sing the God...

The great web of creation and our response is the theme of Thomas Treadwell Stone (often excerpted in this space) today.  Thanksgiving sermon week continues with:

"THE PSALM OF THANKSGIVING.
Psalm cxlvi. 1, 2.

PRA1SE YE THE LORD. PRAISE THE LORD, O MY SOUL ! WHILE
I LIVE WILL I PRAISE THE LORD : I WILL SING PRAISES
UNTO MY GOD WHILE I HAVE ANY BEING.

I can hardly think that so little a thing as even the wild flower, springing up and blooming almost under the last snows of winter, was originally planted and has been nourished so carefully either for me or for any other man. Rather, I am ready to believe, it exists for itself; created and nourished through cold and heat, in all stages of its growth, to be the flower it is, to fulfil in its sphere the beautiful idea which it embodies. There may be that, perhaps, in the Divine Soul which must in this way give forth its sweet benignity. Still more, we may think it is so, throughout the compass of living existence. There is joy enough in life itself to justify the creative Wisdom...

All things are continually coming in truth into one web; and fast as the shuttle flies weaving them together, the connections and secret influences are multiplied and strengthened: at the same time, however, each thread, each filament, is a whole, not only contributing to the great texture, but receiving of it strength and compactness. There is at once all in each, and each in all. These ends of existence, these hidden causes, continually projecting themselves into multitudinous and beautiful effects, rise in ascending scale, as natures are higher; in man, as highest, they show themselves at their greatest elevation. Him, the Divine Life inspires. It excites the deepest aspirations, the sweetest affections, thoughts pure and bright as light, deeds nobler than heroism, words true to the soul and true to God; these all, movements of his inner being, growths of his life, substantial and elemental portions of the spiritual fabric, whose basis is on the earth amidst the fluctuations' of time, but whose summit rises ever upward through the heavens amidst the calm Sabbath of the Eternal. So his end is no other than celestial and immortal. His, in one word, is the filial union with the Father, signified by prayer and praise, and preeminently by the hymn. " What else," Epictetus is reported to have said, "what else can I, lame old man, if not sing the God ? Sure, if I had been a nightingale, I would have done the things of a nightingale; if a swan, those of a swan; but now that I am partaker of reason, I ought to sing God in the hymn; this is my work, I am doing it; nor will I leave this assigned order while it is given me: you, moreover, I invite to this same song."

Blessings

the fatal ingratitude...

James Freeman Clarke has, the past two days expressed that for which all should be thankful. Today, in this continuation of his sermon, "The Unspeakable Gift," he gets to the heart of gratitude...

"But why should we praise God? He does not need words of praise. He cannot love praise as men desire it. He is not jealous, as earthly kings are jealous, of honor withdrawn from him or given to another. Even a good man does not desire to be praised for his goodness; he prefers to do his good works unknown of men, as Jesus recommends. He does not let his left hand know what his right hand does. How then can God desire the praise of his creatures?...

To thank God when we know that he does not desire our thanks, and takes no pleasure in them except for our good, would be a barren offering, and almost unnecessary. There is a sense in which God may enjoy the thanks of his creatures. If those thanksgivings of ours spring not from the mind only; but the heart also; if they come from love, then even the Infinite Majesty of Heaven may find joy in the grateful heart of creation. For love unites the high and the low. Pure love is never wasted, it never fails; it is greater than faith and hope; it is the essential thing in prayer, it is that which makes obedience twice blessed. Who can ever despise or be indifferent to sincere love? It is the greatest gift of God to men, the only return men can make to God.

This, then, is "the unspeakable gift," the gift which makes the value of all other gifts. We do not value a gift from man unless we see in it some love. How can we be grateful for anything given only with the hand and not with the heart, given from a mere sense of duty, given by rule, or custom, or law? You could not be very grateful to a man even for saving your life if he did it thinking of his own glory, or as a mere function of his business, "perfunctorily," as we say. No! unless a man puts some heart into his gift, he has no right to ask for gratitude. We complain that men are not grateful for our benevolence. Are you grateful for anything done for you by those who do not love you, who help you merely out of self-respect, or to retain the respect of others? No! There must be some element of love in a gift to make it of any value.

Real ingratitude then, the fatal ingratitude, comes from those who are unable or unwilling to recognize love in a giver. He who believes that men are only selfish, he who attributes selfish motives to all human acts, has made himself incapable of gratitude. He who reasons thus in order to justify his own selfishness, cannot be grateful. No matter how generously he may be treated, he does not see the generosity; he invents some personal motive to account for it. The generous man looks for generosity, the selfish man expects selfishness, and each finds what he looks for...

The "unspeakable gift," therefore, which gives value to God's other gifts, is the love which is in them. It is "unspeakable," for who can describe even human love, much less infinite love? But what we cannot describe we can see and know. Who can describe the perfume of a violet? Yet we know it, and know its difference from the odor of mignonette, or that of a rose. Who can describe the melody in the song of a nightingale, or the music of a gentle voice? But we know these, and can recall them after long years. So we may know, though we cannot describe, this unspeakable gift of Divine Love...

It is not till we see love in God's gifts that we are grateful; and when we see love, we cannot help being grateful."

Blessings

the perpetual giver...

Thanksgiving sermon week continues today with this from James Freeman Clarke...

"THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT
"Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift."— 2 Cor

"The text says, "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift." Before we consider what this unspeakable gift is, let us consider those which can be easily spoken of.

What a wonderful world is this into which we have been born! What beauty, what variety, what majestic presence of law, what vast order, what infinite adaptations to the purposes of life!...

Life is a little day, but how it is filled with opportunity for knowledge, for work, for love. It has room in it for the sublime voices of prophets, bards, leaders, reformers, saints and martyrs. It has room for the happy homes of those whose sober wishes do not learn to stray from the cool sequestered vale of familiar affections. It has room for dear little children, innocent infants, with an aureole of divine light around them. It has room for generosity, patience, hope and self denying love. It has room for pain borne without repining, for bereavement sustained by faith, for a death made sweet by an infinite hope. It has room for love of wife and husband, for the tenderness of the parent and the piety of the child. It has joys and work and duties for youth, manhood and age. These gifts are evident ; they are new every morning. God opens his hand and supplies the wants of every living thing. He is the perpetual giver. His joy is in never-ceasing creation. The fountain of his love pours forth new supplies each moment. If his gifts are perpetually passing away, it is that they may be forever renewed..."

Blessings

satisfactions from blighted spots...

The older I get, the more I am aware of the deep importance of gratitude. Mind you, this doesn't mean that I practice gratitude more-in fact it often seems a more and more difficult thing. And yet, and yet... These days before Thanksgiving, to deepen my own sense of gratitude, I will excerpt Boston Unitarian Thanksgiving sermons beginning with Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham's THE WONDERFUL WORKS OF GOD'S GOODNESS.

"O THAT MEN WOULD PRAISE THE LORD FOR HIS GOODNESS, AND FOR HIS WONDERFUL WORKS TO THE CHILDREN OF MEN
Psalm cvii. 8, 15, 21, 31

...we do not " praise the Lord for his goodness " as we ought, because we are heedless; not remembering him in his benefits, because we remember him in nothing. The neglect is only a part of a general deficiency in our religious sentiments. We are too anxious, or too much occupied. We are so taken up with the good gifts of life, as mere means of enjoyment, that we have little disposition to mingle them with devout acknowledgments to Him who bestows them all. Or else, unhappy in the midst of them and indifferent to the best of them, vexed at their discounts or afraid for their loss, we feel the disturbances of our own thoughts shaking all the foundations of comfort, and we allow a single affliction to cloud a whole heaven of grace, and we deny that there is any thing worthy of very fervent expressions of thanks in the favors of so distracted a lot...

And again, " his wonderful works to the children of men" are not rehearsed as they should be, because we do not recognize them where they are most really displayed. We mistake their nature; and so when they are present we do not observe them; and when nothing is present but the feeding of a full sense, or the triumph of a proud will, or the preponderance of brute power, we inaugurate our selfishness; we make priestesses of our passions; we confound our greediness or ambition or revenge with a true thank-offering to Heaven... We still imagine often that we are giving thanks, when we are only blessing ourselves for success or indulgence. Our rejoicing is not in the Eternal Providence. Our returns are not to Him. We set our regards in the wrong direction. We put our passing interests, and the gratification of our immediate wish, in the place of the most that God can do for us. We exalt our conceit and presumption, and call it gratitude...

The reason that we have no more gratitude is that we have no more fidelity; —that we are no more true to our powers of discernment, means of improvement, and sources of joy; to the capacities of every upright heart, and the privileges of the meanest condition...

No faithful heart will hang dependent on contingencies. It can see outward prosperities wither with a better trust than others see them spring. It can glean up more satisfactions from blighted spots, than others can cut from whole " fields of offerings." The blessing must abide within; and if it is there, it is everlasting."

Blessings