i thank you god for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes
The natural world is always a source of gratitude for me, whether it be a tiny spring beauty, a monumental redwood, mountains stretching into the distance, or a stream dancing down a hillside. But we gather today replete with gratitude for all that has made this new building possible. We have thanked some special individuals who have poured their hearts and souls into the project, but they could not have done it alone.
We are grateful to be standing on the visionary shoulders of those who purchased land that ultimately made it possible for us to fulfill our dream. We are grateful to be part of a community with access to enough financial wealth to carry out a project of this scope.
We are grateful for the generosity of each individual who contributed funds, expertise, time, advice and sweat equity -- to the maximum extent possible. We are grateful to the youth group who raised funds to support a second stairwell to the attic, and then discovered that building code restrictions made the attic off limits for their meetings.
We are grateful for everyone's patience for a project that took so very long! We are grateful for the determination of those who persevered in spite of setbacks, disappointments and seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
We are grateful for the commitment of everyone who stayed in for the long haul, who attended interminable building council meetings and board meetings and Summit Board of Adjustment meetings.
We are grateful that the graceful steeple once again lifts its beacon of wakefulness (Did you know that is the symbolism of the rooster?) above our church.
In my experience, the best spice for gratitude is anticipation. This beautiful building is the culmination of dreams spun out 43 years ago. In 1959, this congregation was bursting at the seams, the seams of the church and two buildings next door. The mansion on Whitredge Road came on the market and promised a solution. In 1961, two wings were added to the building and it became known as Unitarian House. It was hoped that the church would soon be moved up the street to join it. For reasons that are obscure to me, the move did not occur. In the early 1980s, there was a major push for consolidation, when the congregation voted to move the church up the street and to become one community again. Once more, actions did not bring about the desired result.
When I arrived in 1990, a new effort had just been launched, this time to take some modest steps to improve the existing situation. For much of the next decade, plans were made and changed as the community burgeoned. The die was cast -- we were going to enlarge and improve Unitarian House, bring the offices up there and the nursery down next to the church.
Then, at a summer board retreat, several of us voiced our secret dream that, even though we knew it was impossible, this religious community would somehow be brought together in one place. The dream was alive in the congregation; no one wanted a divided community. We are Unitarians, after all. And so, eventually, this plan took shape.
Please join me in an experiment. If you have been waiting for this moment for a year or
more, please stand up.
-- Please stay standing if you have been waiting for five years or more.
-- Ten years or more.
-- Fifteen years or more.
-- Twenty years or more.
-- Thirty years or more.
-- Is there anyone among us who has been here since 1959? Bert Joffe? The Whitcombs?
We are all enormously grateful for the fulfillment of this long-anticipated dream. Perhaps those who have waited the longest are the most grateful. Surely we all share in the culmination of this community's anticipation.
There is a truth in our own lives that we wish for everything to go smoothly, but there is also a truism that it is through adversity that we grow in mind and heart and spirit. The road to this moment has been rocky for the Unitarian Church in Summit. For more than 40 years, those who taught in the religious education program had to sacrifice a Sunday connection with the rest of the community. The staff and the RE Committee had to "schlep" supplies up and down the street each week; making a copy in the office copier required a round trip of half a mile on foot or by car. Canvass chairs and social action committees and coffee hour and usher recruiters had to duplicate their efforts in two locations. You know what it was like. Efforts were constantly launched, from both ends of Waldron Avenue, to make connections, to build bridges.
So I offer gratitude for the adversity that strengthened us and sometimes surprised us. The year we vacated the church and Community House and all moved in together in Unitarian House, we worried about how we could manage -- and discovered that we weathered the difficulties and grew to like being together.
We have just spent eight months and one week renting the Hillview School, "schlepping" everything we needed for Sunday, never being able to go back for a forgotten item, trying to ignore the hum of overhead lights, trying to refrain from touching classroom treasures that were not ours. And we discovered we liked being together even more.
It was the spirit of meeting challenges with good heart and patient humor that knitted the congregation more firmly together. I am not so Puritan as to ask for hardships as a way to goodness, but I invite us to remember that how we weather the difficulties that come our way is truly the path of the spirit, whether as an individual or as a religious community.
This prayer by Robert Morris expresses it well:
May I walk this day
in the realm of grace
walking with You
my feet firmly on your earth-path
my heart loving all as kindred,
my words and deeds alive with justice.
May I walk as blessing,
meeting blessing at every turn
in every challenge, blessing,
in all opposition, blessing,
in harm's way, blessing.
May I walk each step
in this moment of grace,
alert to hear you
and awake enough to say
a simple Yes.
This has been a crazy week at church. Boxes were being unpacked; carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters and all manner of inspectors were plying their trades. Wonderful church members were unpacking boxes, washing tables, setting up chairs, organizing the kitchen, shelving books and hanging artwork. My desk had not arrived, but a teenager got my computer and printer functioning so that, seated on the floor, I could proceed with a modicum of normalcy.
It was the week of the annual Summit clergy retreat, about 20 hours of interfaith dialogue and community-building. I love this retreat! But how could I/we possibly go this week? Accumulated spiritual wisdom dictates that it is at just such times, when we can least afford it, that prayer, meditation, yoga, retreat are most needed. So Vanessa and I went.
Among other activities, we read and responded to a poem, "The Door" by Jane Hirschfeld:
A note waterfalls steadily
through us,
just below hearing.
Or this early light
streaming through dusty glass;
what enters, enters like that,
unstoppable gift.
And yet there is also the other,
the breath space held between any call
and its answer --
In the querying
first scuff of footstep,
the wood owls' repeating,
the two-counting heart:
a little sabbath minnow
whose brightness silvers past time.
The rest note,
unwritten,
hinged between worlds,
that precedes change and allows it.
The retreat, and this poem in particular, gave me pause to appreciate -- to let in the wonder of what this community has accomplished. It reminds me of the value -- nay, the necessity -- of halting amid the rush of life to listen for what we cannot hear, to look for what we cannot see, to wait for what we do not even know is coming.
I am always in a rush toward the vision of what is possible, what might be. I have been urgent to get on with it, to formulate plans and strategies and programs to be a religious community again, not a building corporation -- even before we were in our space.
Let us be in this moment, enjoying a little sabbath, "hinged between worlds," open to awareness of the imperceptible, resonating to this pregnant space.
It is in this space of arrival and settling in, of gratitude and appreciation, of awe and enjoyment that we can open ourselves to discernment. We can ask the question, who do we want to be as a religious community? How will the Unitarian Church in Summit, in Vanessa's words, nurture community, deepen spiritually, reach out in service and love?
Just as it took all of us ringing bells to rededicate this holy place, it takes all of us to envision our future. During this "rest note ... that precedes change and allows it," I invite you to voice your prayers of gratitude, hope and blessing for this religious community.
Benediction (with apologies to ee cummings):
We are grateful for most this amazing place
for the lively spirits of those who kept the dream alive
for the beauty of the craftsmanship
for the possibilities of community
for the openings ahead
for the chances to say "yes!"
The sermon in a Unitarian Universalist setting is never the last word on any subject, but rather an invitation to further dialog.
You may want to read other visitors' comments on Rev. Carol S. Haag's "Gratitude" .
If you wish to add your own comments on this sermon, please enter your name, e-mail address, city, state or province, country, and of course your comments into the following form:
