Rev. Susan Maginn
Bread Sunday
November 23, 2008
Wy'east UU Congregation
Portland, OR

Throughout time, bread has been the great sustainer of life.

Not just in daily nutrition; bread has a mythological power as well, representing what is nourishing, the absence of which would signify the loss of essential needs.

It makes sense that bread would have such a depth of meaning throughout so many generations. After all if a community can have what it takes to make bread: yeast, clean water, salt; if a community can have the land to grow wheat and the intelligence to make flour; if a community can have the cooperation to cook together and the peace to eat together, then the rest, as they say, is gravy. If we can do all that it takes to make and eat bread together, then we have a strength that is worthy of celebration and gratitude.

When we are eating throughout our hurried lives, it is so easy for us to forget what goes into making the food that sustains all our busyness. We forget to give thanks for the elements that help the food grow, all the human effort that plants, harvests and cooks the food.

When we are eating, we tend to think of two states of being - either being hungry or being full. Americans, however, have a third category: being stuffed.

We are entering into the season of being stuffed, or as my husband calls it the 'Festival of Excess'. Bellies stuffed with food, sleighs stuffed with presents, houses stuffed with decorations.

I'd like to invite you to try something this week, as you are eating to potential excess during Thanksgiving. Simply consider what does it mean to eat enough food. What does it mean to be full? As so many of us eat, not just to survive but to feel good emotionally, I ask you to measure your fullness as you eat.

Can you sense if you are 1/4 full? 1/2 full? 3/4 full? In ethical eating circles, I have heard it recommended to eat until you are 3/4 full and then have a bit of water and wait. Wait to see if you are truly hungry for another helping.

Once you have taken an inventory of your fullness, another question to consider is the question of satisfaction. Once you are awakened to it, fullness is a pretty clear sensation in the body; however, satisfaction is something else. When you eat, do you feel satisfied? Where do you bring your attention to measure the experience of satisfaction? Your belly, your mind, your heart?

My sense is that being full is a physical reality and being satisfied is a spiritual reality. It is tough to experience one if you cannot experience the other. You will not feel physically full if you are not spiritually satisfied. It will be tough to feel spiritually satisfied is you don't have enough food to be physically full.

Mansion ~ A. R. Ammons ~
So it came time
for me to cede myself
and I chose
the wind
to be delivered to
The wind was glad
and said it needed all
the body
it could get
to show its motions with
and wanted to know
willingly as I hoped it would
if it could do
something in return
to show its gratitude
When the trees of my bones
rises from the skin I said
come and whirlwinding
stroll my dust
around the plain
so I can see
how the ocotillo does
and how saguaro-wren is
and when you fall
with evening
fall with me here
where we can watch
the closing up of day
and think how morning breaks

Poetry stirs us up with wide-hearted awe. A reading can draw us toward beauty and even confession. The words are prepared with vigilance. Phrases are ideally uninterrupted by the poet's excess thought or excess ego. There is an attempt to let the words emerge from the source of inspiration, toward the reader.

So it is with prayer. In spontaneous prayer, the words are not crafted in the way that a poet's words are, but the willingness to speak from the center of our being, from our most perceptive and our most vulnerable without the excesses of ego - this is what poetry and prayer have in common. It is no wonder that our tradition sees the potential for poetry to be sacred text and poets to be prophets among us.

Another thing prayers and poems have in common is that many people come to prayer and to poetry in times of desperation, times when we are disoriented by loss and we seek a way to express the ineffable. In such moments, we are alone and we cannot stand it. We reach out through words to express something and build a relationship with an imagined listener.

For many religious people, the Biblical texts are messages that teach the people about the nature of God. There is one book of the Bible that is different: the Psalms. These are messages to teach God about the nature of the people. It is said that if you know all 150 the psalms by heart you will never have a human experience and be at a loss for prayer. There are psalms of lament, of praise, of thanksgiving, The Psalms are poems, prayers and songs all in one.

Psalm 30
I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the Pit.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved."
By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed.
To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication:
"What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?
Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!"
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.

This psalm is about recovery - being close to death and experiencing new life. It reminds me of those who are survivors of cancer or those who undergo surgery that could be life threatening. It reminds me of those who are in recovery from addictions. It reminds me of those who have seen what they love most almost slip away. These are the people who have stood at the brink when there seems to be nothing left and then comes a breath of new life and two prayerful words break through: 'Thank You'.

This gratitude is acknowledging our interrelatedness and our dependence. Sometimes this acknowledgment comes in a simple moment, a deep breath of wholeness. In this sigh, we are saying that it is enough. We are saying that we are enough. Our life, for all that it is and all that it isn't, somehow, is enough. And for that fulfillment, we are grateful.

For the psalmist it is returning from illness, into life and celebrating with the worshipping community.

These times of returning to life can happen at any time of the year but it is particularly relevant now, because we are in the darkest days of the year. We are weeks away from the solstice, the returning of the light. In December, we will honor this time with our annual Celebration of Light service on Dec. 14th, our solstice service on Dec. 21st and our Christmas Eve service at 5pm on the 24th. This is when we will get to celebrate the return of the sun, to turn our 'mourning into dancing', to be 'clothed with joy' as the psalmist says. But for now, we are still in the dark days. Let this be a time of reflection and creativity. Let the 'close and holy darkness' (Dylan Thomas) hold you. Enjoy the dark days while they are here.

There is a story of a monk at a monastery who was to become a Dharma heir, meaning that the teaching was to be passed from one master to a disciple. The disciple comes to see his/her teacher in the middle of the night. This may seem like an odd time to do sacred business, but this ceremony takes place in the middle of the night for a reason. It is at this time when we are surrounded in darkness. We cannot see what is up or down. We cannot sense where our body stops and a wall begins. The seams of the world are not obvious: the seam of light and shadow, the seam of dream and awake. In these dark hours, this is when the deep teaching can be passed.

During this week of Thanksgiving, remember the returnings of your life, honor the dark days and the gifts that somehow emerge, healing their way through your broken and beautiful self with two words: "Thank You".