What Are Blessings?
Dana Lightsey, Ministerial Intern
November 26, 2006

Children’s Story

Think of a time when you have felt really happy about your life and proud of who you are.  Can you think of a time?  Now what about when you were really mad at yourself or felt really badly about your life.  Did you get in to trouble more when you are happy with yourself or when you are mad or angry with yourself? Can I tell you a story about a man who didn’t like himself? 

Once upon a time there was this very unusual South African tribe called the Babemba.  They were particularly unusual because of the ways they handled problems in their community.  There was this grouchy old man that just moved to the village.  He didn’t really fit in very well because he was always in a bad mood.  He didn’t take very good care of himself and he didn’t even seem to like himself.  He mostly kept to himself except when he sold his baskets of fruit that he had gathered in the forest.  Some people noticed what a beautiful voice he had when he called out to the villagers; others noticed what great care he took in preparing the fruit; and still others noticed how he was always generous to the children.

One day, one of the villager’s cow was missing.  Everyone was puzzled because rarely did anyone ever steal anything in this village.  The villagers began looking for the cow and eventually found it far away tied up next to the old grouchy man’s hut.  Now it was the tradition of this village for everyone to surround a person when they have broken the law.   So, when the man returned from picking fruit all of the villagers surrounded him in a large, large circle.  This made the man very scared and worried.  What were they going to do to him?  He knew he shouldn’t have stolen that cow but he was desperate for milk and he didn’t care what happened to him anymore because he hated himself and thought no one else cared either..  Just as he was bracing for the worst from the villagers, they all began to bombard him with compliments!  What was that?!  With compliments!  They were yelling at him things like, “we love the way you prepare your fruit”, and “we are grateful for your generosity to our children”, “thank you for your beautiful singing voice when you call to us”.  They yelled out all of the things they liked about this man, all of the things he was good at, all of the great potential they saw with him.  This was not what he was expecting at all!  His anger and hatred for himself began to melt, his heart began to open to the kindness of these people.  They continued to bombard him and they saw his face change, the grouchy old man was crying, the children ran to hug him and all of the villagers welcomed him back into the tribe.  The old man sang and danced with all of the villagers long into the night.  Never had he ever felt so good about himself; never had he ever felt like he truly had a place to belong.  Now he had people who cared about him and he cared about them.  He finally had a place to belong.  And never, ever did he ever steal anything again!

This experience really changed the grouchy old man in the story didn’t it?  But what about the people in the village?  Do you think they enjoyed saying nice things to this man?  See the really amazing thing is, not only did he feel better, but also everyone got to feel the joy of being nice to each other.  The lesson here is how much we can help each other feel better by telling each other what we are grateful for.

Do you like chocolate?  Perhaps you don’t eat chocolate but you might like sugar-free candy. These treats are for giving blessings. The treats will be in the commons area after the church service.  Please remember to always check with your parents before having any candy. If they give you permission, you can give yourself a treat, but first you have to thank yourself for something you really love about yourself.  This is how you give yourself a blessing of gratitude.  Would your friends and parents like these treats too?  You can bless them with your gratefulness by telling them something that you really like about them; something you are happy they have done for you.  Then you give them a special treat (remember to check with parents). 

There is great happiness in blessing each other.  Long after the treats are gone, keep telling yourself and others the things that you like and what you are grateful for.  Notice how good it feels to say nice things and give away something wonderful like your gratitude. 

Happy giving thanks, Happy Thanksgiving!

Sermon

What are the best ways we can take care of each other?  More than anything else, what do we all need?  Our list may be long, but bottom line, we all need and want love.  And, we are often taught that the best way to receive love is to give it.  We have the opportunity to give out love every time we encounter another human being.  Our pets would remind us that we have this opportunity every time we encounter any being!  Now it’s not really socially appropriate in our society to hug everyone in sight and smother them with love on a regular basis.  So how do we express our care and appreciation for others instead?  We send each other little blessings like, “have a great day”, or, “I hope your trip is easy and pleasant”, or grateful comments like, “Thank God you’re here!” or “It’s really good to see you”.  Not always, but most of the time these comments really are genuine!  It is habit in our culture to bless each other with well wishes and acknowledge the goodness of a person or an action with comments of gratitude.

