I Just got back from a vacation I sort of backed into.  Over the summer we thought it would be fun to go do some hiking and sight-seeing in Ireland for a couple weeks.  We did the preliminary planning and took the time off. We got people to commit to preaching at the church in my stead. Then...we didn't go. Life got complicated.

Still, we had the time so we went up to Maine for a week and visited family.  We saw my sister and brother-in-law's new house.  We checked in with my mom.  We stayed with my brother and sister-in-law.  We stumped around the part of the state where I grew up. We caught a friend's book-launch and poetry reading. Then we also hiked, ticking off visits to the Camden Hills and to Gulf Hagas.  It was a restful trip that I would love to post about some time in the future. However, that is not what I am up to today. Instead I want to touch briefly on developments in my church.

You see, for years we have been talking about the future of churches in the United States.  I have written about it, talked about it, and preached about it numerous times. In that broader context I and others have set the life of our specific congregation. Things have been hard for the modernist institutions we think of when we hear the word "church".  Progressive or conservative, they come with buildings which are often too large for their needs.  They come with a struggling staff in desperate need of retraining and revisioning. They come with programs--like Sunday School--that are much less popular now. They come with the perception of arbitrary judgement which--while not as common as people think--still holds true in many places. The post-modern world has caught up to us.  Congregations--progressive ones anyway--are adapting...but slowly.

 While religion may just be fine, our old institutions may not be. They must change and learn in order to grow.

All of this is to say that The Eliot Church, where I have served for twenty-one years and two months, will be cutting the pastoral position from full-time to half-time starting no later than September 2025. It gives us as a congregation time to plan for what that will look like.  It gives me a year to figure out what I will be doing for the rest of my career. It feels like a long period, but it isn't really.  We are adapting to the new reality--churches must be more flexible, more creative, and more stable ​going forward--but we are still an old and venerable institution. Pastors also need to be these things but I, of course, am older, too.  I am glad we are facing the current reality, even though there will be some hard traveling both for the congregation and for me.

I don't think it is time to dwell on the details.  These will come in time and I will probably post some of what I witness and learn here on Sabbath Walks. However, on our way up to Gulf Hagas we happened to drive past my first church settlement.  I was 1/3 time but they shortly re-connected with another congregation who hired me for 2/3 time. This gave me the same "uneven yoke" that my predecessor had.  Both of those churches are still there, surviving in the face of all the difficulties that this era brings to voluntary associations. Seeing the old parish was a good reminder that life goes on, as does love.  It reminded me that God does not abandon us. We just need to make sense both in and to the society and culture that needs our message.

We have made a big step.  I do not know what it means for me or my family.  I do not really know what it means for the congregation.  What I do know is that we are acknowledging a change that leaves room for celebration as well as grief.

"Remember your baptism" is a popular phrase in my life.  My colleagues and I are urged to do so--and to encourage others to do so--every once in a while throughout the year.  There are good reasons for this, of course.  When we remember this moment in our lives, we recall our relationship with God.  We also recall our relationship with the holy people who gathered together to witness the moment.  At least some of those people are our family, or chosen family. Sometimes it is done in the midst of a congregation as well.  In my congregation on Ingathering Sunday we bring water from places that have been important to us.  Then we use it for baptisms and other things so the congregation is always there in spirit. A baptism doesn't need witnesses.  However, when they are present, they remember their baptisms, too.

Of course, many people don't literally remember.  They were infants at the time.  Also--after the baptism--some people have few opportunities to be reminded of it. Families don't attend worship like they used to. In the absence of anything other than a very occasional visit for Christmas Eve, more and more adults give little thought to their children's spiritual lives or their own. The ritual can be just a thing you do in those early days before other things take precedence.

I am not saying this as a complaint.  It is just a statement of fact.  In fact, I literally remember my baptism.  I was 18.  The reasons my parents decided to encourage me (along with my siblings) to be baptized were complicated. Neither we nor they attended church regularly.  However, even at the time I found it moving.  I had been hovering around the edges of my friends' churches for a while by then.  I had questions about life and its meaning and the people I met in church--while they didn't have answers--seemed to have a path.  Now I am a pastor and so is my mom.

