The Rev. Morris W. Hudgins, Interim Minister

Northwest UU Congregation

Nov. 20, 2011

            Today I will share with you the essence of my theology, my definition of the spiritual life.  I am titling it “A Theology of Gratitude.” As Meister Eckhart wrote:  “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.  Melodie Beattie expresses the essence of my message this morning.  She writes:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.  It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity.... It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.

I will illustrate this theology with two illustrations this morning, both are our spirituals forebears—the pilgrims of New England and the Unitarians of Transylvania. 

Original Pilgrims

We all know the story of the Pilgrims who came to America in 1620, settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and began a new life in a New World.  What is often confused is the distinction between Pilgrims and Puritans.  The Puritans had a long history in England before the Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower and headed for America.  The Puritans began around 1560 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as a movement for religious reform.  They were anti-Catholic, against formal liturgy, vestments, and the hierarchy of the Church of England.  Their goal was to purify the Church not to separate from it.  Later some Puritans would become Separatists, completely separating from the Church of England. 

            The Puritans in England had periods when they were tolerated and other periods when they were persecuted.  During the Restoration after 1660 they were expelled from the Church of England and became known as Nonconformists.  Unitarians in England and Ireland continue to use the “Nonconformist” label.

            Some of the Puritans or Nonconformists settled the Plymouth Colony and became the first Pilgrims in America.  The Puritans in New England held firmly to the Calvinist theology that began to change and evolve both in England and America.   This theology separated the elect from the damned.   The minority of the population in America considered themselves the elect, had experienced conversion, gave ministers more authority, and looked to the civil government for control over the churches. 

The original Mayflower Compact and the Cambridge Platform that followed created what was in fact a theocratic state.  This would change with a new charter in Massachusetts in 1692, creating a secular state.  By this time the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded a decade after the Pilgrims founded Plymouth, had become the dominant political force in what would become the state of Massachusetts. What happened in Massachusetts, the secularization of the state, would also happen in other regions of the country, especially Pennsylvania, and New York.  In North Carolina and Virginia the Church of England had more control and the change would take place later.  The end of the 17^th century brought an end to the Puritan colony, and with it the Puritan control of America.   More and more churches would be created, tolerated and with it the end of theocracy.  In the 19^th century, The Unitarians and the Universalists would help continue the break down of this theocracy and challenge the Calvinist theology at every turn.

            The Pilgrims were a mixture of Puritans and separatists.  The Separatists had gone to Holland, but because of the rough life there, and the fact that they were too radical for some of the Dutch, they decided to head for the New World.  They returned to England and were to embark on the Speedwell in Southampton.  The ship proved to be un-seaworthy, so they returned to Plymouth and some joined those on the Mayflower and headed for Massachusetts.   This group of about 100 passengers first saw land after two months at Cape Cod, then landed on December 26th at a place named for the city from which they came—Plymouth.

            Narrowly speaking, it is this band of Puritans and Separatists that made up this group we refer to as Pilgrims.  Technically speaking, this first group was the Pilgrim Fathers and Mothers, the first settlers in this new land.

            The Pilgrims of the 17^th century set the stage for a nation of wayfarers.  How has this affected who we are and how we live?  Thomas Moore, in his book, Soul Mates, identifies two psychological drives in tension within human beings—the need for freedom and independence, and the need for attachment and togetherness.  We see these tensions active in our desire to live our own lives away from our family of origin, in the way of work, which may send us anywhere in the world, in our travels, as the world becomes our destiny.  We are no longer satisfied with staying in one place, with one family, or I would add with one church.  We are a nation of people with little allegiance, and sometimes with few connections with people who care for us.

We are all forced to live with this tension of attachment and freedom.  This is the way of the pilgrim.  This tension according to Moore is the “way of the soul.”  As I look at our religious association, I see that we are struggling with just these drives.  The words we hear today in our religious movement is that of interdependence and covenant, but we also say we believe in self-reliance, and freedom.

            Thomas Moore advises us to live with these tensions, and if we do we can be more “soulful.”  I feel this tension everyday as I struggle to please others or to fulfill my own desires, to be with Marti’s family, with my children or with my family of origin.  I have a feeling all of us feel these tensions.

            We carry this tension of the original pilgrims with us in America today.  What we often forget is the pilgrim sense of gratitude.  H.U. Westermayer reminds us that the pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts.  He concludes, “No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.”  I just wish this gratitude of the Pilgrims had more influence on their relations with the Native Americans.

            I cannot compare my upbringing with the Pilgrims.  Nothing compares to what they experienced.   I did grow up in a family of seven children.  My father was a tool-and-die maker.   My family was able to live because my father did work, was able to provide money for food and a home, but there wasn’t money for extras.  Christmas gifts were mostly necessities.   My mother stretched what money there was as far she could.  She also taught us to be grateful.

            Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, concludes that gratitude, optimism, hope and happiness, do not depend on circumstances.  He credits our genes, and our positive relationships with our family and others, and “very little on circumstances.”   

            I did not experience the gratitude of the original pilgrims, but I have experienced it in Transylvania, now a part of Romania, the place where Unitarianism was born in the 16^th century, what I call “land of hospitality.”  I hope our young people will experience this hospitality next summer.  I thank all of you who are helping them with this goal. 

For most of their history our forebears in Transylvania have lived under the control of another nation.  In most recent years they suffered under the control of communism.  Since 1989, Romania has experienced freedom, as the fall of the Berlin wall, has brought the East and the West together.  However, this has not brought prosperity to these people.  Plus, the Romanians continue to control the Hungarians who live in their country and have since the end of WWI.

            Our Unitarian brothers and sisters in Transylvania face difficult challenges.  The young people are forced to move into the cities for work.  This leaves the population in the villages as poor with the older population separated from the younger.

            The Unitarians in Transylvania use their faith to overcome their conflicts in Romania, and in their relationship with their neighbors.  They have a deep-rooted faith in the 17^th Reformation, which calls them to believe in One God, with Jesus as their model for human living. 

             I have found a prayer written by The Rev. Andrasi, one of the leaders of Unitarianism in Romania.  This prayer reflects the struggles of these people and how they respond to it.  The prayer is titled “God with Us”:

Our eternal and providential God,

For all that we are and all that we have we owe gratitude only to you.  The fullness of our life is in your hands.

            We arise from you through the mysterious reality of birth, just as the daybreak arises from the sun; and we will return to you and rest in you, just as the daylight disappears in the darkness of the night.

            In the experience of prayer we have often felt the quieting of our inward storms.  We have discovered that a more highly ordered world of love is opened to us.  We have felt that we are partaking of the higher spiritual life of the soul, beyond our material lives.

            We see in this prayer a belief that the individual needs a higher power to give order to life.  I am comfortable with an acknowledgement of that higher power, which gives some meaning and purpose to my life, and also gives solace to the individual. 

            For our brothers and sisters in Transylvania this God is seen through creation itself, though the rising and setting of the sun.  It is this God that encourages us to conserve our environment and also to be concerned about our neighbors. 

Mr. Andrasi also prays for peace and love around the world.  This is the prayer of the pilgrim.  He or she does not pray only for oneself but for all peoples.  We are the modern pilgrims and this is our prayer.

            For Transylvania Unitarians this peace and love is found in scriptures.  Adrasi expresses it this way:  “Our spirits are filled with desire to discover love toward God and to our neighbors.” 

Most important of all the Transylvania Unitarians know all about the human struggle.  They remember when their relatives were forced to tell the authorities how their brothers and sisters were following the laws of the state.  In many cases they revealed to the authorities the wrongdoings of their own ministers and their members of their church.  They know the world of poverty.  But they also know the world of hope.

Andrasi ends his prayer acknowledging the struggle and expressing the hope. He prays:

             We live today in hard, difficult times, filled with worries, troubles, struggles, and wars . . .We human beings cannot know what tomorrow will bring to us, but we believe that you, our loving God, will be with us and will bless any noble thoughts and truthful actions.

            We pray to you, our providential God, that your help will be with us, through our knowledge and talents, which we have received from you, that we may be able to serve a peaceful, love-filled future for humanity.

            The goal of religion is not belief.  It is how we treat people and care for our world beyond ourselves in gratitude.  Yes, we are pilgrims, wayfarers, travelers, seeking some place that accepts us as we are, and encourages us to be the best that we can be.  For me that place has become a Unitarian Universalist congregation, that takes me outside of myself, encourages my fulfillment, tells the world that freedom is value to be held in high regard.  But freedom by itself is not enough.  We need to be thankful for those things we have received and to look to the future with hope and courage.

            The pilgrim is the person who sees the world as home, who is comfortable with people wherever we land.  As James Martineau wrote: 

We are people who are thankful for the universe, for its grandeur and its beauty, and for the abundance of life which covers the earth.  We give praise to the overarching sky and for the driving clouds, for the winds of heaven and for the constellations on high.  We give praise for the salt sea and the running waters, for the everlasting hills and the quiet valleys, for the trees of the wood and the grass beneath our feet.  We give thanks for our sense by which we can see the splendor of the morning, and hear the jubilant songs of birds, and enjoy the fragrance of the springtime.   (adapted from “The Glory of the Outward World”, One and Universal, ed. by John Midgley p. 15)

May this be our pilgrim prayer, a prayer for wayfarers and strangers who land on foreign soil, respect the earth, and look for people to know and to love.   May this be our prayer to see beyond our own needs to the needs of all people, to join with others in the struggle as we acknowledge freedom, but people with roots that go deep and concerns that go wide with faith, hope and courage.  Amen.