You Can’t Always Get What You Want (a Thanksgiving Sermon)

Fasting at the Feast Thanksgiving 2023

In Buddhism and Hinduism it is a common practice to recite a mantra. Repetition of a word (or words) assists in meditation and serves as an aid to reaching enlightenment. And this is one of my favorite mantras. So let’s sing it together. 

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

But if you try sometime, you might find

You get what you need. 

That mantra comes from the rock group The Rolling Stones which began as a young band and then became a dad band and now is either a grandad band or great grandad band. However, the words of this song resonate with even more ancient wisdom. 

The 19th century Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I make myself rich by making my wants few.” The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates before him once said, “Having the fewest wants, I am nearest the gods.” Even so, very few of us manage to get our wants reduced down to zero. Indeed the temptation of our consumer culture is to adopt the attitude of “I want what I want when I want it.” 

There is the story of a Buddhist monk who entered a monastery that required everyone to take an oath of silence. Each monk was only allowed to say two words per year. At the end of the first year the monk went to see the head of the monastery and said, “Bed hard.” At the end of his second year he went to see the head of the monastery and said, “Room cold.” At the end of the third year he went to the head of the monastery and said, “Food bad.” And at the end of the fourth year he went to the head of the monastery and said, “I quit,” and the head of the monastery said, “I am not surprised, ever since you got here all you’ve done is complain.” 

It goes without saying that the fewer our wants the fewer our complaints. And yet sometimes we have to be even more proactive if we want to reduce the number of our complaints. That’s why the Reverend Margaret Marcuson, a church leadership consultant, recommends that we periodically go on a “complaint fast.”Just as some people go on a fast without food or water, she recommends we go on a fast from complaining. Here are some reasons she suggests we should go on a complaint fast. 

1. Complaining gets us nowhere. We rarely take action about the things we complain about. And when events are out of our control, complaining about them doesn’t help.
2. It reinforces our negative attitude. We find it harder to notice the things we do appreciate.
3. It takes time. That hour-long gripe session could be put to more productive use.
4. It makes us feel bad. Complaining gives us short term relief, often a short term gain leading to long term pain. 
5. Complaining is a habit. Habits can be changed, and fasting is one way to work on it. We don’t have to give it up forever, just give it a try. A week-long or month-long fast from complaining can be an experiment.

During the Cold War there was a story of a Russian and American diplomat who met at a conference. This was during the days when communism was making an attempt to eradicate all religion under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party. As the two men stood out on a balcony one night looking at the stars the American diplomat said, “What a beautiful night this is. Thank God.” The Russian diplomat replied, “Yes, it is a beautiful night. Thank Brezhnev.” And so the American diplomat asked, “Brezhnev is human. What are you going to say when Brezhnev dies?” The Russian replied, “Thank God.” 

The Russian diplomat reminds us that it is possible to give thanks even while feeling resentments. My friend the Reverend Johnny Skinner of the Mount Zion Baptist Church often says, “The scripture tells us  – give thanks in all circumstances. It does not say – give thanks for all circumstances.” And so whenever we go out and look up at the stars at night we can be thankful in all things even if we are not thankful for all things.

And here is where the complaint fast can come in handy. We can stop letting everybody and everything that is driving us crazy and dominating our minds. We can set down our list of complaints and start a gratitude list. Metaphorically speaking, we can go on “complaint fast”so that we can have a “thanksgiving feast.”

One of the spiritual challenges of living is when we feel torn between our grievances and our gratitude. Spiritual growth allows us to lean in the direction of gratitude. When I was in college my mom used to send me books about spiritual growth. If I am honest with you I will say I kind of resented these books. I kept asking myself, “Why does my mother always think I need spiritual growth?” At the time I did not even have an operable definition of spirituality. The word seemed kind of vague to me. However, one year as an exchange student in Manchester England, where it rained every day, I came up with my operable definition of spirituality. I wrote these words in my journal, “Rain falls on the just and the unjust, spirituality is our attitude toward the weather.” In other words, spirituality isn’t about our outward circumstances but our inner attitude toward our outward circumstances.And one of the things that can assist us in accepting the weather is a good mantra. 

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

But if you try sometime, you might find

You get what you need

In Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous they teach us that our resentments are one of the chief obstacles to our mental health.  Our resentments, however justified or justifiable,can be very harmful. As one man in recovery once said, “A snake bite never kills anyone. It is the venom flowing through our own veins afterwards that kills us.” Which is to say, if someone does us harm it is less toxic than the venom of our own resentments after the fact. And so one of our ongoing challenges is learning how to detoxify ourselves, let go of our resentments, purge the venom from systems.  

Rain falls on the just and the unjust, spirituality is our attitude toward the weather. Lately our region has been plagued by wildfires to East, West, North and South and even in one of the ridges in our own city. We had reason to give thanks on Thursday for the rain we had on Wednesday, did we not? The hotter and drier it is the more reason we have to be grateful for the rain. 

In 2015 the College Hill 7th Day Adventist Church was the target of an arsonist during the summer when many African American churches were burned to the ground. Fortunately, the building was still intact although damaged. Our church held a special collection to help with the repairs that year and attended one of their services to put the check in the collection plate. And this past Thursday I attended the KICMA Thanksgiving Day service in that sanctuary and those old memories came back to me. So let me ask you a yes or no question. Are we grateful for arsonists? No! Are we grateful for racism? No! Are we grateful for vandalism and harassment? No! And yet we had our thanksgiving service there, practicing gratitude in all things if not for all things.  

Or as Reverend Philip Hamilton Sr. said at the Thanksgiving service (and I invite you to repeat after me as you address those around you.) Neighbor (Neighbor) I could complain (I could complain) but I won’t (but I won’t) Amen (Amen) 

So let me see if I can summarize my whole sermon in one story (kid’s listen up to this one.) Many years ago I was on a hike led by Mr. Green of the Science Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I was an adult helper for what was a kid’s hike. We were on our way to see a beaver dam. But when we got there one kid was visibly disappointed, crestfallen, and he complained, “I thought we were going to see a beaver lodge!” Mr. Green did not skip a beat but pointed directly at me and then said to the kid, “Do you see this man? This man has studied philosophy and all of philosophy can be summed up in this one sentence, “If you don’t got it, appreciate what you do got.” 

So as we prepare to leave this sanctuary and go out into the world let’s remember when we don’t have it we can still appreciate what we do have. So let’s cultivate our inner lives so that we can endure and thrive in all circumstances, for we are wealthier people when our wants are few. The fewer our wants, the closer we are to the divine. Which is a good thing because…

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

You can’t always get what you want 

But if you try sometime, you might find

You get what you need

(This sermon was given at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday November 26, 2023 by Rev. Chris Buice.) 

Transcendentalist Prayer

God, help us to see prayer in all action; 

in the farmer kneeling in the field to weed it; in the rower kneeling into each stroke of the oar; 

in the parent kneeling to tie a child’s shoelace; 

in the athlete kneeling on the sidelines during the anthem;

in the first responder kneeling to tend to the wounded in every war torn land. 

Help us to align our thoughts and our words with our actions. 

Help us to pray not only with our lips but with our lives. 

Help us to tap into that wellspring of joy within us that our lives may be like a cup overflowing.

Help us to pray not only in solitude but in community. 

Help us to pray as we labor with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind.

Help us to discover our ministry.

 Amen 

(This prayer was shared by Rev. Chris Buice in honor of the 50th anniversary of the ordination of the Reverend Dr. John Buehrens by the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church)

Hindu Universalism

When I was a young adult I got into a conversation with a Hindu gentleman at an interfaith gathering who asked me, “Are you a Christian?” I was taken off guard by the question. At the time I wasn’t sure what I was. I was still searching. I had more questions than answers. He sensed my hesitation and so he offered a clarification. He said, “I am a little bit Hindu, a little bit Buddhist, a little bit Muslim, a little bit Jewish, a little bit Christian, would you say that you’re a little bit Christian?” He had reframed the question for me and so I replied, “Yes, I am a little bit Christian.” Similarly, this morning, as we celebrate Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights, we have the opportunity to consider the possibility that we may be a little bit Hindu. 

A few years ago I took our church youth group on our Boston Heritage Trip to learn a little Unitarian Universalist history. We made a pilgrimage to Walden Pond, where Henry David Thoreau built his cabin in the woods back in the 19th century. Thoreau grew up in a Unitarian church but preferred solitude in the wilderness later in life. As an adult he developed an interest in the world’s religions partly because some of the first English translations of Eastern scriptures were in print for the first time. He accumulated a library of these scriptures.  He was especially partial to the Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita. He wrote in his journal, 

“What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through a purer stratum,- free from particulars, simple, universal. It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out….I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and partial and puerile distinctions  between one man’s faith or form of faith and another’s…I pray to be delivered from narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry. To the philosopher all sects, all nations, are alike. I like Brahma, Hari, Buddha, the Great Spirit, as well as God.”

I explained this history to our teens before we took a hike to the Thoreau’s original homesite. I told them about Thoreau’s attraction to Hinduism. Ironically, when our youth group arrived at the clearing in the woods where Thoreau’s cabin once stood we found a group of Hindus practicing meditation on the spot. So I turned to our teens and said, “See! That’s what I was talking about.” 

Thoreau studied Hinduism andHindus  have studied Thoreau. Mahatma Gandhi wrote that he got some of his ideas about nonviolent social change by studying Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience. Gandhi also once described the Unitarian minister and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson (who was Thoreau’s mentor) as, “My American guru.” All of this is to say, being a Unitarian Universalist means being a little bit Hindu, a little bit Buddhist, a little bit Muslim, a little bit Jewish, a little bit Christian.” 

We live in an age where religious nationalism is a major force in our world. We have Christian nationalism in the United States. We have both Muslim and Jewish nationalism in the Middle East. We have Buddhist nationalism in Sri Lanka and Hindu nationalism in India. All too often this means one religion assumes a chauvinistic superiority to all other religions. However, this morning I want us to consider that every religion should testify to an experience that is larger than any nation. Since it is Diwali I want to speak especially about Hindu Universalism. Even so, I think as we go along you will find there are many parallels between Hindu Universalism and Unitarian Universalism. 

One of the principle apostles of Hindi Universalism was Swami Vivekenanda who traveled all the way from India to Chicago to attend the first Parliament of World Religions in 1893. The goal of the parliament was to create an opportunity for representatives of all the major world religions to be in dialogue with each other and to learn from each other. Ironically, some of the Christian organizers assumed that the result of the parliament would be a demonstration of the superiority of Christianity to all the other world religions. Things did not go according to that plan. Vivekananda made a lasting impression and the parliament became his launching pad for a speaking tour of the United States and other parts of the world. He traveled all across the country giving lectures about Hinduism. In many communities his lectures were given at the local Unitarian church. 

In his travels he taught people that religions do not come from without. They come from within. The substance of religion is not outward rituals, ceremonies, liturgies or creeds. The substance of religion is found in our inner life. A holy book might be helpful but it is very important to remember that books never make a religion. It is religion that makes books. The scriptures are a written description of an experience, they are not the experience itself. 

Vivekananda said all too often our approach to religion is like someone who owns an orchard but spends all their time counting the leaves, measuring the size and circumference of the limbs, inspecting the bark, examining the roots all the while forgetting to taste the fruit. The most important thing about the orchard experience is not “leaf counting.” It is to taste the fruit. 

He once wrote, “The whole world reads scriptures – Bibles, Vedas, Korans, and others; but they are only words, external arrangement, syntax, the etymology, the philology, the dry bones of religion…words are only the external forms in which things come.” The scriptures are words written on a page. Our religion is the word written into our heart. 

If we read all the right books and perform all the right ceremonies and affirm all the right creeds but do not have a sense of the divinity within us then we are missing the point. If we succumb to a sense of religious superiority, the idea that our religion is better than others, we miss the point. If we say our religion is right and all other religions are wrong then it is we ourselves who are wrong. We should never force others to worship the way we worship. 

Vivekananda taught that, “All attempts to herd together human beings by means of armies, force, or arguments, to drive them pell-mell into the same enclosure and make them worship the same God have failed and will fail always, because it is constitutionally impossible to do so.” This is where religious nationalism always gets it wrong because the tools of the state are force and coercion. When it comes to our spiritual development these tools will always fail. 

Instead of trying to force spiritual growth, we can nurture it. Vivekananda used an analogy. A gardener does not force a flower to grow. Instead a gardener might build a hedge around it to make sure no animal eats it. We can protect the flower. We can nurture the flower. But the flower grows of itself. We cannot force the flower to grow. The same is true for the spiritual growth of humans. We cannot make it happen. However, with some care and consideration we can let it happen. 

Vivekananda made one of his more controversial statements when he said, “Every idea of God is true. Every religion is true.” From an intellectual point of view this doesn’t seem to make any sense. How can totally different and contradictory ideas about God be true? How can the strict monotheism of Islam and the Trinitarianism of orthodox Christianity and the polytheism of Shintoism and the monism of Hinduism and the pantheism of paganism all be true? 

Well, perhaps a Christian story can help us understand this Hindu concept. The story goes that once the Christian philosopher Augustine was walking on the beach trying to understand the doctrine of the Trinity when he noticed a child had dug a hole and this child was traveling back and forth, back and forth, to the ocean carrying water to try and fill this small hole in the ground. And it occurred to Augustine that just as this small child would never be able to get all the water of the ocean into such a small hole so he was probably never going to be able to get his small human mind to comprehend the true nature of God. And while his struggle was trying to understand the Trinity the same principle applies to every attempt to cram the Infinite into the small theological holes we like to dig. 

So contradictory ideas are just our human way to try and make the Infinite comprehensible to our small minds. And yet Vivekananda argued that all our ideas are true (or at least partly true) in so much as we are engaged in a sincere search for truth. 

Mahatma Gandhi had a similar idea when he said,  “God is truth” and “Truth is God.” On another occasion he wrote, “God is Truth. God is Love. God is ethics and morality. God is conscience. God is even the atheism of the atheist.” In other words, if our goal is to seek the truth and we are sincere about it then we are always on the right path.

This is because our beliefs (or our lack of belief) is external and our primary focus is on the inner life. Or as the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas puts it, “If we bring forth what is within us, what we bring forth will save us. If we do not bring forth what is within us, what we do not bring forth will destroy us.” 

Vivekananda is credited with introducing the practice of yoga to the West and popularizing the practice wherever he traveled in America or Europe. If you are interested in learning more about him I highly recommend Ruth Harris’ new biography of him entitled Guru to the World: The Life and Legacy of Vivekananda and if you are looking for a good starter book of his teachings I recommend the anthology Swami Vivekananda: Essential Writings edited by Victor M. Parachin. 

One of Vivekananda’s lasting legacies is he started the Vedanta Society movement in the West where people of all faiths can learn more about Hindu teachings and the way they can illuminate the lives of people from various religious traditions, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever. Of course, you do not have to belong to a particular faith to benefit from these insights. I can think of at least one person who grew up in a Unitarian church but decided to go live all by himself in a cabin in the woods beside Walden Pond. So even the hermits among us can benefit from this wisdom. 

And you don’t have to learn about Hinduism (or any other religion) from a book. Some of these insights spring up in us naturally. I remember when I was a teenager I was invited to offer a reflection to a evangelical Christian youth group and because I did not understand what was expected of me I said to the group, “Human beings have many different words for water. The Spanish word is agua. The French word is l’eau. The German word is Wasser. And so I believe it is only natural that human beings would have different names and words for God.” This is what I said. It did not go over very well. In retrospect I realize that this particular group just wanted me to say something nice about Jesus. 

And so let me end this sermon by saying, whenever someone asks me the question, “Are you a Christian?”  I remember that man at an interfaith meeting who said, ““I am a little bit Hindu, a little bit Buddhist, a little bit Muslim, a little bit Jewish, a little bit Christian.” And so my answer to that question is still, “Yes, I am a little bit Christian” but I also have to admit, “I am a little bit Hindu too.” 

(This sermon was delivered at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday November 12 by the Rev. Chris Buice.) 

The Last Mitzvah

One of the reasons we go to a Unitarian Universalist church is so we can learn interesting facts. For instance, many of the poems of Emily Dickinson contain a line of eight syllables followed by a line of six syllables in a repetitive pattern 8-6-8-6-8-6. In other words the meter of her poetry means many of her poems can be sung to the tune of the theme song for the TV show Gilligan’s Island. 

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

Of course, one of the problems with an interesting fact is once you know it, you can’t unknow it, no matter how hard you try. Even so, this line from Dickinson’s poem does seem appropriate to share this morning as we observed All Souls and All Saints day. This is the time of year when we remember those who are no longer living and contemplate our own mortality. These kinds of observances are important because we are often too busy for death, too busy to think about it, too busy to plan for it, too busy to let the reality of it sink in.

This is one reason why human beings fight wars. We are so busy thinking about military strategy or national interests or vengeance or retribution or winning or losing or something else, anything else, anything other than death. If we contemplated death more often we would fight fewer wars. If we contemplated death more often we would work for peace. 

This morning I am remembering Sam Moffett of blessed memory, the father of Ken Moffett, who spent his last years with us here at TVUUC even though he was Presbyterian. Sam was a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He had a lifelong commitment to nonviolence as exemplified by the life of Jesus. In the lead up to the Second Gulf War he put up a sign in his yard that said, “No War in Iraq.” When a neighbor suggested he should take his “controversial” sign down he pulled the sign out of the ground, took it to his garage, crossed out the words “in Iraq” and wrote the word “ever.” Then he put the sign back out in his yard with a new message, “No War Ever.” 

This statement may sound hopelessly idealistic to many but the more we contemplate death, the more we let the images from Israel and Gaza and Lewiston, Maine and so many other violent places around the world sink into our minds the more we will want to work for a world where we will finally beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks and study war no more. 

This time of year we are invited to contemplate death (but not for morbid reasons.) By contemplating death we can gain a new appreciation of life. The French dramatist Giradoux once suggested that the gods who have eternal life envy human beings our mortality. In one of his plays the god Jupiter expresses this sentiment to another god, Mercury, as it relates to his faltering attempts to court a human woman. The god Jupitor says, “And then suddenly, she will use little expressions…that widen the abyss between us…She will say, “When I was a child’ or “When I grow old’ or ‘Never in all my life’. This stabs me, Mercury. We gods miss something – the poignance of the transient – the intimation of mortality – that sweet sadness of grasping something you cannot hold.” 

In other words, an awareness of death can heighten our appreciation for life. Whenever I do a burial ritual in our memorial garden up on that hill I like to share these words of the poet Mary Oliver 

To live in this world you must be able to do three things:

To love what is mortal,

To hold it against your bones knowing

Your own life depends on it;

And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

This week I’ve made it a point to go up into the memorial garden to sit and reflect, to read the names of those who have been buried there, to contemplate mortality and the ephemeral nature of existence. 

One of the names on that wall is the Reverend Mary Nelson who was our minister of religious education from 1975-1988. Mary and I used to ride together to the Unitarian Universalist ministers conferences held at the Mountain Retreat and Learning Center (better known to most of us as simply The Mountain.) We would drive through the windy roads that led to that particular mountaintop. She told me that when she died she wanted some of her ashes scattered at the Mountain. She did not want to go through the official channels. She wanted her ashes scattered surreptitiously. I told her that I would be happy to assist in her last act of civil disobedience. And so one day after she died  I found myself driving the youth group up to a conference at the Mountain with a jar of Mary’s ashes in my luggage. I decided that I would scatter her ashes at Meditation Point, a rock with a beautiful view of mountains upon mountains rolling off into the horizon. I decided to scatter the ashes at night when I thought no one else would be around but when I got out to the rock there was a group of teenagers and one or two had guitars. They were singing a song called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel with these words. 

