Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings. To give thanks to God for the gift of food...family...friends...and the fertility and fruitfulness of the earth.

As I reflected upon this morning’s ponderings the hymn “Count Your Blessings” continually ran through my mind. I’d like to share the words from the refrain and some of the verses with you. The refrain goes like this:

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

*Count your many blessings, see what God hath done. [1]

And the first verse:

When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done. [2]

I recognize that it is not always easy to give thanks for the blessings in our lives, it is not necessarily simple to offer gratitude. Often it is easier to see those things in our lives that leave us feeling unsatisfied, unhappy, unfulfilled and unclear about the path of our life. It is effortless to look upon the world as troubled, economically, socially and culturally and ecologically.

The emotion of anger seems to be easily expressed. Think about how many conversations you have had this week and how many were riddled with negativity – with criticism and anger. If you are on facebook, think about how many people wrote complaints on their status updates. It seems that anger and criticism are running rampant. Psychologists often tell us that anger is often (not always) a manifestation of something that derives from a deeper level. Know what that is? Chances are that if you peel back the layers of anger you will find a layer that is made up of fear. Fear is the deeper emotion that is so difficult to express, and often will be expressed in the way of anger and outward negative behavior. Think about some of the things that make you angry, then think about what fear could be causing that anger. We can easily ask ourselves, “What are we afraid of”. However the answer is not always easy to find. Sometimes we react in the midst of fear of loss, fear of insecurity, fear of discomfort these are all real emotions, but often manifested outwardly through anger and criticism.

From the Gospel of Matthew Jesus was encouraging those gathered people to let go of their fear, to stop their worrying. Verse 34, which was not part of the reading, says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.”

We gain very little by worrying. It is easy to say “stop worrying” but I think many of us would realize that this is an emotion which is hard one to stop. When there is little money to go around, when it is a struggle to put food on the table, when our physical health is at risk, it is difficult to set our fear, our worry aside and to adopt instead an attitude of gratitude, to count our blessings. The emotion of gratitude is something that is felt, but is difficult to express in mere words.

During session 7 of our current faith formation class based on Marcus Borg’s book “The Heart of Christianity”, people were encouraged to practice the emotion gratitude by expressing thanks for their blessings in words. The encouragement was that at the beginning of the day people were to name five things for which they could give thanks; at the end of the day, again they were to name five things for which they felt gratitude. If nothing came to mind then the thought was how about offering thanks for breath.

In her book “Radical Gratitude”, Mary Jo Leddy encourages that in counting our blessings by offering gratitude we have an opportunity to become more conscious of our own mysterious beginnings in God, and to become more cognizant of a life that we can never take for granted, our own or others and to become more aware of the fragility of our planet.

Our First Nations people carry a heritage rich in giving thanks to the Creator. Every time they took the life of an animal, they gave thanks for all that it gave - for the nourishment of their bodies and for their survival. Every part of that animal had a use – the meat, the hides, the bones. And each time they would give thanks for the animal spirit given for their life.

Recently, I watched a DVD on the subject of water. Scientists have discovered that water has a memory and that it is greatly affected by the environment it is in. I offer two examples: Water that had been subjected to the notes of classical music when freeze dried and examined under a microscope were crystals filled with a beautiful shade of blue. Water that had been subjected to heavy metal music and then freeze dried and again viewed under the microscope consisted of distorted crystals and dark in colour.

Another experiment consisted of a person shouting at a container of water, the negativity greatly affected the water where as offering it gratitude for its thirst quenching qualities brought about a different result. The water filled with gratitude when once again examined and was a beautiful shade of blue and the crystal it had formed after being frozen was uniform and a thing of exquisiteness compared to the distorted, darkened crystal filled with negativity.

Our life and our world changes when we offer an attitude of gratitude by counting our many blessings. An old maxim states: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Faith is like a lantern on a dark path; it shines only far enough to illumine the next step. Only when the next step is taken does the light move on.” Our beginning steps in gratitude do not have to be great and grand. They only need to be from the heart.

I close by quoting from the hymn one more time:

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

*Count your many blessings, and see what God has done. [3]

Amen.

[1] Johnson, Oatman, Jr., pub.1897. Copyright: Public Domain

[2] Johnson, Oatman, Jr., pub.1897. Copyright: Public Domain

[3] Johnson, Oatman, Jr., pub.1897. Copyright: Public Domain