Gratitude for the Abundantly Ordinary

Sermon: November 30, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

"GRATITUDE IS A RIVER.  If you live in it, your heart and, soul grow supple.  You flow with life.  If you leave gratitude’s river behind, everything you are grows hard, rigid, suffering.  Your body, your spirit, your relations, your life.

Stay in the river, Revolutionary.  Especially as you work to heal and unpeel the countless layers of oppression that shape your life and the world.  Identify your blessings.  Name them, so they know when you are calling for them. Feed them.  They like organic nourishment.  Praise them.  They will swell.  Mantra your names.  They will multiply.  Rest with them.  They will be your fire and dance.  Stay in the river of Gratitude.  It will carry you to your dream home.  Which is Peace."

- Ancestral Baba and medicine poet Dr. Jaiya John

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Stay in the river of gratitude. It’s a nice concept, although perhaps difficult to maintain. We remind ourselves during times like Thanksgiving that we should cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Some of us expand this practice to last the entire month and attempt to list something we are grateful for each day. Then December comes and our attention shifts to gift giving and candy canes and gratitude takes a back seat until next year. How then, do we hold onto this concept of gratitude that passes by us so fleetingly once a year?

Many people of faith have sacred texts that encourage gratitude practices, which devout followers integrate into their daily routines. Jewish people recite blessings related to various life experiences, and like Christians, they express thanks for food and sustenance, and actively engage in acts of kindness and charity to show their appreciation. Buddhists also express thanks before meals and regularly reflect on the particular life conditions that allow them to live and thrive. Muslims practice supplications five times a day in which they stop all activity to pray and thank Allah. Hindus have a particularly impressive daily gratitude practice in which they practice the “Five Great Sacrifices” daily, known as the Pancha-Maha-Yajñas. They define their gratitude via five categories:

Brahma-Yajña: Honoring knowledge and sages through study and teaching. Pitri-Yajña: Gratitude to ancestors through offerings and remembering them. Deva-Yajña: Thankfulness to deities through worship and rituals. Bhuta-Yajña: Respect for all living beings and the environment through protecting and preserving them. Manushya-Yajña: Gratitude to society and fellow humans through acts of service.

Some of that sounds very familiar to us UUs as it resonates with several of our principles, but we don’t often think of living our principles as living out acts of gratitude. Is being a good person an act of gratitude? If it seems like a stretch to conflate these two, there are also some practices that might encourage feelings of gratitude and keep us in the river on a daily basis. Don’t worry, I’m not going to suggest keeping a gratitude journal. Not everyone likes to journal (including me). These ideas are suggestions that you can keep present throughout your daily activities and can help support an overall shift of mindset toward gratitude. 

1. Notice and compare. Gratitude is rooted in comparison and so it is relative. We spend a significant amount of time comparing ourselves to those we see on TV, in the movies, on social media, and even our neighbors. It leads us to wishing we had what those others have… I wish I had that car… Why can’t I make enough money to buy a house and stop renting?... I wish I was as beautiful as that actress… We know that comparison is the thief of joy, but it also has the potential to be the root of gratitude if you compare yourself or your situation to someone less fortunate… Noticing a car broken down on the side of the road can instill thoughts of gratitude that your car is reliable, even if the window doesn’t roll down correctly on the passenger-side... Noticing your coworker arriving late because the bus didn’t run on time, can help you feel grateful that you have a car at all, regardless of how reliable it is… Noticing the homeless person on the street corner asking for handouts can help you feel grateful for the car load of groceries you are toting home… So, what are you noticing? Do you tend to pay attention to people who have more than you do or people who have less? People whose lives are easier than yours or those whose lives are harder? Which kind of comparison makes you feel grateful? And what kind of actions does that feeling of gratitude lead you to? How does gratitude change your actions?... Notice and compare.

