"When Thank You Isn't Enough to Fill Your Soul"

November 2, 2003

Rev. L. Annie Foerster

This is how the conversation starts: "So, you're a Unitarian. I've heard of you." I'm never sure if they've heard of me, personally, or all of us collectively. And, just what is it they have heard? That we're a cult of pagans, or that we're famous for rooting out injustices. Perhaps they're bluffing and haven't heard of us at all. Maybe they think we're from Unity. Either way, as soon as I hear the words, "So, you're a Unitarian," I know I'm in for a theological discussion.

A recent conversation along these lines was better than most. There was a personal experience involved, a general interest in religious thought, an intellectual desire to understand what Unitarian Universalists are all about. The inquirer had been to the memorial service of a friend and had found it different from the funeral services in her own church. "They talked about him," she said, meaning her friend; not God. "I learned more about his life at the funeral than I did when he was alive." I explained our tradition of celebrating the life of a person through memory and praise, of conducting a memorial service rather than a funeral. "But they didn't talk about what happens next," she said; "what happened to him after he died."

I told her that Unitarian Universalists start with the individual and are concerned with this world, this life; that's one of our theological differences with more orthodox Christian churches. I told her that this life is what we know--all we can know for sure--and this is what we feel we can impact with our lives. If we deal with this life well--if we become the best people we can be, if we share our lives with others, work for peace and justice, appreciate the gifts we are given and practice kindness and tolerance--we believe we have lived a good life. We practice life, I told her, not for future rewards, but for the ones we find in each day.

There were other questions, some insightful, some challenging. We passed the afternoon in happy deliberation. The questions about life are universal; the answers have a rich diversity. At the end of our conversation, we revisited the memorial service. It bothered her that God hadn't been invited; that the heavenly kingdom hadn't been part of the itinerary. She thought about her friend, about that afternoon they had bid him farewell. She said, "I felt empty."

That phrase has haunted me. "I felt empty." I might have dismissed it as disappointment in not finding the expected elements of a more familiar funeral service. I have come away from religious ceremonies with the hollow knowledge that something different would have been done in my church. I might have dismissed it as a part of the grief process. Loss of a friend or loved one tends to leave us with a feeling of emptiness. But her comment won't leave me. I keep thinking about it--about the human condition of emptiness and about the response we have to it as a Unitarian Universalist.

We have all felt emptiness at least once in our lives. It is a universal experience. It is more than disappointment, more than not satisfying an expectation, more than feeling nothing. Emptiness is a hunger, a wanting, a wanting so demanding that it rivals the black holes of space. It is a wanting not of the mind, nor of the body, but a wanting of the soul. It is part of the human repertoire and as inevitable as strawberries in June. Emptiness often follows tragedy, but it can come in the midst of abundance, and in the presence of joy. I could be counting my blessings, and be struck with the vertigo of emptiness. What do I do when thank-you isn't enough to fill my soul? What does being a Unitarian Universalist offer me when I am empty?

I once thought that having goals to pursue would guarantee a life of satisfaction; that having dreams to realize would ensure fulfillment. I am wiser now. I still have goals and dreams, but I expect no guarantees. It was in the very midst of my achieving a cherished dream that I experienced the deepest emptiness of my memory. I had planned and schemed, saved and been lucky. My goal was achieved and I was so happy--happier than I ever remember being in my life. I was generous in my gratitude: "Oh, gods of good fortune, I thank you. Oh, angels that grant wishes, I thank you. Oh, whatever forces move the universe to give deserving people their dreams, I thank you a million times." My thank-yous were loud and abundant.

My dream had taken me to a town where I had never lived before, where I knew no friends.

But there were mountains nearby and streams; lots of trees and abundant flowers; I had a quaint house to nest in and work to do. I didn't have time to make new friends; I was too busy enjoying my realized dream.

Yet three months into my dream--just three months--while thank-yous were still moist on my lips, I couldn't remember why I was there. No one knew me. I experienced such an abandonment of meaning, such a lack of desire, a hollowing out of purpose. I knew doubt and fear intimately. I felt empty. In desperation I took myself to the nearest Unitarian Universalist church, twelve miles down road, and said, 'Put me on a committee; give me people to meet and something to do. Save my soul."