During worship this past Sunday, I officiated a baptism for an adult who was formerly a member of the youth group. It reminded me of my own experience.  Before the service I told him that there would be times when it meant very little to him and times when it meant a great deal.  That is how these things work.  Baptism is one string that connects us in every direction to Creation.  We don't always notice it, even when we know it is there.  Then...we really do when we need that connection.

Baptism is a sacrament in the tradition I represent.  There is only one other.  That is communion.  The reasoning is that they are the only ones that appear in the Gospels.  John the Baptizer stood down by the river. Jesus sat in the upper room. Other traditions range from having no real sense of sacraments to having seven or nine.  Each tradition chooses different things as well. That is the richness of how we see God.  We are humans, the Divine speaks to us in a language we understand. We all have different "languages" that we speak.

We had communion on Sunday as well.  It was, in fact "World Communion Sunday," which is a celebration of diversity and ecumenism held on the first Sunday in October.  It is another opportunity to consider our spiritual connections.  At Eliot we pass the tray of bread cubes and little glasses through the pews.  We do this so we might serve each other in the process.  Also, it is a recognition of the divine spark within each of us.  Other congregations go to the front to break bread off a communal loaf or take a wafer from a priest.  Frequently there is a communal cup as well.  That we recognize each other in our diverse manifestations of ritual is important.  These are small differences that reflect the wide variety of roads we take toward God.

When I was first getting interested in the United Church of Christ, a UCC colleague asked me how I planned on dealing with participating in a more sacramental tradition.  I had spent some time as a Unitarian Universalist pastor where the word "sacrament" when it is used doesn't have the same weight.  She had also entered the UCC from a less sacramental tradition.  I didn't have an answer then and she didn't expect me to.  It was more of a "head's up" that I might want to start thinking about baptism and communion more seriously and systematically.

I am glad I took her warning. I have learned over the years that ritual can be built over differences in style and belief.  It creates common ground upon which we can sit and converse. We can see our commonality in the quest toward unknowable mysteries.  It also gives us a way to show our love both to God and the world.  Amen to that.

Yup.  Here is the last sermon of the series!  It was quite a trip which contributed to a bit of a work bottleneck and a couple life stressors that still haven't been cleaned up.  The great thing about nature is that in times of stress and chaos we can retreat to it, remembering our relative insignificance.  It is therapeutic and we all could use a little therapy these days...

So I started posting my "Learning From Nature" sermon series and then sort of fizzled out.  There was a big gap in the calendar between sermon #2 and sermon #3.  In there we had our Annual Meeting right after the church's "Winter Getaway" where we close the church and all head to New Hampshire together.  Then we had a guest preacher--Rev. Ciaran Osborne--for the beginning of Lent.  However, we have been back to it for a while.  Here is Sermon #3, "Let Us Not Despair."  The road to despair seems pretty short these days in many aspects of our lives.  It is important, however, to keep our eyes on the prize.  

Anyway...here it is...

So here is the second sermon in my "Learning From Nature" series.  The series will have to take a bit of a hiatus as we have Annual Meeting this Sunday. However, so far, I am enjoying it.  I have decided to move slowly.  Attendance is such that not everyone is in church every week and there are some key concepts here to help us consider how we can change how we relate to the natural world.  I believe that most people--including myself--tend to believe that their (or our) connection to the natural world is closer than it is.  This series is part of an effort to get us to think differently about our place in the ecosystem.

Another part of this process will include a couple forums--essentially one hour workshops after church--on March 3 and March 10 to think about the theology around this relationship.  There will be a Pub Theology as well, riffing off the previous "Pub" when we talked about eco-anxiety.  You are welcome to attend if you are around!  IT is slow process to change our cultural norms and values.  However, we won't ever manage it if we never start.

