Being Grateful Can Benefit You | Rev. John Riley

Being Grateful Can Benefit You

Welcome to Unity Palo Alto. Or as you may have heard, we are the monster truck of spirituality on Sunday, Sunday. Sunday. I’d like to take a moment, Felix, if you can go back one slide and just take a look at that, that picture that we see up here in the screen, look at the vibrancy. Those are the trees out in the parking parking lot here. I took that photo about a week and a half ago. And to me, they just, that brings out the gratitude within me. That brings out the joy in me. And if you look at them it’s almost like the light turns them fluorescent in color. Yeah. Thank you, Felix. Now if you’re here in the sanctuary, you’ll, you’ll notice you may have noticed that the trees have already begun to change in color a little bit, and there are about 5,000 leaves in the parking lot.

Did you notice that on your way in? And because that’s what trees do, at least these trees, deciduous trees, did you know that that’s what they do? And I say that because I get the sense of when it, when they go, sometimes it feels there’s, like, there’s a sense of loss in there, you know, after they’re gone and the trees are barren, sometimes that’s, that’s the way it is for me. Well, last week we were talking about the idea of, of how shall we pray. And I left you with a quote from First Thessalonians chapter five, verse 16 and 17. “Rejoice always pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances, give thanks in all circumstances.” And that’s what our, that’s what today is about. Really gratitude. And of course, that’s what Thanksgiving is about, is, is about expressing and feeling that gratitude and expressing that thankfulness. So tell me, what does it feel like? What’s your experience of it? Give me some words about what being grateful really feels like for you. Anybody have any words that they can give to me? Warm, gracious, caring. What was that? Expansive. Expansive.

Oh my gosh, you have so many words. Joyful. Wholesome. What was that? Makes my heart sing. It just makes you feel so warm. It makes you feel so open and expansive. And it just, it, it feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Yeah. So gratitude, of course, is one of Unity’s fundamental practices. It’s something that we talk about a lot, and in that we can cultivate that idea of gratitude. And yet, sometimes it’s not that easy. Anybody experience that? So this last week, I’m thinking about gratitude. Oh, here we go again. As gratitude. What am I gonna say? Different this time? You know, sometimes when you try too hard, right? It gets a little difficult and everything else shows up. Have you ever experienced that? You don’t have to raise your hand. Maybe this, I’ll just take that on for you all. But sometimes, you know, it’s just like, “ah, here I am again.”

Why is it Diffifult to Feel Grateful?

Here’s that situation again. Here’s that thing again. And I can’t find the gratitude in it. So what prevents us during those times and feeling that gratitude? Anybody have an idea of what prevents us? Inertia. Inertia, yeah, because we’re, we’re, we’re so ground fixed in our position, fixed in our consciousness, fixed in our way of saying things that we just can’t get up and move. So, mistrust, yes, mistrust, resentment. Something’s happens out there. And you know, I’ve gotta hold you at bay. I’ve gotta hold the situation at bay because I’m, I just don’t trust you anymore. I trust you to be human. And that’s about it. Human’s a good thing. I’m generally in favor about of being human. What else? Fear, anger, judgmental attitudes. Holding onto the past.

It kind of develops that victim consciousness, right? I would be grateful in this situation except when this happens, when this happens to me. So these are all things that, that, that kinda weigh in on us. And we, we have those resentments and that that fear and anger, that distrust, it weighs us down. It creates more inertia for us. We can’t get up and go. And that’s really, you know, this is really the, the practice of, how do we get from that stuck place, which happens a lot for people, especially during this time of, the holidays when things get stressful, especially during this time when you know, you’re packing and you’re traveling and you have to put God in that three ounce bottle and stick it in the plastic bag. Sorry, can you taste that? God, make sure it’s not, your God is so expansive, it’s everywhere present, but we forget that and we let that go.

What is Gratitude? 

So gratitude is really a state of consciousness that’s important for us to develop. It’s important for us to do the work, to make it more accessible for us in those moments. Excuse me, Eric Butterworth likes to put it at this, this way. “It’s a level of consciousness.” And when you get to that level of consciousness of gratitude, it opens the way for us. It opens the way for that divine flow, and it attracts new good things to us. Just gratitude. Gratitude opens us up and it attracts our good to us. I love the daily word today that was talking about grace and the definition that they gave is, is perfect for me. 

The ceaseless activity of divine love, the ceaseless activity of spirit, because God is everywhere present, not just in that three ounce bottle, but God is everywhere present. God is the expression of life, love and wisdom. God is the all of life, and it’s always there, and grace is always there. And even when we’re feeling frustrated and angry and stuck, it’s that grace that keeps us moving forward, even when we’re feeling like a victim, even when we’re feeling like I can’t go on. That grace is what lifts us up and gets us to one more breath and gets us to one more moment, even when we’re not aware of it. And so what do you think life would be like if we made time for it? If we made space for it? If you put grace and gratitude as a fundamental principle in your life, I mean, we all talked about it earlier,  it’s joyful, it’s uplifting, it’s expansive. And yet when we, when we do get frustrated, what happens is, you know, our focus narrows literally our peripheral vision goes, or, or we can only focus on what’s in front of us. We’re in that fight, flight or freeze mode when we’re stressed, when we have that ungratefulness. I was trying to find what’s the end? The opposite of grateful and the dictionary comes back with ungratefulness. Well, thanks a lot. Exactly – put out a “un” on there. And that’s the opposite. 