Wasn't I a treasure? Don't you wish all our new members came to us like that? I think they do. To one degree or another we all come here with an emptiness, wanting to be filled with purpose, asking to be filled with meaning, with love, with understanding, hope, joy, compassion, contentment.

This is the season when we try to fill our emptiness by reminding ourselves how much we already have. I should count my blessings this day, this week, this month, and offer a litany of thanks, that I may know how blessed I am and be fulfilled. I should remind you to do the same. But I can't. It seems like such cheap grace. "I have my health, my family, my work, I'm happy. Gee, aren't I lucky? Aren't I grateful? Let's go home." But thank-you isn't enough to fill my soul.

Ours is a faith that does not begin with God and does not end with a world yet to come. Ours is faith that starts and stays right here, right now, with the individual and the individual's experience, which mayor may not include God. The rest, if it comes, will come in its own time. We start with what we know, with who we are. Empty or fulfilled, broken or whole, we affirm and support the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

There is risk in that. We place a heavy burden on ourselves, and on one another, when we start with the individual. It's the trade-off for religious freedom. If I'm empty, then isn't it I who am to blame? If I'm empty, is there no one to I can go for solace and fulfillment? Well, if the individual were all there were, we would not have enough to constitute a faith, the basis for a religion. But it is only the start. After the individual we affirm human relationships, holding them sacred. We affirm acceptance of one another, encouragement to spirituality, a shared search for truth and meaning, peace, justice and a place of belonging within everything there is. It is in that relational composite that we can find the clues for filling us up, for fulfillment.

Ours is not a passive faith of words. It is not enough for us to repeat the covenant with one another for it to be achieved. We are expected to participate in it, to make it work by the living of our lives. We are expected to make choices--difficult life-changing choices--and to take responsibility for them. We are expected to envision possibilities and seek out potentials for our lives. But we are not expected to do it alone. We are not expected to do it with words. That was what I knew when I brought my emptiness to church.

I had cut myself off from relationships. I thought I could create my world out of my own mind, my own dreams. No wonder I felt empty. I had lost my place in the interdependent web. I had a dream, but I had jettisoned the fuel that keeps dreams going. And thank-you wasn't enough to fire the burners. Gratitude wasn't sufficient to recharge the batteries. I found I had to learn how to praise. Not to say just, "this is nice; I am blessed," but to praise in the way that Rainer Maria Rilke hinted at when he wrote these lovely words:

O tell us, poet, what do you do?--I praise.

But those dark, deadly, devastating ways,

 how do you bear them, suffer them?--I praise.

And then the Nameless, beyond guess or gaze,

 how do you call it, conjure it?--I praise.

And whence you're right, in every kind of maze

 in every mask, to remain true?--I praise.

And that the mildest and the wildest ways

 know you like star and storm?--Because, I praise.

Praising, I find, is a way of living, not an act of gratitude. Saying "thank you" does not change

anything; but praising elevates the object of the praise--be it person, act or gift--and gives it new life, new meaning, transforms it into an entity that can nourish the soul.

We praise the gift of life, not by saying so, but by living well. We praise an act of generosity, by returning generosity. We praise the gift of our faith by allowing religious freedom for all and encouraging tolerance by our example. And life is enriched, generosity grows, love transforms, religion fulfills, because we praise.

We are a faith that begins with the individual. We can practice praising by starting there. I once attended a workshop where we were given an envelope to decorate with our name. Each envelope was displayed on a bulletin board. We were given pieces of colored paper and told to write down words of praise for anything we noticed another person doing, and put it in his or her envelope. I take no pride in admitting that the smug little skeptic that sometimes reveals her residency inside me, called out to me, "This is Hokey." She was wrong. I was wrong.

Self -conscious little compliments started turning up in the envelopes. They were unpracticed, but we got better. Mornings became an event as we rose to see what praises had been slipped into our envelopes in the night. Friendships were made and cemented with sincere and mutual praise for things that might otherwise have been passed by without mention. Shy persons became bold. Curmudgeons became lovable. More importantly, we became adept at recognizing the moments that merited our praise. We grew into community, appreciating one another just for being. We became loving and lovable people. We learned how to praise and how to accept praise.