I started an asynchronous online graduate course in Environmental Policy today.  The reasons were varied.  However, the biggest one had to do with my questions about the role of the church in the environmental movement.  I have been a minister for a long time.  Over the years environmentalism has been a regular topic or lens for me.  I have led workshops and outdoor worship.  We have examined the topic in the context of transcendentalism and other nature theologies. 

During all this time, though, I felt myself coming up against a blind spot.  The fact is, I know a great deal about nature and spirituality.  I have tons of practical experience with human beings and how they move through the world. However, I don't know as much about the science and economics around many of the problems and issues our planet faces. 

This isn't a shock.  I am a pastor.  I live and work in a community where my role is to "walk" with people to help them make sense of their lives, the world, their relationships, and their feelings. My biggest resource--among many--is a very ancient collection of texts written by people whose philosophical and theological chops were strong but whose economic and scientific chops were...well...lacking.  This isn't a judgment of them necessarily.  They weren't destroying the planet nearly as quickly as we are, after all...

Anyway, as you know I spend a lot of time outdoors.  My hiking adventures account for most of what is on this page.  I have to say, when I am "out there" on a mountain or a local trail, I wonder how long it will be around.  I wonder about the drastic shifts in weather.  I want to know what is going on with Creation--church people use the term "Creation" frequently even though most of us are not creationists--and what I can do about it. Right now I am feeling the need to dip into a better understanding of the ecosystem and the dynamics that contribute to its health.  

Yesterday I began a sermon series on these subjects.  It is independent of the course I am taking but I am sure there will be overlap. As it currently stands I will preach a number of sermons on Sunday mornings, host a number of workshops, and set up some "Pub Theology" sessions to talk about what the church can do to help the environment.  I feel like we have a role to play that we--houses of worship regardless of faith tradition--are uniquely positioned for.  We deal with hearts and minds.  To truly save humanity, we need to re-take our place in the network of living things.  This has to start with a change in attitude and conversation. 

Anyway, I will probably drop in here to wax lyrical on this subject from time to time.  If you live in the area, check out the church newsletter.  We would love to have you as part of this conversation!

​PS This is Sunday's Sermon...

So the holidays are over...and that is OK with me.  The first snow came over the weekend.  It messed up some church plans but I will get over it.  More pressingly, it is messing up my old bones which is making it hard to peel myself out of the bed, don my winter gear, and walk the dog for her accustomed four miles.  It just didn't happen today.  Even though I have done a great deal of hiking--much of it in the winter--it takes a while for me to recover these days. 

That is the way with time.  It rolls on ahead of us and we need to pace ourselves. We are different people from moment to moment.  Through the years this long line of who we have been changes. With each change we are less like the person we were when we were born. We are less like the person our parents dreamed of us being. We are--even--less like the one we thought we would be.  You know this...but it is worth pointing out sometimes.

That isn't always a bad thing, is it? Lost plans make us who we are. I remember in my undergraduate Anthropology class watching a documentary that followed two groups of children from elementary school well into their adulthood.  In the first video all the kids said what they wanted to be when they grew up.  By the end the rich ones had become just what their young selves said they would be.  The others--working class mostly--went on some unpredictable adventures.  Some stories were tragic.  Mostly, though, they did things they never thought possible.  In fact, they wouldn't even have had the words when they were young to describe the adults they became.

Anyway, the new year is an arbitrary date but--as we talked about during Advent--all holidays are arbitrary.  I have plans for 2024. I bet you do too. It is hard not to look both back and forward at the same time.

Maybe you don't have a resolution.  I don't. That is fine.  However, in surveying 2023 I see good parts and bad parts.  There have been times when I thought that I handled things well.  There were times when it felt like whatever I did made things worse.  This is normal.  It takes a certain level of delusion or a high level of privilege to go through life thinking you are perfect, right?