The interesting thing about expressions of gratitude is they benefit both the giver and the receiver.  Think about it for a moment, when you wish someone well, doesn’t it also make you feel good?  How about when you really express a deeply felt ‘thank you’ as you expound on the reasons for your gratitude, this usually makes a person feel great!  As a matter of fact, there is even research to support this.  Robert Emmons from the University of California, Davis, and Michael McCullough from the University of Miami, did a research project on gratitude.  These are some of the findings from their study:

•  “Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress.  However, grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.
• People with a strong disposition toward gratitude have the capacity to be empathic and to take the perspective of others.  They are rated as more generous and more helpful by people in their social networks. (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).
• Those who regularly attend religious services and engage in religious activities are more likely to be grateful.  Grateful people are more likely to acknowledge a belief in the interconnectedness of all life and a commitment to and responsibility to others (McCullough et. al., 2002).
• Grateful individuals place less importance on material goods; they are less envious of wealthy persons; and are more likely to share their possessions with others relative to less grateful persons.”

The story I told the children, was inspired by a quote by Alice Walker in her book, Sent By Earth.  According to Ms. Walker:

“It is said that in the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person acts irresponsibly or unjustly, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered.

All work ceases, and every man, woman and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, about all the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length.

The tribal ceremony often lasts several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is symbolically and literally welcomed back into the tribe.” 

Not only does this story speak to the power of gratitude and blessings, but also to the equally powerful attribute of forgiveness. 

I first read Ms. Walker’s account about 4 years ago.  I immediately began looking for an opportunity to try it out.  Having been a music teacher in the public school system for 17 years, I was surrounded with an entire school of guinea pigs! 

It didn’t take long before I had my opportunity.  One day some adaptors from my keyboard lab turned up missing.  Now, between you and me, I had a whole box of adaptors just like those in my desk, but I made such a fuss you would have thought these were priceless, one of a kind pieces of jewelry.

It didn’t take long before I found out it who had stolen these adaptors.  The kids all told me who did it.  It was the same group of 2nd grade boys that had been stealing and vandalizing the school and creating a great deal of havoc everywhere they went.  They had been punished repeatedly.  Now these boys all came from dismally difficult circumstances and they each struggled from a poor self-concept.  Punishing them over and over was only worsening how they felt.  When one already feels worthless, then getting in trouble hardly matters anymore.

So their class and I decided to try the Babemba Tribe method.  The next time they came to music, all of the kids in this 2nd grade class sat in their usual circle when they entered my room.  But then one by one I called each of these boys to sit in the middle of the circle.  They hesitantly entered with a quiet look of panic on their faces. 

I told them what had happened and we all knew about the problems they had been having around the school.  I told them that we were really worried about them; we were afraid they had forgotten who they were, so it was our job to remind them.  All the students then spent the rest of the class time one by one telling these offenders all of the wonderful things they liked about them.  The most common comment was how much they liked having them as friends and why they were great at being friends.

These boys in the middle had been looking as tough and defiant as a 2nd grader can.  But before long they began to melt, smile, laugh, and then cry.  Many in the class started crying too but they would not stop affirming how much they appreciated these young boys.  I was absolutely stunned and overwhelmed at the transformation that came over these boys in that moment.  Not only did these boys change, but the whole class was so into the exercise, they could have gone for at least another 45 minutes!  They begged me to do this activity again next class time.  This really was a powerful and shocking lesson for all of us.

Oh and you might like to know that the boys became my best helpers and my little buddies for the rest of the year.  Amazing  kids; each and every of them.

The research was right; this was a graphic example of the power of sharing positive emotions of gratitude, blessings, and forgiveness.

Now I hope these stories inspire you to spread blessings around as frequently as you possibly can and count your own blessings throughout your day.

But there are even deeper teachings about gratitude available to us.  So often, looking back on our lives, we remember times that were very difficult, and now, even though we wouldn’t want to go through them again, we see how they led to something wonderful or important in our lives now.  Think about your own life for a moment.  What were the circumstances in your life when you were changing and growing the most?  Were those times easy?  Ease and comfort rarely challenge us to grow.  Over and over again we see it is the difficult times that propel us into growth; which leads us into a more fulfilling life. 

