I, very often, get to spend a fair amount of time with people while they are in the process of dying. That’s not to say I’m hoping any of you find yourself in that situation soon. I’m not that eager to promote my own gratification. It is to say though, that dying is a very poignant moment in the process of living. The quality of life at the time of death can be wonderfully warm and loving. Dying is often just about as full of life as life gets. To be invited into that moment, as a minister, is an awesome honor.

I was asked into just such a profound experience not so long ago. A man I knew, but not very well, had been sick for some time. His disease took a turn for the worse and he called to ask if I’d come by. When I arrived he was in a panic. He was looking death in the face, and wasn’t confident that he could withstand its gaze with the grace that he’d hoped for. He had denied death as long as he could, and now that it was imminent, he was afraid. Was there anything I might be able to tell him that could help, he wondered?

Now, if there are definite things ministers can say to help in such a situation, I’m afraid I don’t know what they are. But I did know some things about this man, someone I’ll call John. He was a very accomplished educator who’d had a significant impact on the lives of his students through both his love for them and his love for his field of study. He’d enjoyed a wonderful family life, and was held in ardent love and respect by his wife and children. And so I asked him to tell me about his life.

He told me about his childhood and college years, about meeting the woman who would become his wife, about their life together, about their children and grandchildren. He told me about his love for art and for his students. He told me that he’d never been a pious person, but that he’d always hoped he could make a difference in the world.

In the telling, I think John fell in love with his life all over again. And while he didn’t want to give it up, he didn’t have to fear, in any way, that he’d wasted it. He hadn’t.

John was a man of high ideals. He had always been grateful for his life, had always appreciated the people in it and the opportunities that had come his way, opportunities to serve others and to make a difference. But there had been one ideal that he had not mastered. Now close to the end of his life, when he needed it, he was ready to take that step. It was the step from gratitude for life to faith in life.

Fear is the absence of faith, and gratitude is the bridge that leads from the one to the other. Gratitude carries us from fear to faith. William Blake wrote that, "Gratitude is heaven itself." I think, if it is not heaven, then it is at least a worthy road to travel upon.

This week is Thanksgiving week. Thanksgiving is my favorite of all holidays. God knows, I love the food too much, but even more, I love its down home spiritual nature. It’s not a particularly religious holiday in that it doesn’t come out of any formal religious tradition.

It’s American, and as such, it’s not without its causes for the need for atonement. From the first Thanksgiving to the present, Native Americans have been treated unjustly (to say the least) and we have much by the way of integrity we need to be about restoring.

That withstanding, this holiday/holy day is set aside to help us think about our own lives. It’s a reminder, not so much that the Pilgrims were grateful because they survived, but a reminder that perhaps the Pilgrims may have survived because they were grateful. It’s a reminder, in this age of plenty, that not everyone has plenty. It’s also a reminder for those of us, perhaps more blessed, to take stock of what it is that we have plenty of.

A few years back another man, this one newly retired, came to see me. He’d been very successful in business, accumulating a rather healthy portfolio of stocks and certificates. But he wasn’t feeling particularly healthy in spirit. I have to come clean with you though, this man wasn’t a member of one of my congregations; he was a relative, named Stanley.

"What’s left?" he asked. "I’ve gone out and slain all the dragons. Everything I have ever set my sights on, I’ve accomplished. I have more money than I could ever spend. But I feel empty inside. Everything I’ve earned doesn’t seem to matter; it doesn’t give me any satisfaction. What do I need to feel satisfied?" (Again with the assumption that the minister is going to have the answers to these questions.)

It occurred to me though, that Stanley’s goals had all been external ones. They’d been about him conquering the world, which he’d done rather handily. So I asked, "What matters the most to you in life?"

"I thought it was to make a buck."

"You’ve got the bucks and that doesn’t seem to be it. So what’s important now?" And I suggested, "You’ve already conquered the world. Maybe you need to look inside to set some internal goals."

"Oh," he thought. "Maybe I do."

I don’t know if it had anything to do with our conversation, but I was rather amazed when, in the near future, he reengaged in his local congregation, and quickly became the Chair of the Social Justice Committee. With the same fervor he’d shown in business, he now set about to make the world right for so many that had been wronged.

He had the money and the energy, and he wanted to make a difference. It’s a lot harder to save the world though, than it is to land a big deal. Stanley got a bit frustrated and struggled to stay involved. Twenty years later he’s still struggling. But he has a better idea about what it means to maintain a balance between what he wants to accomplish out in the world, and what he needs to do internally in order to be satisfied.

An unknown writer once wrote, "At the end of life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?"