So what are you thinking about for the future?  For me, the "tiny step" involves trying to figure out what to do with this dog. She came to us the Saturday before Thanksgiving Sunday (which--for the edification of non-church people--is before Thanksgiving).  Right after that was the chaos of the holidays and of our lives which took an entropic turn. It has been a long time since we had a dog. The last one was a husky, who was very different from the one we have now. I hope to figure out our relationship over the next year.  Things will come out of that, I am sure. Not all of them will be good or successful.  However, my wife tells me I am not happy unless I have seven projects going at a time.  So there yah go...

During the Christmas season we went to the Worcester Art Museum and sat for a while in the 12th Century Benedictine priory they have just off the main hall. A jazz band was playing.  The band was great but the acoustics were not.  Anyway, I sat there for a while, recovering from all the mess of the month before.  I thought of the things I hadn't managed to get done.  Then I did my best to let them go.  Most plans don't work out.  What is left, though, is a life.

Whatever your plan is, I hope you commit to it.  I also hope you take it easy. Otherwise you might break something.  Right now I would like to go for a big hike in the snow.  The dog and I look out the window and all I can see is the potential for adventure and stories.  She probably sees squirrels and frozen poop. That ankle though...I need to take my time now if hiking ever gets to be a thing for me again....

Such is the way with the new year.  It is a lot like the old one.  Old injuries and burdens continue.  However, maybe the dreams change along with our ability and our commitment to live into them.

We are well into the season now and at least some people are getting cranky.  There are reasons of course, but it seems that many of us are falling into habits that need to be nipped in the bud.  Of course the reason we are doing this is the same reason why it is a bad idea!  It is the holiday season and people are trying way too hard to make it perfect.

Guess what?  It isn't going to be perfect, so we all need to back off.   We need to show some grace to ourselves and to each other.  The picture in our head isn't going to happen.  Still, if we chill out a bit what will happen will be better than what we can reasonably expect. 

In our house right now we are having quite a few conversations about decorations.  We feel like--for very good reasons--we are way behind and each of us has a different picture in our head of what each room would ideally look like.  We are also stressing out about shopping lists and food.  I also get to be stressed out about the various religious services and other church events that other people have vested with more wieght than they can realistically bear.  If we--all of us--aren't careful, the whole season can become a narrative of disappointment.  Who wants that?

This brings us to an important subject.  We need to monitor ourselves and our mental health during the holidays. Part of this is self-care.  Part of this is caring for others.  Often we tend toward one.  However we are social people so each circles back around.  Anyway, here are some things to think about doing for the next few weeks and maybe beyond...

Practice forgiveness: This is as good a place as any to start.  Yes, this means forgiving ourselves for not getting every single thing right.  However, it also means forgiving the people around us even if they aren't quite measuring up. Everyone is in this together.  Everyone is having a hard time.  We need to practice a level of grace when we are out in the world.  We need to do the same in our own head-space. 

So the wreaths aren't as full and bushy as you would like them to be. Can you forgive yourself for getting them anyway? Can you forgive the harried worker who sells them to you?  Hint: the answer should be "yes" both times.  The holiday is not about the quality of the wreaths.  The holiday is not about the stress you are feeling about them either.  Take a breath. Figure out what is going on inside you.  It probably isn't about what is setting you off, after all. One of the many themes of the Christmas story is that nothing is perfect but God still exists in the midst of those imperfections. This is a good thing to remember right now.

Get some exercise: We all need to step away a bit and give our bodies time to practice just being bodies.  Sure, running about from task to task does burn calories.  However, that is not what exercise is about. It is as much a mental re-set as anything else.  We need that.  We need to remember that we are alive and vibrant children of the Divine.  Walking is good. So is going to the gym.  If you are one of those people who can afford a Peloton and a place to store it...do a session a day.  Part of what is making us cranky is that we are neglecting ourselves in favor of this extended and constantly extending holiday season.  Exercise--whatever works for you--will give you perspective and energy you need.

