Sunday, November 2, 2025
Sermon by Rev. F. Vernon Wright V
Harvest of Gratitude
If you can remember to turn to the breath, you have a way of developing happiness in the moment. This happiness doesn’t depend on anything external to you. You see how sensitive the breath is. You see how emotional problems interfere with and constrain the natural and full working of the breath and body. One negative thought and you feel the breath and body change, tighten up. Now you have a medium through which to immediately shift the state of the body. You see how the breath influences the body and how the body influences the breath—it’s a two-way street.
Excerpt From The World Exists to Set Us Free Larry Rosenberg & Madeline Drexler
Good morning everyone! Last month we focused on courage. This month it’s gratitude.
So I ran across this one, a humorous little story about gratitude: “A man was doing well at his job interview. It seemed like he was pretty well qualified for the job. But zeroing in on the the resume the boss noticed that there was a five year gap in his job position.
“Sir I notice this gap in your resume, what were you doing during theses five years?”
“Oh I was at yale sir, the man replied.
Well the boss was very impressed by this and said “You are hired!”
Overwhelmed with gratitude, the man didn’t really know what to say. Finally the words came to him. Grasping the boss’s hands he looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you so much for the yob!”
We might say that there were things that the man had done to deserve the job, but there were also things that he had not done to deserve the job, and that he was also just pretty lucky that he pronounced his Js’ like Ys’! The man is indeed VERY grateful to be offered the position!
We know gratitude is important right? Gratitude is sort of the subject of Thanksgiving which many of us will be celebrating later in the month. But as I read the news and see what is happening to our nation, I just can’t think that it was all a crisis of gratitude. The greed of the oligarchs wanting to be above the law and own everything, in fear that they will have nothing if they don’t, is a crisis of gratitude. The thought that our nation is for whites only even though literally the Pilgrims wouldn’t have survived one winter without the considerable help of non whites, is a crisis of gratitude. And you know I could go on like this all morning, but I won’t because the whole thing about gratitude, is that it has nothing to do with the problem, its all about the here and now and what can be done, not what can’t be done.
When I think on gratitude, I often think about that Protestant Christian reservoir of knowledge Sola Gratia, a doctrine that said, “we are saved by grace alone”. John Calvin- the leader of the Reform movement and Martin Luther, the leader of the Lutheran movement based their thought on the word grace found in the Bible which was translated from the Greek word charis. Charis charis, what is this the root of this English word? Any guesses? Yes, that’s right charisma! Someone either has charisma or they don’t. I mean you can’t go to school to learn how to be charismatic right?
The idea of Sola Gratia is this, you are saved by grace, God’s freely given gift- not by something you earn or do. I mean yes you work as hard as you can, you do all you can, you learn all you can. And cling to virtue too, do not murder, lie or cheat… But technical proficiency and following all the rules perfectly is not grace. Grace is that perfect combination of excellence and humility. Like watching a Japanese master at their craft, a sort of transcendent awe inspiring.. well, grace emerges. And by the way guess what the ultimate conclusion of Sola Gratia is? Universalism. All creation, not just Christians are saved by grace.
I had that first sense of Grace myself when I was learning how to skate with skis. When I was like a freshman in high school or something cross country skiing on the olympic level had mandated two separate disciplines in the sport, one being the classic diagonal stride and the other being skating. And you couldn’t just specialize on one or the other but you had to be able to do both quite well in order to succeed.
As one does when you are trying to learn something new physically, you watch a master do it, it you go to clinics- you break it all down into manageable little parts- you practice each part over and over again and then you put it all together.
Well I had done that for a solid year, but I wasn’t making any headway. I was one of the best classic skiers in New England but my skating was horrible!
It didn’t really start to click for me until I went skiing one moonlit night under a kind of hard crusty snow in the beach forrest across the road from the home I was raised in. I’m not sure what it was, but because of the thrill of that large moon, and the crispness of the air, I stopped overthinking everything and there I was joyfully skating with long beautiful glides up and down hills around corners- it was magic.
You had any instances where you performed your best not by trying super super hard but by just being focused and letting go?
Remember that movie that old movie directed by Robert Redford “The legend of Bagger Vance”? Junnah (played by young Mat Damon), the ex pro golfer and WWI vet who had become an alcoholic, is sort of tricked to playing in a tournament. An African american man name Bagger Vance played by Will Smith shows up at Junnah’s doorstep and asks to be his caddy. The caddy is very wise and coaches Junnah on how to find his “Authentic Swing”. Bagger Vance tells him,
But there’s only one shot that’s in perfect harmony with the field. One shot that’s his. Authentic shot. And that shot is gonna choose him. There’s a perfect shot out there tryin’ to find each and every one of us. All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way. Let it choose us.
Finding gratitude is about letting go of the self long enough to find the self.
Guess what great work of literature the Legend of Bagger Vance was based on? (I was shocked and impressed myself by this when I discovered it recently) The Bhagavad Gita! The Bhagavad Gita is that ancient Hindu tale: the kingdoms are locked in a terrible war and a prince named Arjuna is fighting against members of his own family and his chariot driver Krisna gives him counsel to bring out his full authentic self. In order to do this Krisna reveals his true authentic self, which is nothing less than and mind boggling, madness provoking theophany of a God that is both creator and destroyer. Do what you are here to do, concentrate on the task at hand, don’t overthink, you are already a part of the plan! Arjuna ends up winning the war. Just be completely present to the task at hand, nothing else. That is how we go from fear and control based thinking to grace and gratitude based thinking.
The Bhagavad Gita emerged somewhere between the Fifth and Second Centuries BCE. It had a profound impact on the New England Unitarian transcendentalists as the work had just been translated into English about the time Transcendentalism was emerging. God is in all things, but not where you think you are in control, or where you are afraid you are not in control. God can be seen most clearly therefore not in scripture but in nature. Emerson’s great Essay “The Oversoul” reminds us that we can only experience oneness with the all when we get out of our own schemes and fears and egoic concerns and be present fully to what is.
Also emerging between the Fifth and Second centuries BCE was Buddhist thought. I have always seen Buddhist thought as a kind of distillation and democratization of Hindu insights on Brahma or ultimate reality. In the Theravada practice of Vipassana or breath meditation- turning back to the breath, each time you experience a thought, helps you see just how much thought impacts your being, indeed shapes your very breath, but also needlessly so, unmercifully so. Yes you find that while you do breathe, it is also equally true that you are breathed. While it is true that you have thoughts, you are also thought, and while you have consciousness- you are a vehicle of consciousness born not of yourself but by the chaotic laws inherent in the ongoing creation and recreation of the universe.
At least that’s how I and some other meditators I know have experienced it.
Well these are my thoughts on Gratitude. Thanks for your patience. Let us all endeavor this month to harvest some gratitude. We must be aware of the bad news out there, but we must also ground ourselves in the transcendent beauty of this moment right here, this task at hand, so we can manifest our own authentic swing, so that we can win the battle we are in, so that be that perfect balance of humility and excellence each of us has been manifested to embody.
Grace and Peace to you all. Make it so! Do your yob!