In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of Lojong, we are reminded to “Be grateful to everyone”.  There are no exceptions here for people we don’t like or the one’s who have caused us pain.  This seems counterintuitive.  This makes me think, “You mean I am supposed to be grateful for that jerk that crashed into my car?  This sounds crazy!  How could this possibly make any sense?”

Being grateful doesn’t mean we condone the destructive actions of someone else; it doesn’t mean we want to be treated badly; and it doesn’t mean that we deserve painful times over good times.  Being grateful to everyone reminds us we have lessons to learn from all that is life; from EVERYTHING and EVERYONE that happens in our lives.  Since bad times do happen, we might as well learn the most that we can and improve ourselves the best that we can from it all, don’t you think?

And, if we manage to let go of our everyday drama for a moment, we see that everything is connected and all of it (the good, bad and the ugly) is the essence of life.  Therefore, the most basic thing we can be grateful for is for being alive, and if we are truly grateful for being alive, then how can we not be grateful for ALL life has to offer?  Expecting only the good parts of life and not the pain is simply not realistic, but expecting only the good parts of life is a surefire set-up for being disappointed with life.

Think for a moment of someone that really rubs you the wrong way.  Perhaps it is a friend or a relative or a political figure.  Now bless them with the wish that they may be rid of all suffering and pain and instead be filled with happiness and all that brings happiness.  Once again we may be pushing the envelope of common sense and being reasonable, I know.

But if we think about it, the troublemakers are usually filled with great pain and difficulty within themselves.  If they were able to rid themselves of the pain they experienced every day and instead were filled with joy, the world would be an immensely better and easier place to live, don’t you think?  It’s the people who are troubled most that need our blessings the most.  So often it is the trials these people bring upon themselves and then upon us that help us grow if we choose to grow.  We can only hope they are also choosing to learn the lessons.  We cannot travel the path towards enlightenment or self-improvement without having other people in our lives.  This is why we are grateful to everyone.

When we understand this, we understand that we are surrounded by blessings everyday and everything provides us with important lessons to be learned.  We can choose to be grateful for ALL of the lessons presented to us. Being filled with a spirit of gratitude all the time is quite possible when we remember to “be grateful to everyone” and everything even if it isn’t what we want at the time. 

So what are blessings?  Blessings are whatever we choose to see as blessings.  The research is clear, the more we count our blessings and live in a spirit of gratitude the happier we are.  And when we are happy we create happiness around us.  So what do ya say?  Does anyone here just have too much happiness in their lives?  Wouldn’t it be great to create more?  Happiness is right at our fingertips; all we have to do is see it!  As UU’s many of us feel drawn to change the world; here is our chance and we get to be happy while we do it!  What a bargain!

So I challenge each of us to change our lives and the world around us starting today.  I challenge each of us to experience more gratitude in each day even during those difficult times.

As with any new habit we need to practice.  And besides, why should the kids get all the fun?!  Scattered around the Commons you will find baskets of chocolate kisses and sugar-free candies.  Now is your opportunity to celebrate the beauty in each person around you and the beauty in this community.  Now is everyone’s chance to bless each other and accept the shower of gratitude coming from our UU friends. 

Freely bless each other with these chocolates and candies.  When you give a treat to someone, tell that person why you appreciate them; why you love them; how thankful you are to have them with in this community with you.  Speak from your heart and celebrate with them for a moment.  Especially seek out people with whom you have had challenges or difficulties. 

Now, eat one yourself, but only after you have told yourself why you love yourself and why you are thankful for being alive.  Celebrate with yourself for a moment then keep the gratitude flowing.  Continue this habit of thanksgiving long after the chocolate is gone.  Don’t be shy; don’t hold back, this is your chance to change the world.

May today we move closer to transforming ourselves and the world as we nurture the seeds of gratitude within us.  As we venture into our day and into our week, may we continually look for blessings in our lives and may we carefully and lovingly count ALL of our blessings as we make the choice to transform our lives and the lives of the people around us. 

Amen.