Cut back on consumption: This one should be obvious...but it is hard to do.  It also comes in two forms.  We over consume during this time on things and on food. We should be watching both.  No one is making us buy wreaths, or a tree, or an expensive scarf for  Aunt Sally, or whatever it is we are stressed about right now.  We also don't need to put everything in our mouths!  Too much alcohol makes us depressed and can cause so many social problems when we act before we think.  Too much food makes us sluggish and sad.  If we do absolutely nothing different this season--if we just eat beans and vacuum occasionally--do you know what happens? Christmas still starts on December 25.  Amazing right? In fact, the beans and vacuuming are optional!  Time just keeps marching on.

Get Nerdy: Literally everybody I know has something they do that makes them happy.  It can be reading a particular genre of fiction.  It can be studying a specific area of history. We engage variously in video games, tabletop roleplaying games, model trains, carpentry, playing or collecting music, and knitting.  There are more examples, of course. Yeah it's the holidays and we are busy.  Yeah we are carrying around feelings that come from past holidays, missing people, and regular-old conflicts. However, we are also going to drive everyone crazy if we don't do the things that help us relax.  Engage your passions, people! As with exercise, they help us to step away.

Embrace Imperfection: This is the big one, which is why I am circling back.  Perfection is killing us.  None of us are going to get there this season.  Honestly, trying will make it worse.  Advertisers, our families, our friends, and society in general are attempting to get us to be perfect.  We--yes all of us--are expecting perfection from everyone else.  I mean, what a small and petty way to live. Perfection is the enemy of the good.  We cannot let perfection win.  So yeah...stop trying so hard.  Stop feeling bad about when things go south a bit.  Stop expecting more of others than we are able to sustain for ourselves. We are doing good and that is enough.

I guess what I am saying today is that I am very much in favor of a slacker Christmas. Let's step back a bit and just do things in there time.  If time runs out...well...it wasn't meant to be, was it?  That is OK.  This time really isn't worth getting ourselves messed up over.  It isn't worth messing up others or our relationships with them, either.

I am leaving you this video as well.  Abbie Barnes is a young hiker and mental health activist from England.  She produced this video during the plague and addresses many of the same issue from a mental health perspective.

And just like that...here we are....

​It is Sunday afternoon and I am sitting on the couch, watching a youtube video of a dog sleeping in front of a fire. The dog looks pretty darn content in their massive bed that features a prominent LL Bean logo, so I can only assume it is an advertisement for dog beds, and LL Bean in general.  Thanks algorithm!  We got a puppy the day before Thanksgiving Sunday (which is the Sunday before ​Thanksgiving if you are in church) and I have been looking up vids to help her get settled. The dog on the video is some kind of labrador retriever. The puppy is half-lab.  Maybe she will take some lying down lessons...

Of course it isn't Thanksgiving anymore. Advent started this very day!  I have to say that it took me a bit by surprise this year. We had that extra Sunday--November 26--which our church went ahead and cancelled.  However, I didn't rest exactly. There was that puppy,...and work...and the usual drama of life that left me almost completely unaware of the looming crisis of December holidays.  

What snapped me out of it was an invitation to a party on December 1.  This important date is, of course, the beginning of secular Advent. We mark the first of December by opening the first door on our calendars to get our daily chocolate or scotch, or whatever the person who gives us the calendars chose this year.  Anyway, a clergy friend held a party on December 1 to kick things off and I had to bring something.  This meant that--between dog walks--I was forced to turn on the Christmas music and make my first fruitcake of the season. This bake included the very last of the cranberry compote from Thanksgiving dinner.  The loaf I saved and "tested" for the party was pretty OK. I hope people liked the other one.

I don't have much to say about the holiday today.  However, I wanted to check in.  Advent is one of my favorite times of year and I try to give it the respect it deserves by not lurching directly to Christmas.  It is ironic, but being a church person means less Christmas, not more.  I like it that way.  It keeps everything in its time.

That said I have some Advent "gifts" for you.  Don't get excited!  They are all virtual. Also, it includes the "Yule Dog" which I didn't make and don't really endorse in any meaningful sense.

So here is the link to my "fruitcake" recipe.  I use it every year and give them away as much as possible.  Then I stop when I feel like it.  That moment usually arrives before Epiphany.  Also, below you will find my "Advent prayer" from this morning.  It is really kind of a meditation, but whatever. We had our annual sanctuary lighting today--which involves lots of readings and open flame--then we had communion.  The meditation here closed communion, which was fine.

So the video of the dog by the fire continues.  While I was writing this, the bottom half of a person came in with a classy LL Bean log-carrier, stoked the fire, and returned to pet the dog and drop off their snowy boots.  The boots, of course, are those super-ugly-and-uncomfortable "Bean Boots" that were the bane of my childhood.  I bet the dog is named after the Chesapeake Bay.  I remember lots of "Chessies" growing up.  This is the sort of set-up they would like. It kinda makes me wish I had a fireplace...and a scratchy wool blanket...and that it was snowing.

OMG!  The "dog owner" is back wearing LL Bean slippers and stoking the fire with a bespoke fire poker!  This is about as much excitement as I can handle on a Sunday afternoon in the rain.

Anyway, here is the prayer.  I need to walk my dog, who is named after a mountain in New Hampshire, which is totally different from being named after a bay in Maryland...

Advent Prayer 2023
Adam Tierney-Eliot

It doesn't start with a star
It doesn't start with hallelujahs
        and amens
It starts with stumbling through
         the dark
It starts all too frequently with loss
         oppression and
         the rocky road to nothing

Then we begin
         with a moment of desperation
         on our knees
With  crying out and  wondering if
         if our cries will be heard at all

And then it starts
        with the hands that lift us up
         brush us off
         feed us, even, and walk us into the day
We may be too tired to notice
         these hands but
         they are there
Each caring hand
         the hand of God and
         the human hands
​                        of human hope
We shudder to turn these hands to violence
We resist using them
         for selfish ends

​Advent does not begin with a star
         or an angel
         or a hymn
but begins with us
        in communion with humanity
Advent begins as stillness
  In the chaos and
                 then the stillness grows

This morning I started my pies.  You probably know why. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and there is lots to do.  We have hosted for years and--as the primary-but-no-longer-sole cook--I have a system.  With certain exceptions, the preparation for the meal goes in reverse order of consumption, which means desert first.  

Anyway, my son--who will be ultimately responsible for this dish--brought home a splendid butternut squash and some sweet potatoes from the farm where he works.  My task this morning was to reduce them to a puree for later assembly.  I have the Christmas music on.  It's somebody's attempt to reconstruct the Grant's Department Store albums on Spotify. I am mindful of the peeling and the roasting.  I am making a list of things we forgot to get in the first (and second and third) run to the grocery store.  Johnny Mathis is singing O Holy Night. I am inhabiting the holidays...yet I am also not.

I am not entirely feeling festive this year.  You see, it is a dark time in the world and it seems weird in some way to be grateful when so much is going to Hell in a hand basket.  The holidays are like that.  Even in times that seem somewhat better than this one, there is conflict.  There is pain. There is the fact ​that not everything works out the way we would hope.

Now, there is actually a way to celebrate what we have and to mourn what is missing at the same time. It takes courage, like so many things, but it's worth trying. An act of thanks in a time of oppression and evil--in a time of crises and conflict--is an act of resistance.  It is a moment where we contemplate the vastness and decide that "the Man"--those principalities and powers of our society--isn't going to get us this time.  We are stating that in the midst of struggles--whatever they may be--we will be broad-minded and open-hearted against the forces of fearful self-interest.

There is strength in looking at the vastness.  There is strength in prayer, which is really what we are talking about.
There is strength in understanding our role as part of the ecosystem writ large. This practice encourages us to set aside our own issues.  Nan Merrill's translation of Psalm 146 tell us to "Put not your trust in riches, in illusory things that fade away. For when our day comes to depart this world, at that very time, we carry only the love imprinted on our soul." That is what all this holiday-making--all this risk taking--is about.

