I know this much is true: In my group room can be a Muslim, a transsexual, an atheist lesbian, two folks who would self-identify as “born again,” a Roman Catholic or two (practicing and/or ‘recovering’), a couple of folks who know nothing whatsoever about religion and are on the fence about the fact that my groups are mandatory. I can count on one hand all the times I’ve ever had to moderate any kind of religious argument or negative judgment. I can state with as much certainty as I can about anything in life this truth: at the core of our human experience is our common plight of suffering and that the thing that unites is our shared search for meaning and necessary reliance on one another as we seek to transcend, to heal.


Compassion, understanding comes from understanding, on our most deeply human level , that we are all in this together and that we desperately, yes, desperately in a very deep existential sense, need each other to survive. Most of us have to wait until we are mired in overwhelming life crises and deep suffering to understand this deep eternal truth. I get to sit witness to its grace everyday and to the miracle of the human and divine spirit at work in the courage of faith’s redemption and human transformation.



   

Created for Gratitude

From the McHenry County (IL) Community Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration
Sunday, November 22, 2009.

“There is a Chinese proverb that reads ‘when you drink from a stream, remember the spring.’ This call to remember the source of what we enjoy is universal. It is the experience of gratitude is found in every major religion. Our national holiday of Thanksgiving is an opportune time for us to come together to celebrate the bonds of community and universal experience of gratitude.

"In Hebrew, the work "to give thanks" also means "to confess." While every faith tradition encourages the giving of thanks, there is one community for which this holiday can be especially difficult. That group is the American Indian or Native American community. We acknowledge tonight that their crucial role in shaping the "first" Thanksgiving has been lost or mythologized, their good will and generosity overlooked, and their suffering hidden from our view. Our presence tonight is our "confession" that we which to inhabit a world in which all peoples will be valued and can live together in peace.

“We come to listen with our hearts as well as our minds. Diversity is a holy gift. No greater respect can be given another than listening to him or her. To listen is to acknowledge the divine or holy image in the one who speaks to us.”

Thanksgiving Prayer: Let us come with grateful hearts in prayer this Thanksgiving week, that somewhere in the deepest recesses of our beings, each of us is created for gratitude. Let us pray, gratefully, to know there our common Source and to honor the delicate bonds which unite us, hearts and minds. And may our listening hearts of prayer guide us, beyond the many mindful things which can so sharply divide, that we may hear the Holy Image speaking in the hearts of all who speak to us. Amen.

A link to a Native American teacher's research on the struggle between myth and fact of the "first" Thanksgiving is here.