Thanksgrieving

Sermon: November 23, 2025 . Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Dieguito

In recent years, we have been inundated with the message that perhaps we shouldn’t be happy on Thanksgiving. As we awaken to the realities and lasting effects of the colonization of the land the native people here lived on, we realize they were forever negatively affected by the actions of our white supremacist forefathers. The movement toward Thanksgiving enlightenment that started in the 1970’s has grown and now every Thanksgiving articles pop up via news and social media with titles like, “Most Everything You Learned About Thanksgiving is Wrong” and “Everyone’s history matters: The Wampanoag Indian Thanksgiving story deserves to be known” and “The True, Dark History of Thanksgiving” (These are real articles that ran in the New York Times, the Smithsonian National Museum blog, and on the Native American website potawatomi.org.) However, many of us don’t associate Thanksgiving with the actual historical reality of the time period and place where the tradition is said to have originated, but instead we associate it with feelings of warmth, comfort, and gratitude. And with so many negative things happening in the world today, can’t we just have one day where we don’t have to think about how bad it is out there? Can’t we just pretend it doesn’t exist and cocoon with our families and friends in the safety of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce?

The reality is that although we may try to push previous or current trials and tribulations out of our minds for a day, or even just for the hour while we sit at the Thanksgiving table, the grief we carry comes with us whether we like it or not, like a stray dog that follows us, insisting to be fed. For those connected to the plight of the native american people, those grievances come to the table. For those experiencing homelessness, or those who just suffered the end of a relationship, or those sitting down at the Thanksgiving table for the first time without a loved one, or those who can’t pay their electricity bill, or those who have a child in the hospital, all of those griefs come to the table. They are present whether we acknowledge them or not. And when we don’t acknowledge them, there is no opportunity to process them in the safety of our most beloved communities, they just sit in our stomachs, unheard, unstated, taking up the space we’d prefer to covet for a piece of pumpkin pie. While we are surrounded by those who love us the most, by those who should be the ones who welcome our grief to the table, instead we swallow it whole and keep swallowing hoping it doesn’t come back up and “ruin” our family event. 

What if we made space at the table for those griefs? Not only figurative space, but literal space? What if we set a place at the table for everyone’s griefs to gather? We could set out an empty plate and symbolically add small portions of food to it in a ritualistic effort to provide comfort and understanding to the parts of us we wish we didn’t have to bring with us. What if, before we eat, we briefly share what griefs we are communally caring for? And then what if we just let them be held by our community, so that their presence reminds us of why gratitude exists in the first place?

Grief reminds us why we are grateful. Without the contrast between the two, we would take things for granted and we wouldn’t understand the power of truly being thankful. The complimentary nature of the two becomes the foundation upon which we can truly understand how blessed we are. And Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to share these profound blessings, our profound griefs, with our beloved community. 

The things that we find challenging, our trials and tribulations have an energetic balance in the universe. Grief has an alter ego, and finding it is one possible path toward becoming grateful for these things that seem to be present only to make our lives more difficult. One of the past presidents of Starr King School for the Ministry, which is the UU seminary I attended, Dr. Ibrahim Farajeje Baba, was a Sufi Jewish teacher and queer theologian. Before he passed away in 2016, he created the concept of Thanksgrieving, a yearly tradition in which his guests were invited to bring both grief and gratitude to the table. While this feels like a particularly heavy task, this holistic approach to the holiday can actually be a way to lighten our hearts. It can connect us more deeply to the Divine, enhance our experience of gratitude, and even amplify it when we keep the presence of its compliment, grief, nearby.

For some of us, we couldn’t enter a house of Thanksgiving and leave grief on the doorstep even if we wanted to. Despite our demeanor, despite the smiles and the warm hugs, there will most likely be some guests at your table who are accompanied by grief, which present a good opportunity to practice compassion. Set a seat at your table for grief, let those who carry it know they can bring their whole selves with them. Smile and laugh and hug in the presence of grief as it makes the gratitude that much sweeter and the love between us even more visible and abundant.

When we make room at our Thanksgiving table for the grief we or others carry, we practice compassion for those who need to feel seen and heard through the acknowledgement of their whole selves. By practicing Thanksgrieving, we practice grace. 

Many of you don’t know that my father came home two weeks ago from the hospital to live his final days in hospice care. And this morning in the very early hours of the morning, he passed away. This community has been exceptionally supportive of me during his time of illness and everyone has encouraged me to take the time I need to be with my family. And I have. I’ve been able to be home with my family extensively while he moved through the final stage of the death process. I even wrote this sermon while my sister and I sat at his bedside.

The thing is, I didn’t just come here today because I'm supposed to deliver a sermon, I needed to be here with you for this special holiday service. This is my way of practicing Thanksgrieving. Being here with you, experiencing the support of our beloved fellowship, being able to celebrate our new members as we welcome them into our community, seeing the children, hearing the choir… These experiences are made even more precious because of the grief I carry. My gratitude is abundant and it comforts me like the blankets we carefully laid over my father as he transitioned from this world to the next. 

When love masquerades as grief, its beauty and pain can be almost too much to bear, but with community, with friends and family sharing our burdens during one of the most sacred times of the year, we can bear it. And what is left after we share our Thanksgrieving meal is love, and grace. Amen.

OTHER READINGS FOR REFLECTION:

Mary Oliver, "The Uses of Sorrow"Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

Maya Stein, "In Praise of I Don't Know"

Mostly, what washes up at the beach isn’t whole,

though our eyes are peeled for the perfect form

of, say, a perfume bottle, or an old coin,

or a message from the dead.

Instead, what reveals itself as the tide pulls back

is a sea of uncertainty,

cryptic shards with the vaguest clues

whose answers are scattered in places likely too far from here.

We will never retrieve them, not in the way our mind craves assembly.

But look how, against the late season light,

a filmy beauty descends, nearly silencing the clamor

of what pulls at our sleeves to solve.

What if we could let ourselves rest

for a little while in this halo of I don’t know,

feel its soft touch against our urgent skin.

What if the thing in our hands,

and every fractured remainder, is its own answer.

What if leaning into the wobbly shapes of our lives

is another kind of sweetness and gold.

Nancy J Carmody, "I Am Thankful For"

I am thankful for

…..the mess to clean up after a party

because it means I have been surrounded by friends.

​…..the taxes that I pay

because it means that I’m employed.

…..the clothes that fit a little too snug

because it means I have enough to eat.

​…..my shadow who watches me work

because it means I am out in the sunshine.

​…..the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot

because it means I am capable of walking.

​…..all the complaining I hear about our Government

because it means we have freedom of speech.

​…..that lady behind me in church who sings offkey

​because it means that I can hear.

​…..lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing

because it means I have a home.

…..my huge heating bill

because it means that I am warm.

​…..weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day

because it means that I have been productive.

…..the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours

because it means that I am alive.