Or, at least, that is the goal. It requires some practice. It also requires some higher order thinking to say “yes, I am grateful…but”. We are grateful but…not all is right in the world. Not all is right in our lives. We are grateful but…when we look over this broken earth, the blessings are imbalanced. Though we may be pleased with what we have, we see that there is work to be done. 

This “yes, but” is as much a “yes and” approach familiar to anyone who has ever done improv.  For in our gratitude, we are motivated to action.  This is an essential element of the move, actually.  So many people want to escape during the holidays.  So many center their own narrative and miss the opportunity to reach out.  Thanksgiving in particular is susceptible to this. As is perhaps inevitable in a secular holiday with a religious theme, our “attitude of gratitude” has too often been an act of self-congratulation masquerading as humility.

For example, as children we learned the holiday’s creation myth--all that stuff about the Pilgrims and the Native-Americans gathering together in peace--as history.  At best it is a white-washed mashup of complex events in the midst of a clash of cultures.  That “First Thanksgiving” myth was--and still is--used to prop a distinctly American theology.  It is used to privilege and elevate the story of European Americans and legitimate colonialism in the so-called “New” World.  Now, theoretically, we know better.  Still, we feel the impact of this story and of how we learned it every day.

Here is another example. It is also hard not to veer into self-congratulation in a celebration of the ability to lay out a table of more food than we can eat. When we do this, we are celebrating our riches in gratitude for a harvest that we did not bring about. We celebrate our ability to store up food for a winter that–thanks to the trappings of our suburban society–will not be a time of scarcity for most of us, after all.

We don’t want to be like that. We also know that we don’t have to be. There is a way--through honest prayer--to be grateful and still acknowledge the depth of pain in the world, in our bodies, and in our hearts. There is a way to atone, somewhat, and commit to the struggle. There is a way to bring about a better life and a better world that we can celebrate next holiday season.

Every year I share a prayer by Theodore Parker with the church.  It is called "Trials". It may not be the best prayer ever–At least artistically–but it is an authentic one. Parker was a transcendentalist, 
and a Unitarian minister who was ostracized by his fellow Unitarian clergy because of his radicalism. He had personal struggles, too. Many of those struggles had to do with his health.  He died young at 50 years of age, right before the Civil War.

In this prayer he mixed his gratefulness with the reality of his situation, facing imperfection and acknowledging responsibility. In it he speaks into where he feels he has failed. He notes the suffering he has endured but…he still ends in thanks.  He still finds reasons for gratitude.

For all the trials of my earlier day
I thank thee that they all have been
That darkness lay about the rugged way
Which I must tread alone.  For all I’ve seen
Of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and loss
I thank thee for them all. And did I sin,
I grieve not I’ve been tried; for e’en the cross
Of penitience has taught me how to win.
Yet of ills as child or man I’ve borne--
My hopes laid waste, or friends sent off by death,--
Remorse has most of all my boson torn
For time misspent ill deeds or evil breath.
But yet, for every grief my heart has worn,
God I thank thee still, trusting with a hearty faith.

So that is where we are this year. In a world of trouble and pain. We live in a world in need of our humility and our strength.  We live in a world in need of our joy and our gratitude. We need to give these things even in the face of all that has happened and all that will happen in the quest for the just and peaceful Kin-dom.

Today, I am done with the squash. I have the turducken almost thawed out. I am making plans in future days to eat both of these dishes and more besides until they are gone.  We will not wear ties to dinner tomorrow.  Things will be more casual.  Maybe--for a little while--we might talk about religion and politics until we can't deal anymore. Then next week, having been grateful for the many things we should be grateful for and having acknowledged the hard truths--or as many as we can--we will turn back to the dream of making a better world.  After all, we will have Advent to remind us, right?

May we see the imperfect world and resist despair by giving thanks for the victories, the love, and the tools for the new journey that empower us to good work and enable us to move forward once again.