The Five Grains of Corn

"We give thanks for whatever leads to human hope."

--Ralph N. Helverson

I remember the year she asked me what I was especially thankful for. "I'm thankful I'm not a turkey," I exclaimed. She loved to tell that story, and did so for as long as she was able to join us and for as long as we were together on Thanksgiving. It became part of our holiday ritual to recall that childish incident. I am always grateful in recalling it that I was able to enjoy such a long and close relationship with my grandmother, amounting to over thirty years. It is one of the blessings for which I will give thanks on this Thanksgiving Day, and I suspect on all of the Thanksgiving Days still to come.

Once upon a time, it was customary among some old New England families at Thanksgiving to place five grains of corn at each plate. According to one tradition, this practice was started ". . . as a reminder of those stem days (during one of the early winters) when the corn supply of the Pilgrims was so depleted that only five grains . . . were rationed to each individual at a time. The Pilgrims wanted their children to remember the sacrifices, the sufferings, the hardships, which made possible the settlement. . . . They did not want their descendents to forget. . . . The use of five grains of corn placed by each plate was a fitting reminder of a heroic past."

Re-reading this passage in preparation for writing my sermon caused me to ask myself what things do I need to remember and to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day, which might be symbolized by such a ritual of memory and thanksgiving as the five grains of corn? What things must I not forget?

I have told you before about how my grandmother Gertrude lost her firstborn daughter to pneumonia at the age of four, how she struggled throughout her life to make ends meet and to pay off the mortgage on her ramshackle old farmhouse, working well into her eighties as a cook and housekeeper. Somehow, she always managed to get by, and even to seem content with her lot in life. It took little to make her happy: feeding the birds, staying in touch with her childhood friends, cooking, sitting on her porch of an evening. She was one of the most authentic persons I have ever known.

My grandmother is part of my own "heroic past" that I wish to remember on this Thanksgiving Day. The simplicity and nobility of Gertrude's life stand in vivid contrast to the complexity and barbarity of our world. The constant striving for more and better, of "getting and spending," seems a sham when viewed through the lens of a life such as hers.

Like many of you, I struggle in the face of the daily onslaught of terrible and terrifying news to find a center of peace in the midst of the storm. It is hard not to focus on all the negatives, and to feel that this must be the worst of all possible times. Nothing seems certain. Everything seems poised on the verge of disaster. There is a feeling of impending doom as the shadow of war and terrorism and fanaticism and hatefulness, and even our own stupidity, looms over us. How can we be grateful in such a time as this?

When I fall into my darker moods, and I do so often these days, it is good to be reminded that we are not the first, nor, I suspect, shall we be the last, to experience such unpredictable and depressing times. Gertrude lived through at least five wars and a Great Depression. She lived at a time when medical science could not cure an illness in her child that in most cases today is stopped in its tracks by a single dose of antibiotics. She lived almost half of her life before the advent of social security. She apparently lived in constant fear of losing her home.

We are not the first, nor shall we be the last. It is good to remember that, and, on Thanksgiving Day, especially, to be grateful for all that we do have, and for all that we are. What are some of the things of which a ritual of Thanksgiving ought to remind us? What will your five grains of corn remind you not to forget.

Among other things today, I am grateful for the gift of an open mind, a mind open to new possibilities, and to new ways of being and seeing the world. I am especially grateful that my gay and lesbian friends and loved ones may have the chance, if they choose, to marry, and to enjoy all of the rights and privileges that hetero sexual couples currently enjoy. I am glad whenever and wherever my country lives up to its constitutional promises of freedom. I guess I am even thankful that I live in Massachusetts--hard for a Maniac to say--where we have an enlightened Supreme Judicial Court. Excuse me for being flip, but this is not the United States of Rome, or of the Vatican, or of the Southern Baptist Convention. Thank God. But the battle, of course, has only just begun, and there will no doubt be dark days ahead for all of us.

I am grateful, and hope to be reminded of it on this Thanksgiving Day, for this free faith of Unitarian Universalism, and for the freedom to practice it. I am grateful for this particular church and the many friends I have made here, for the opportunity to serve you, and for all the gifts that I have received as a result of my ministry here. I am grateful for the new friends I have made in Eastern Europe among our Unitarian co-religionists, who remind me on every visit of how fortunate I am to live in a country where I have so much, including decent medical and dental care, and so many opportunities, and for all the inspiration that I have received from participating in our Partner Church relationship.

I am grateful for the freedom to dissent, but I do not take it for granted that everyone else is grateful for my freedom to dissent.

I am grateful for my upbringing in a small town, and for the love of my family, for the joy it brings me as well as for the challenges; for my children, preciously and uniquely gifted; for the loving marriage I am legally entitled to enjoy; and I am glad that so far, at least, none of us is directly in harm's way.

But who ever said that we, among all the peoples and nations of the earth, would be secure from all the things which plague the rest of the world? Isn't security a myth anyway, in a world where mortality is the only certainty, and isn't that myth often an excuse or pretext for injustice and self-righteous bombast or self-aggrandizement on behalf of the powers that be? Who ever determined that we should be secure, at the expense of everyone else in the world? Which reminds me to be grateful for my health.

I am grateful for everyone who has made it possible for me to enjoy the success I have had in life, but most especially for all those who have given a sense of meaning to my existence, sometimes by their dying as much as by their living. I am grateful for my education, which helps me to understand and appreciate the wonderful world of which I am a part. I am grateful for the natural world of beauty which surrounds me in this place, and that I have access to it. I am, in fact, grateful for everything that gives me hope, or reason to hope.

Ralph Helverson, a former minister at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cambridge, once wrote the following meditation for Thanksgiving:

          Wherever in the mystery of the post our human adventure began, we know not, nor where it will end, nor how, but while we live on this planet we give thanks for the insight and energy to live with zest and meaning.
          For the desire to grasp the precious treasure of living and to make the most of it,
          For the confidence to flow along with life, to make it more than mere existence,
          For belief in the unconquerable human spirit, overcoming defeat of body and mind and environment, striving ever to know and understand;
          For the pleasure we find in those who journey along with us, who help us to solve our problems and give us courage to live with our predicaments;
          For all that sustains us, encourages us, and offers us opportunities to give our lives to what may outlast us;
          We give thanks for whatever leads to human hope.

Amen

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock