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[♪ music ♪] [Unity]
>>[male voice-over] From Unity Church of Christianity in Houston, Texas,
this is The Awakened Life with Reverend Howard Caesar.
Unity is a nondenominational Christian church providing a positive, practical,
and progressive approach to Christianity.
Let's join the service in progress with the Reverend Howard Caesar.
[Unity of Houston - Reverend Howard Caesar, Senior Minister] Do you ever wonder why the man
who invests your money is called a broker? [laughter]
[Today's Message - Grateful Always] Do you ever wonder why they don't make the whole airplane
out of the material used for the indestructible black box? [laughter]
Do you ever wonder why sheep don't shrink when it rains? [laughter]
And this one you've probably heard.
Why if flying in an airplane is so safe they call an airport the terminal? [laughter]
Okay. One last question, I guess, and that is why they make Thanksgiving only a day.
Only a day, because it really is to be something that we celebrate way beyond that.
It didn't start out that way, as you know.
Before it ever became a day, it was an ancient spiritual teaching that has always been around.
It's a powerful, powerful principle, a universal principle that is as old as time itself.
And all the masters and mystics and spiritual teachers down through time
have always taught the power of gratitude and thanksgiving.
It's so powerful and mighty in opening a person's heart and bonding with the source of all the gifts
that are in and throughout this universe that we receive and have pouring into our lives.
Very, very powerful, very, very important teaching.
Jesus said that the first commandment and the most important commandment was love.
That's a powerful thing, and to have love in your life is what your life is to be about.
But gratitude is really a close second and is a close second because it has love in it.
It's really a cousin to love.
Gratitude is like a kissing cousin, if you will, to love.
It has love bound in it. Very powerful. It's of the heart.
Love is of the heart, gratitude is of the heart, and learning to love unconditionally
helps a person to grow spiritually, and it can enhance your life, transform your life.
Well, so it is learning to be grateful and to do so consistently on an ongoing basis
helps you to grow also spiritually and it helps to tremendously enhance your life,
opens new doors to you.
[For information about Unity - 713-782-4050 - www.UnityHouston.org]
Thanksgiving was never meant to be just a day; it is a spiritual lifestyle, it is a way of life.
It is something to cultivate within one's consciousness.
There's a wonderful verse taken from Thessalonians.
I don't know how often you read the book of Thessalonians. It's often hard to say.
But anyway, there's a verse in chapter 5 that states this:
"In everything give thanks."
"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
Wow. Pretty direct. Pretty clear.
Thanks and giving thanks in everything. In everything.
That can be difficult sometimes to give thanks in everything.
There was a congregant who this week sent me an article that was written a long time ago
by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, the wonderful minister and a friend of Unity.
In that article he was talking about the theme of thanksgiving also,
and he referred to exactly that verse from Thessalonians
and kind of built some thoughts around that message.
"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
In that article he said that thankfulness was really an affirmation of God's goodness
and it works to our benefit to be cultivating this.
He also wrote that inside of everything were the things that seem hopeful
and the things that seem difficult—
being able to say thanks for or be grateful for even the trials and tribulations
that we may have gone through in our life that strengthened us, that forced us to go deeper,
that helped us to live the truth, something was gained, something was learned,
our life was changed as a result. Even those difficult times.
Norman told about a man who he encountered
who felt that there wasn't anything that he could be thankful for.
All he did was focus on a bunch of negatives.
And one of the things that he deplored was that the world was just filled with confusion
and conflict everywhere.
Then Norman told the man about an old Irish preacher that he once knew.
This old Irish preacher said that there was a tradition in Ireland that when there is trouble in the world
or trouble on earth it means that there is a movement afoot in heaven,
that essentially whenever there's conflict or upset going on in some big way or some fashion,
it's really an indication that there is the movement of something higher
that is going to be following it that takes us into a greater world
and that that is coming to pass.
And so ultimately when we are facing our own difficult challenges in our own life,
it's important to think that there is a wave of new energy that's wanting to move us on
and out of that difficulty and challenge,
because it's always there and the experiences are always there simply to learn
and to be grateful for that wave of energy that is there if we remember to open up to it and invite it in.
And so in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God.
And that's difficult.
It was difficult for those who introduced really the first Thanksgiving dinner, if you will,
that took place in Plymouth in 1621.
That first Thanksgiving dinner there were only 4 adult women that were there to prepare the meal.
That's all that remained of the 18 adult women who had come there
and spent the very freezing, harsh first winter in Massachusetts,
where they had lost half the company of people that had arrived from the Mayflower.
