21 Pentecost – Proper 23 Year A October 9, 2005

Isaiah 25:1-9
Psalm 23
Philippians 4:4-13
Matthew 22:1-14

Eeyore

Embracing the Eeyore

Deborah Hutchison

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice… Do not worry about anything…And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

    How could the apostle Paul say this? His life was full of suffering, persecution, beatings, rejection, homelessness and the ingratitude of others. Was he crazy? Was he the prototype for the first WASP, schooled in pretending that everything was “just fine” when it was anything but?

    Or was he on to something? Rather than being a wishful-thinking gloss of denial, was his admonition to not worry and rejoice an outgrowth of a process of interior transformation of spirit and personality, that created in him the capacity to live the present moment in the realm of God?

    I would like to talk today about gratitude as spiritual practice. First, a word about what this spiritual practice is not. A friend’s young daughter said to her mother one day, “I just love my Barbie.” Ever alert to the potential pitfalls of exposure to Barbie as a role model, my friend asked just what it was her daughter found so admirable about a doll who, among her many questionable traits, had feet that were eternally molded to wear only stiletto heels.

    Hear her daughter’s response. “When my friends and I throw our Barbies out of the upstairs window? Well, when we go outside and pick them up off the sidewalk?…They’re still smiling.” You that have ears, listen! Barbie is not practicing the spiritual discipline of gratitude.

    When Jonathan graduated from seminary, it was a very special occasion. His parents and grandmother traveled to New Haven to attend the ceremonies. On the glorious spring day before the big event, our extended family was gathered for a picnic on the Divinity School lawn. Patrick, who was five at the time, said, “My back itches.” I peered down his shirt and saw, with a sinking heart, what I immediately recognized -- from recent experience with several of his friends at day care -- as chicken pox. Within an hour or two he was covered with them, inside and out.

    He was one miserable little guy, his suffering compounded exponentially by the horrible reality that he was going to miss all the graduation hoopla he’d so been looking forward to. And miss it he did. A few days later, with Patrick still feeling very glum, he and I were snuggled up on the couch watching the Disney movie version of Pollyanna, with Haley Mills as the cloyingly optimistic heroine who greeted everything that came her way – from the deaths of all her siblings and her parents to adoption by an emotionally remote aunt and cruel treatment by bullying children – by finding something in the experience to be glad about.

    I have to confess that I was finding it difficult to be glad about Pollyanna, when Patrick, still covered with pox, muttered darkly and poetically, “I’m not glad about having chicken pox. I’m mad about having chicken pox.” This initiated a conversation in which he got to talk about how hard it was to be sick and to have missed out on his Dad’s celebration. His telling the truth about how he really thought and felt about what was happening in his life seemed to be a turning point, not only in terms of physical recovery, but also in terms of his climbing out of a pit of real despondency and beginning to savor life and find things to actually be glad about.

    Herein is found the first step in the spiritual practice of gratitude. Be present to what is actually happening. The practice of gratitude is a vehicle for learning to live in the realm of God. God is the great mystery, but one of things we do know about God’s nature is that it is Truth, with a capital “T”. In one of the few instances when Jesus actually said anything direct about who he was, he said, “I am the truth…” It is difficult for us to be aware of God’s presence unless we are aligning ourselves with what is true.

    What is true is often beautiful, positive, wonderful. But, human nature operates with a marked sense of entitlement about such things. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “The sun shines and warms and lights us and we have no curiosity to know why this is so; but we ask the reason of all evil, of pain, and hunger.” What is by definition easy to be grateful for often goes unnoticed, while we are distracted by things for which we would be hard-pressed to be grateful. Hence, most lives suffer from a gratitude deficit.

    When what is true is painful or embarrassing or frightening or sad, the temptation to deny is very strong. But every time we wiggle away from reality, we reinforce the habit of not living truthfully. So, it is important to find a way to feel safe enough to begin to be more truthful about how things really are.

    I call this “Embracing the Eeyore”. The Winnie the Pooh character, the donkey Eeyore, is the children’s book polar opposite of Pollyanna. He is blue, literally, and is committed to seeing life as a glass which is consistently half-empty. When my life feels as though it is falling apart, I curl up with my stuffed Eeyore for a period of complete focus on feeling awful. This may seem like totally bizarre behavior for a 54 year-old supposedly grown-up woman. But, its apparent silliness and child-like-ness disarms my resistance to doing what is, in actuality, really hard work.