This morning during the children’s portion of the service you were asked: What are you thankful for and how has that made a difference in your life?

Lots of times we feel quite privileged to be so blessed by material kinds of things — things that make our lives easier and more comfortable. And those things really do make a difference in our lifestyles, but how about in our lives? I think as often as not the pursuit of those things, like in Stanley’s story, keep us from ourselves. They create more bondage than they do bounty.

I have spent some time with people who are dying and I’ve never heard any of them say, "I wished I’d spent more time at the office or in meetings." I have heard them say though, "I wished I’d spent more time at home with my family."

We don’t have to wait until we’re dying to make these kinds of realizations. Maybe that’s what Thanksgiving is for, to remind us, through an exercise in gratitude, what it is we’re living for. If we’re out of synch with what we think we could be living for, it gives us a chance to get things right. And then it reminds, still through gratitude, to build a faith in the worthwhileness of that life.

There’s a pop-culture phrase that’s been around for the past eight to ten years or so. It’s one I’ve come to despise even though I’ve used it myself. "Been there; done that." It’s a major standard for the cultural message that tells us not to be grateful. It encourages us instead to believe that we deserve whatever we can accumulate. And it tells us not to have faith in life by assuring us that whatever is done is already past, and so of no further value.

"Been there; done that." We live in a been there; done that sort of age, with a been there; done that sort of mentality.

It’s not about being satisfied with, let alone grateful for the things we have. It’s about a constant insatiable need for what’s new, different and seemingly virginous. It’s not about the deeper and more constant things in life that promote faith. It’s about moving along the surface from ideology to ideology, from commodity to commodity.

Been there; done that, shouldn’t be a compelling reason for a restless moving on. It ought to be a compelling reason for coming back, over and over again, to engage in those aspects of our lives that are enduring, that promote our gratitude, that give us a basis upon which to build our faith.

Thanksgiving has traditionally been a holiday of home going. Perhaps it’s a good reminder to go back, from time to time, to where we’ve been. Perhaps it’s a reminder to enjoy, over and over again, the acts and the relationships that give our lives–give us–our greatest meaning.

I went back to the new Hayden Planetarium recently. I have to be careful; it could become a very expensive habit. For those of you who haven’t been there, the Star Show provides the most magnificent experience, allowing one to savor the universe in a three dimensional format. Through sight and sound, you can physically sense something of the vastness and magnitude of the universe we are in.

It makes you think about what’s important. It makes you question priorities. It makes you take note of what it means to be a human being on this tiny speck of a planet, spinning around a star, on the edge of a galaxy, amid a super cluster of galaxies, in a seemingly infinite collection of super clusters and maybe even uncountable universes.

For me, sitting there in the theater of the planetarium, I can see some things more clearly. I have to tell you that for me it comes down to this: what matters the most, what I’m most grateful for, what gives me faith in life, in all this universe… is our human capacity to love and be loved. It may or may not be unique in the universe, but it is ours. It is real, and it is love that makes all the difference in the world.

Hosea Ballou, a leading founder of Universalism said, "If we agree in love, no disagreement can do us any harm. If we do not agree in love, no other agreement can do us any good."

I’m not dismissing the capacity of the human intellect, but the value of our intellect is in its ability to serve love. We can love intelligently or not. And our love can benefit ourselves and each other. Our love can transform communities and countries. It is through intelligent loving that we may be able to save the world itself — not from itself, but from our destruction of it.

When John, in my opening story, was reviewing his life toward its end, it was his experiences in and with love that had made all the difference. It was that he had invested himself, invested his love in people and in ideals of importance that made it okay for him to step into death without fear that he’d missed the meaning of life.

In the story of my relative, Stanley, for much of Stanley‘s life, his greatest investments were in windfall profits, not in long-term gains. He hadn’t invested in things that enabled him to live more deeply, in things that helped him to build a faith in life — a faith that informed him that what he was doing mattered in any deep way. It was only when Stanley began investing in his life and in the world around him that he began to reap a harvest of gratitude, and to lay the foundations of an abiding faith.

Thanksgiving is a time for giving thanks, yes. It’s also a time to note what we are thankful for. It is that in our lives which we are both affirming and aspiring to. Let us not move too quickly, but relish in the truest riches of our lives. It will make all the difference.

My wish for you this holiday week is that you take the time to take stock of your self: for what are you grateful and how has that changed your life?

May you count your blessings by counting your loves;

May you give thanks for that by which you have been blessed, not just for this holiday; but also for everyday.

And may your gratitude ever lift you up and bolster your faith in life.