When I lived in the mountains, I used to walk the trails. That was my spiritual life, an act of prayer. On a high path, among the clouds, walking beneath ancient trees and enjoying the companionship of squirrels and birds, I was lifted from this earth, transcended from this life. I was thankful for that gift, but it was not enough to say so. What really gave me fulfillment was when I began to praise the trail, and praise the universe that gave me these mountains. I joined a trail maintenance club. It wasn't exchanging gift for gift. There was no way I could give back what I got from the mountains. I simply praised them by picking up trash, by keeping them clean, keeping them worthy of praise. Ironically, in sharing the work of maintaining the trails, I was as uplifted as in the solitude of hiking. The gift grew; and the praising grew; and from them both grew relationships, greater meaning and purpose, more love and fulfillment. Thank-you doesn't do that.

When I ran to the Unitarian Universalist church to ask for work, I got it, but I didn't get fulfillment--not right away. I got compassion, understanding, sympathy--and I got a job on a committee and a lesson in praising. Garrison Keilor, in one of his monologues, said that church committees are staffed by people out of guilt for not doing enough in the world. He may be right. Guilt is a form of emptiness. It's a rather chilling thought, that it might be guilt driving our churches when we say we don't believe in making people feel guilty. If we allow people to perform their volunteer tasks by feeding their guilt, they will not be fulfilled. We must show them how to praise the task with creativity, praise the burden with joy, praise even the emptiness that made them volunteer in the first place.

There is a story by the Sufi poet, Rumi, that tells of a devout man who spent his nights crying, Allah! Allah! "His lips grew sweet with the praising," Rumi tells us, "until a cynic said, 'So! I have heard you calling out, but have you ever gotten any response?' The man had no answer to that. He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep. He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls. 'Why did you stop praising?' [Khidr asked.] 'Because I've never heard anything back."' And Khidr told him, "This longing that you express is the return message. .. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup."

The emptiness, then, is not a punishment, is not, even, a flaw in the human psyche. It is the Universe's way, according to Rumi, of reminding us to seek out fulfillment with praise. It will not be given to us. It is ours to find. And praising--not expecting an answer, just praising by our word and action, by our very lives--praising even the emptiness that drives us, be it guilt or loneliness, grief or despair, is the way to connect to the Universe, the opportunity to remind ourselves that we are, indeed, a necessary part of the interdependent web of all existence.

This is my Thanksgiving thought. When life it joyful and fulfilling, by all means, be thankful, but don't stop with gratitude. Praise. It will enlarge the joy. And when you are empty? Praise. It is the connection to life. When life is unbearable? Find praise. It will bear you up. When you don't know where you're going or how to get there? Praise the path and the brambles that hide it, for on them you will find the way. When no one knows you and you hardly recognize yourself? Send out a flare of praise and someone will hear your song.

It is easy to praise, when things are going well. It is easy to praise the church that takes you in and gives you something to do when you are hollowed out. It's easy to praise the path that gives you pleasure by smoothing the path for others. But to praise in times of sorrow, or crisis, requires practice. It is a spiritual discipline that takes time to learn. If you are counting your blessings this day, start praising. Fill up the larder for the hard times; fill up the pantry to share with someone hungrier than you. Proust reminds us that "If you want something to be central to your life, then notice it with an eye born of respect and caring. Notice it with a life full of gratitude. Praise it."

I love seeing the trucks on the highway that carry a sticker saying, "I'm trying to be a good driver. How am I doing?" I want to distribute bumper stickers that say, "I'm trying to be better human being. How am I doing?" I want to distribute envelopes with everybody's name on them and hang them in grocery stores, on electric poles, in churches, in homes, everywhere that we can litter the landscape with praising opportunities. I want to pass out pieces of colored paper for those who have not yet found the voice of praising. Imagine the daily harvest: "You are a wonder ." "The world is a beautiful place." "Life is good." Little drops of praising, little grains of praise.

If the transforming power of love is ever to reach the waiting world, then praise must be the way to clear its path and open our hearts. If we are to fill our souls and offer fulfillment to others, if our religion is to mean anything at all to an empty and aching world, then we must begin by appreciating the world and praising. Theodore Parker said, "Let ours be, a religion, which like sunshine, goes everywhere." I add, "Let ours be a religion of praise and fulfillment."