“And one day we will die and our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea.” 

Literally a song about scattering ashes. And once the youth finished that song they began a Leornard Cohen song,. 

“Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.” 

After that song, the youth returned to their cabins and after a moment of silence I scattered Mary Nelson’s ashes below the stars into that sea of mountains. As our minister of religious education, Mary had done so much to empower our children and youth. How appropriate that our young people (without even knowing it) provided her with her own musical memorial service. 

In the gospels Jesus is quoted as saying, “Let the dead bury the dead” a statement that seems to minimize the importance of the role we the living play in the burial of the dead. Jesus’s statement stands in contrast to his own Jewish heritage, where burying the dead is considered the last mitzvah we can do for someone, the last good deed we can do, the last way we can honor a person, the last way we can be faithful to the commandment- to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

I am the youngest of five children. My family discovered this mitzvah after my brother died. My brother Bill had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction as a teenager in addition to some lifelong mental health, impulse control and anger management struggles. One of my most vivid memories of him is when he was making a model airplane, and he had worked hours on it, but for some reason he did not feel like it looked just right. So he threw it down on the ground in frustration and the airplane broke into a million pieces. And when I looked at Bill’s face I could see that he was devastated by his own actions. Shattering that airplane shattered something inside him as well.

Bill died at 18 years of age in a car accident just one block from our home. He had way too much to drink. He probably fell asleep. His car ran into a tree, an act that shattered my family in more ways than I could ever name. All the king’s horsemen and all the king’s men could not put everything back together again. 

At the gravesite each member of the family was invited to place a shovel full of earth into the grave but for some reason we did not stop there. We kept passing around the shovel to each other Mom, Dad and the four remaining siblings until the grave was completely filled. I do not remember anything that was said at the memorial service. I do not remember anything said at the burial. What I remember is the tangible feeling of the shovel in my hand and the sense that somehow without any premeditation or planning we had fulfilled the last mitzvah. 

That was over forty years ago, but the tradition continues everytime we do a burial in our memorial garden. Each member of the family is invited to put a shovel full of earth into the grave and if the family wants to they can finish the job. I do not believe that it is the role of the dead to bury the dead. Rather I believe it is the sacred responsibility of the living to bury the dead, our last act of kindness and compassion for each other. 

Whenever I lead a burial in our memorial garden I like to share these words by the poet Dorothy Monroe. 

Death is not too high a price to pay

for having lived.  Mountains never die,

nor do the seas or rocks or endless sky.

Through countless centuries of time, they stay

eternal, deathless.  Yet they never live!

If choice were there, I would not hesitate

to choose mortality.  Whatever Fate

demanded in return for life I’d give,

for never to have seen the fertile plains

nor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sands

beneath a salty sea, nor touched the hands

of those I love – without these, all the gains

of timelessness would not be worth a day

of living and of loving; come what may.”

I think the sentiment of  this poem is something that the Roman god Jupiter would understand, the poignancy of the transient, the ecstasy of the ephemeral, the joy of being human. 

All too often we are too busy to contemplate death but – as the poet reminds us – even if we do not stop for death, death will kindly stop for us. For none of us gets through this life without holding on to what is mortal and when the time comes to let it go, we let it go. Or as another poet, William Blake, put it, 

Joy & Woe are woven fine 

A Clothing for the soul divine 

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine 

For I do believe that when the living bury the dead, grief is augmented by a small measure of joy, the joy of doing right by someone, the joy of one last kind deed,  the joy of one last act of love and compassion, the joy of one last mitzvah.

(This sermon was given at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday, November 5, 2023, by the Reverend Chris Buice)