    Being with ‘what is’, when ‘what is’ is painful, feels terribly uncomfortable at first, bleak and lonely. I am always reminded at this point in the process of why denial seems like such a good idea. But being with ‘what is’ also means being mysteriously with God, who is very near wherever truth is acknowledged and lived. Nothing lasts, except God. Eventually, the acute pain passes, the loneliness recedes, hope returns and, with it, a growing sense of God’s having been a companion throughout, albeit invisible at times.

    This kernel of awareness that God is present, although often hidden in the smoke screen of our own making, is a baseline for the practice of gratitude. Come death or destruction, hurricane or flood, family trauma, illness, financial difficulties, or the daily pecked-to-death-by-ducks demands of life in a body on this planet, God is present. No matter how unsure our footing may be, beneath all the shifting layers and sliding strata, God is the unassailable foundation. What is it Jung said? “Bidden, or unbidden, God is present.”

    Being with ‘what is’ is a way to begin to sense and then trust this unfailing presence. Then begins the work of seeking to be aware of and immersed in this presence, first on a daily basis, then hourly, then minute by minute, with the goal being a constancy of attention.
always,” says Paul. 
    
    This work, for most of us, is like trying to bring to a halt the rotation of a giant turbine that has been spinning in one direction for…oh…say, forever, or at least a very long time. It is extremely hard work. Slowing the established momentum, bringing the whole huge mechanism of our ingrained personalities with all their assumptions and illusions and expectations to a halt is a monumental undertaking. 

    And that’s just the half of it. Once it’s stopped, then we have to get the whole dang thing moving again in the opposite direction. Tremendous effort is needed at first to produce the tiniest incremental movement, the muscles of our faith and will straining, veins popping out on our foreheads, sweat streaming. 

    But, it’s worth it. Because once the changes begin, once the new direction is established, momentum builds and the whole process becomes established and much much easier. Here are some practices that may help get things moving.

     Begin the day, before you get out of bed, by thinking of one or two things for which you can easily be grateful. That you woke up is a good place to start. The fact that you are breathing is another easy one. Express your thanks to God for these oft overlooked wonders. This is an incredibly transformational thing to do if what usually pops into your head upon waking is the first worry in a long scrolling list of anxieties that resembles the beginning of the first Star Wars movie. 

    Be kind to yourself. Stick post-it notes on the alarm clock and on the bathroom mirror to remind yourself to do this practice. The idea is to allow it to become a habit, like brushing your teeth. Then introduce the other bookend to your day by remembering in the evening a few things for which you can be grateful as you close your eyes to go to sleep. Again, keep it simple. Did the car work today? Are you still breathing? Good. Thank God for these simple gifts. 

    I know this doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a mustard seed sort of thing. These small beginnings grow and flourish given half a chance and begin to permeate more and more of daily experience. Eventually, you may find yourself having to edit your morning and evening gratitudes in order to be able to get on with your day or your sleep. Gratitude may begin to well up unbidden, unexpectedly, often in the midst of struggle, sometimes in the face of forces that once only elicited fear and despair. 

    This is what I meant by the practice of gratitude being a process which can transform spirit and personality and develop in us the capacity to live the present moment in that realm of God which is so beautifully evoked in today’s Isaiah passage. “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make a feast for all peoples…he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces…” 

    And in our psalm, “Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” 

    And in our Epistle, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

    And in our very challenging Gospel, “Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” Among other interpretations for the appalling fates that befall those who do not accept the invitation to the wedding banquet or fail to wear the proper clothes, is the understanding that this may be the parable-teller’s way of saying, “Pay attention. This is terribly important.” 

    I would offer that the practice of gratitude gives us ears to hear God’s invitation and eyes to see the garment of God’s presence all around and, by virtue of our being made in God’s image and likeness, waiting to be activated within. Deep down inside, underneath the layers of doubt and cynicism and fear and unworthiness, we want to be grateful. It is our birthright as children of God. 

    I’ll give the last word to Meister Eckhart, that most venerable and joyous of mystics, who wrote, “If the only prayer you ever pray is ‘thank you’ – that would suffice.” AMEN.