“Counting Our Blessings”

With Thanksgiving before us, this is the time of year for making an accounting of gratitude, for calling to mind all the blessings of our lives. For us New Orleanians, it is all too easy to live on the other side of the equation -- to keep seeing what hasn't been done, what isn't finished, what gets on our nerves, what makes us mad. And there's nothing wrong, really, with keeping track of what still needs fixing on our personal and communal and civic To Do lists. But let us, for this month, concentrate instead on all the things we're grateful for.

To start you off, or give you inspiration, here's my list:

•I'm grateful to be living in New Orleans, no matter what. To my heart, New Orleans in trouble and New Orleans needing help is still WAY better than living anywhere else.

•I'm grateful for this opportunity to live near my extended Morel family, to see them almost daily, to share in their lives, to have meals and fun together.

•I'm grateful for the help and support and love and care and talents and skills of my partner-spouse Eric; the struggles and challenges of life are more interesting and easier to bear because of our relationship.

•I'm grateful for the love and kindness of my friends, those I see often and those I see seldom.

•I'm grateful for the help and resources and support of all our fellow UUs and partner churches and individual volunteers from around the country.

•I'm grateful to all the "ancestors" who handed down this church to us; we would not be here without their commitment and dedication.

•I'm grateful to Unitarian Universalism --where would I be without this wonderful faith that has nurtured and sustained me through thick and thin, and that ever encourages me onward? What other faith would accept me just as I am, with all my contradictions and my hyphenated faith?
And of course

•I'm grateful to the members and friends of this congregation and the North Shore congregation
-- thank you for putting your trust in me, for allowing me into your lives, for listening to me with kindness, for giving me the occasional kindly comment, for your advice and material and financial support.

For all of these, and for all the rest of the many blessings of my life, I give thanks. And when things seem hard and the way ahead difficult to see, may the recollection (literally, the "re-collecting") of all my blessings give me strength and courage for whatever lies ahead.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

In faith and hope,
Rev. Melanie