Forgiveness as an Antidote

I love the ideas that we came up with because we made it specific. It’s our resentments, it’s our for unforgiveness. It’s, it’s our fear and anxiety and anger, and all of those things are what keep us from moving forward. And so the antidote for that, one of the first one is forgiveness. Now in Unity, that’s another fundamental principle, forgiveness, and it’s in every book because it’s, it’s, you have to make that space for grace to express more fully. You have to make that space within your consciousness so that that consciousness of gratitude can be developed. So forgiveness is all, forgiveness is self-forgiveness, all forgiveness is self-forgiveness. So think about this, all of those judgments that you had in that crappy situation, that’s a spiritual term, by the way. Thank you. I’m just saying in that situation, that was not so beneficial, you might call it in that situation there.

Oh, now I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Oh, we have to let go of our judgements in that situation. Is my judgment about that situation? I found it in that, in that situation. It’s my judgment about the other person is my judgment about what’s right and wrong, of good and bad, of good and evil. And that is a fall that, that blocks us from that state of grace. So what if forgiveness was simply forgiving myself for judging in that moment? I’m not gonna say what you did was right or wrong. I’m not gonna say I’m not gonna allow what you did if it’s something harmful to me. But what I’m saying is I’m forgiving myself, forgiving my power over to you, over to that situation, over to that experience I’m forgetting and letting go of my judgment. It’s just like the trees, right?

You gotta just let go of the leaves. They get old. And you know, we’re here on these beautiful fluorescent leaves and we’re trying to hold onto them because it brings us joy. And then they die in our hands and we carry them with us. Metaphorically right here. Here’s my look at all my dead leaves. And that becomes our burden in life. We’ve gotta let it go. We’ve gotta let them fall. We have to just let them go. Eric Butterworth says this, your conscious mind cannot tell the difference between your casual words and your causal words or your casual thoughts and your causal thoughts. So what’s a causal thought? Well, that’s an affirmation. That’s something that we sit down when we affirmatively pray, we say, this is what I stand for, “I am spiritually whole, I am healthy, I’m well.” And then the rest of the day come our casual thoughts. Anybody you want to guess what? Those are the opposite. And subconsciously we take it all in. So we have to make a choice to practice that idea of forgiveness, of letting go and allowing it to flow.

Focus on Being Grateful

One of the practices that I like to do is this idea of, I get it from photography because as we said, when we get triggered, when we get upset, our focus gets very focused. We get narrow minded, right? Narrow focused. It’s just this is what’s happening. And I can’t even see the good that’s anywhere present. Anybody experience that. It’s like on the camera. When you’re zoomed in on the tragedy, you’re zoomed in on there. So the first step is to zoom out, to make the field of view wider. And that takes effort because we have to be conscious of the fact that we’re triggered, that we’re conscious of the fact that we’re having unforgiveness and resentments. But as soon as you do, you can say, well, let’s get a broader perspective of life. Let’s look not just at this situation, but zoom out so that we can see the whole field of view so that we can see other things in the field of our consciousness, other things in the field of our experience, so we can find other aspects that we can be grateful for in the situation simply by zooming out and getting a broader perspective on life.

Now, once you find those things in the situation that you can be grateful for, zoom back in on those things that you’re grateful for. Put your focus and attention on it. Make that a part of your what was the term? Not co- your causal thoughts. Make it your causal thought. Make it purposeful, make gratitude, purposeful so that we can generate within ourselves those experiences that we all talked about at the beginning of the service. So if I go back to the metaphor of the tree, the life cycle of the tree. Yes, the tree, let’s go freely, the leaves are dead, the trees falls, and then in the wintertime, they’re barren. Now the experience in that wintertime is our experience of restoration, of rest, of renewal. Because in the spring what happens, the leaves grow back, they start to bud, they start to bloom. And then we can get excited to be grateful for the new opportunities in our lives because we let go, we rested, we restored ourselves, and the new opportunities spring forward.

And then in the summertime, it’s a beautiful canopy. I park my car under there, it keeps it cool in the summer. I’m so grateful for that. Anybody else grateful for that? Well, you should come to unity more often than if you’re not. And park under my tree and it’s beautiful, this beautiful canopy. And then we wait until autumn again. When they start to change color. And then I get all excited again. And every step of the process, every step of the process is grace is divine order. And that’s really the re a better meaning of divine order and new thoughts. Sometimes we  use that term well, everything’s in divine order when it’s going the way I want it to go.

But life is always a process of new opportunities and letting go and rest and restoration and full expression and beauty and release and letting go and rest. So as we move into this idea, we can celebrate that flow. We can celebrate that flow of life in everything we do. We can have, we can be grateful and generate those feelings, that experience of gratitude wherever we go and whatever the circumstance is. Even if you’ve got God in a bottle and you’re waiting for two hours in TSA just trying to get through to get on a plane to fly another 12 hours, God is there. And the opportunity is there for gratitude. The opportunity is there for you to, to zoom out and see the great mystery and majesty of life all around you to celebrate that flow.

Gratitude Gives us Opportunity

But it was to celebrate the flow it takes it takes a very perceptive person to realize this, but to try to get it, but try to get it into your consciousness. Try to practice it over and over again. Try to practice it this week when you leave. How am I gonna zoom out and find the good in my life so that I can generate that feeling of, of that consciousness, of gratitude? And really, when you really get the attitude of gratitude, you see the consciousness that enables you to see abundance wherever it is and to celebrate it. Because abundance is all around us. So gratitude gives us that opportunity. So be willing to let go, to give birth to something greater. Allow grace and divine order just to unfold and be willing to zoom out to see, get a bigger, broader perspective. And then zoom in. Zoom in on the ceaseless activity of divine love and celebrate the flow. I’m going to leave you with, oh, I’m gonna go to our affirmation.