened, our helplessness abated, if only just a bit. I'll be in the office all week. Call my secretary Megan at the church. Come and see me. Even tears become a sacrament when we recognize our own in another's eyes.
For the rest of you, I do come armed with one modest bit of helpful advice that pertains to giving and receiving thanks. That and with getting along gracefully. The only sermons I can remember, even those that I myself have delivered, contain one simple useful thought. To ensure that at least a few of you will give thanks for this sermon a week after it is delivered, here is mine for the morning.
Have you ever received a compliment you didn't deserve? I've made a career of it. Among other things, it has spared me from being a perfectionist. For me, it started early. My parents were indiscriminate. It's not a bad thing. With every compliment, they were saying that they loved me. Once I knew that they loved me, it wasn't so bad being spanked.
Most of us have sense enough to doubt ourselves. But if everyone else doubts us, we are lost. The great thing about compliments is that they five s another chance. They inspire us to try things again, even dare to do them better.
Criticism can be helpful, but often it isn't. I notice this especially in meetings. Someone risks a new thought, and people jockey to be first in pointing out "We've tried that before" or "It simply won't fly." So much for new ideas. We learn this trick in school. Criticism is a cheap way to establish superiority. Somebody else does the work. Our job is to rip it apart.
Some criticism is justified, of course. And not every compliment is complimentary. For future reference, I offer this brief bestiary.
Begin with the senatorial compliment. Like a skunk it waves its tail before it spews. "I want to begin by thanking my distinguished colleague, the senior senator from the great state of North Carolina"
And then there is the Social Register compliment, catty condescension aimed in a chilly tone at the hat or coat or dress of some "inferior."
In marriages, there is the backhanded compliment. ("Dinner was unusually good tonight, dear.") This is the praying mantis of compliments. After making love it bites off the head of its mate.
Not to forget the compassionate compliment. This is the ostrich of compliments. We reserve it for people who are dying. We don't know what to say, so we tell them how wonderful they look.
But what about the real thing? Apparently we think that whenever we honestly praise another, we diminish ourselves. Is someone keeping tabs? If I compliment you, do I lose a point and you score one? Are we superior to people whom we criticize, and inferior to those whom we praise? In fact, the opposite may be true. When we pour out compliments, our cups run over. But when we try to save every drop of our precious nectar of praise, it evaporates, and soon our cups are dry. Ironically, a readiness to criticize may reflect insecurity. People who are sure of themselves are generally much more capable of complimenting others than those who need to prove that they are better, smarter, more reasonable, or wise.
If you are confident enough to wish to break the pattern, you might try this: The next time your husband or sister or boss or assistant has a "brilliant" new idea, find something kind to say before you put it down. In part it's a game. No criticism without a word of praise. Find something good about a bad idea and it will change the way you listen. It may even change the way you think. Think about what happens when somebody compliments you: You have two clear choices. Only one of them is correct.
If somebody compliments you, do her a favor. Accept. When she compliments your cooking, don't tell her that the dinner wasn't all that good. When she thanks you for sending a thoughtful note or visiting her in the hospital, don't tell her it was nothing. It wasn't nothing. It was splendid.
I learned this from my parents. When it comes right down to it, it makes no difference whether we deserve a compliment or not, because each time we are sincerely praised, the person who praises us shares in the pleasure. So enjoy it. And let them enjoy it. Which is simply to say, there is only one proper response to a compliment.
It is "Thank you."
In this same spirit, the spirit of Thanksgiving--let me close with a few simple thank yous of my own.
First for you, my wife and children, to me most close and dear, for your joy and your anger, your laughter and your tears,
your patience and your impatience, for all the delight and all the bother of being with you day and night throughout the years we have to share,
for the ways you bless me the ways you torment me, for loving me and hating me, building me up and tearing me down,
purifying my life and incinerating my life in the fires of your passion, I thank God for you.
And for you, my friends and neighbors, each and every one, for your strengths and weaknesses, generosity and pettiness,
courage in bearing pain and self-pity, for your compliments and criticism, just and unjust, for your self-forgetting love
and unlovely self-absorption, for all your healing and your hurting ways, for all you do and fail to do, I thank God for you.
And for this planet and its people I thank God, for all the sweet and sordid dreams, the pitched drama of birth and death, hope and fear, awakening me to life's fragility.
And I thank God for shoot and bud flower and leaf, for nature's cycle of growth and decay, seed to husk, in all its gentle and terrible beauty.
I thank God for friend and stranger, sun and rain, peace and danger, balm and pain, for moon and stars and light and mind, wind and darkness, cloud and rock, for the breath of life given and taken away, and for the mystery that marks our living and our dying days, I offer up my thanks to God. Copyright AllSouls 2000.