2. Process over product. This is a Montessori concept that I learned well in my early childhood education. It encourages a mindset that values the process and journey of growth and learning over the product and destination at the end of that journey. The process, and what you learn from it, is always valuable. The product is sometimes valuable, and rarely so if the process to get there wasn’t full of growth and learning. While in our river of gratitude, our instinct is to look toward where we’re going, the ultimate destination. If our river’s destination is the ocean then we can’t possibly be satisfied until we get to the ocean, can we? But even if that’s the destination of the river, what if our own personal destination isn’t the ocean, but the river itself? Monarch butterflies go through 3-5 generations before completing their migration pattern. Many of them spend their entire lives aloft in a river of butterflies, never to experience the destination to which they are headed. If monarchs experience gratitude, I imagine they are grateful for the meadows they pass along the way, rich with milkweed, sunflowers, and zinnias. And isn’t that enough? Poet Beau Taplin says: “I’m beginning to recognise that real happiness isn’t something large and looming on the horizon ahead, but something small, numerous, and already here. A decent breakfast. The warm sunset. The smile of someone you love. Your little everyday joys all lined up in a row.” Journey over destination. Process over product. 

3. Realize that you have enough. Many of us are collectors and I don’t just mean collectors of things like vintage cars or beanie babies. I mean, we have an instinct to gather and hoard in order to survive times when we will inevitably be without. In the past, this served us well as there was a time to harvest and a time to live off of what had been dried, canned, frozen, or saved. When people lived off the land, there was a natural ebb and flow of food and resources, which encouraged natural gratitude when those things were in abundance, because people knew what it was like not to have it. People knew near starvation at the end of a long winter when all that was left were the soft, moldy potatoes and the last remnants of wheat. Now, our modern amenities have gifted us an eternal harvest in which we have no winter, no time of lacking, and yet our instincts tell us to continue to accumulate, as though we never have enough. And so we continue to gather, to collect, awaiting the long winter that never comes, and we live in a perpetual state of “I don’t have enough.” 

However, the exact opposite is often true in most of our circumstances. Not only do we have enough, we often have enough to stop collecting. The instincts that kept our ancestors alive over millennia continue to echo in us, fostering feelings of insufficiency, but we don’t need these survival instincts anymore. Instead, we should notice that our environments are not at risk of depletion and instead of living in a perpetual state of “I need more,” we should mentally shift into a state of “I have enough.” Just recognizing that we have enough means we swim in the river of gratitude. Noticing that we live in relative comfort, without need, is being thankful. Gratitude doesn’t have to be an effusive exultation of joy, it can exist in simple contentment. Do you have enough? Is it sufficient? If so, then you are blessed. 

This month I visited a Sacred Circle meeting and one of our members used a phrase that I’ve held onto since hearing it: “tangible gratitude.” She meant the kind of gratitude that is within reach, accessible, easy… The way an orange tastes… When the person in front of you at Starbucks pays for your coffee… Nearly missing a car accident… The warm sun on your skin in the middle of winter… The gratitude we feel in these instances is tangible and hard to miss. I’ve found in my research on this subject that most poets describe this kind of gratitude as “sweet.” These moments of tangible gratitude are effortless, they are life’s simple pleasures. These are ordinary things for which we can access gratitude on a daily basis. They do not require extreme sacrifice and aren’t considered extraordinary. They just happen, these little gifts from the universe that weave into our lives and keep us floating in the gratitude river, where the water itself is tangible, sweet, and effortlessly flowing. We don’t have to thirst for the extraordinary when we are in a river of abundantly ordinary from which we can consistently drink. This is the river that Dr. Jaiya John speaks of in her poem. This is the kind of gratitude that brings peace.

Notice and compare. Value process over product. Ask yourself: Do you have enough? These three simple practices can help us stay in the river of gratitude where our hearts and souls can grow supple. And while you float down that river, tell me, what do you notice? Do you notice when the sun warms your skin in the middle of winter? Do you notice when you have clean water to drink? Do you notice when someone cares for you? Our world overflows with abundantly ordinary blessings, just waiting to be noticed. And when they are noticed, life truly is sweet. May we all notice, often, and hold our blessings with gratitude. Amen.

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Do not ask your children to strive by William Martin, Taoist poet and self-declared “Friend of Quiet Places” 

Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable, but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.

The extraordinary will take care of itself.

A Grateful Heart by Rev. Sandra Fees

May you rise in the morning

and greet the dawn

with a grateful heart.

Throughout the day

may you accept the simple gifts

that arise—food, shelter,

water, sunshine—with a grateful heart.

May you greet others

whose paths you cross

with that same gratefulness.

And when evening comes,

may you greet sleep

with a grateful heart,

a heart of compassion and joy.