That included wives and husbands and children that lost their lives in that harsh winter.
And yet after a fine harvest the following autumn, they observed one day in November
as a holiday, giving thanks to God.
And actually, it wasn't one day, it was over 3 days.
And the 4 women that remained, along with 5 teenage girls, prepared the food
for what remained of about 50 pilgrims.
And then there were, it was said, about 90 Indians that also came and showed up,
and they had this feast in celebration of Thanksgiving for a period of 3 days.
But there were difficulties back then
and yet they were able to give thanks.
That was out of this thanksgiving that really our nation arose.
They were planting the seeds that a whole nation was birthed out of,
giving thanks even before the good would manifest.
Look what followed the seeds of that thankfulness—
coming to a new land and having a new start and finding something to be grateful for
and how that blossomed.
This nation was built under God and on the principles of God and a connection to the divine.
It's important that we remember that.
We all have our individual challenges and difficulties in life.
They should never get in the way of remembering to just be grateful for all of the things
that have brought us to where we are at this moment in time,
all the things that we have grown through.
[Contribute to the Unity broadcast - 713-782-4050 - www.UnityHouston.org]
Yes, there's been highlights but there have also been difficult times that we just gain so much.
We can focus on the good and the positives and the truth
but also sometimes those things that were trying and difficult. It's okay.
George Washington saw the importance of doing this.
He saw fit to declare a day to be aware and to acknowledge the source and creator
behind our very existence and to acknowledge all that is good and all that is forthcoming,
whether it was there currently or was yet to be experienced.
And so in December of 1789 George Washington, a spiritual guy,
he made a Thanksgiving proclamation in which he said—and I don't know if you've read this
any time recently, but what that proclamation said was,
"I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next
"to be devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious Being
who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be."
Isn't that a powerful proclamation?
I mean, it's acknowledging all the good that was, all the good that is,
and all the good that will be.
It's very powerful, truth-filled.
He really understood the magnitude and the expanse of where gratitude belongs in a person's soul.
Good old George was a wise man, and he was a spiritual man,
and he realized the importance of acknowledging the source from which all good in life comes.
And to some degree some people have lost really the true, pure intent of Thanksgiving.
A lot of the focus is on our taste buds and what's going to be eaten that day,
and hopefully we don't lose sight of a focus on what the holiday is really about
and to realize really that thanksgiving and gratitude is a spiritual principle
that has attracting power. Attracting power. It really does.
It was Plato that recognized this even years and years ago,
and one of the things that he said that I love to go back to again and again is where he said,
"A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things."
That's something to take with you.
A grateful mind is a great mind that eventually attracts to itself great things.
He understood the mystical power and the attracting power of gratitude.
You've heard it said that love is a magnet.
Well, gratitude is a kissing cousin to love. Okay?
Gratitude is really a magnet. It carries that same energy.
It opens the heart, it acknowledges all the divine flow and the source from which it comes,
and it opens you, and the more you acknowledge, the more it just fills your life.
We're not saying that God demands appreciation as if God needs it.
God is love and that love is always there.
However, gratitude is something that is important to us. It's really for us.
It's something to cultivate within our consciousness because it deepens our bond to the source
and opens the doors.
It's the dimension of something that broadens within us in our bond.
Jesus said something that I think is important here.
He said, "I am in my Father and my Father is in me."
And I would say that we can all say, "My Father is in me."
The presence of God dwells within us. We all have the indwelling presence of God.
That's known.
But gratitude is what helps us to establish the idea that we are in God,
where we can say, "I am in my Father."
See, that's what puts you into the consciousness of being one with the divine,
one with one's Father, God, is gratitude.
It puts me right into that energy and that bonding.
So thanksgiving is a spiritual attribute, it's a way of living, it's a way of life.
Those of you who have studied the course in miracles—and I know there are some of you—
it's a wonderful body of teachings, and in the text of the course in miracles
there's a line that I love to return to around Thanksgiving,
and it's where it says, "God does not need your appreciation, but you do."
God does not need your appreciation, but you do.
And then it says, "You cannot love what you do not appreciate,"
because they're so close together, you see?
God does not have needs; God is all in all.
We can't hurt God's feelings. God doesn't stop loving. God doesn't judge.
You need to understand that.
God doesn't need your appreciation, but you do because it's a benefit to you,
it's a benefit to your life.
And the second line is so important, I think.
"You cannot love what you do not appreciate."
If you can't express thanks, you can't express love.
If you find it hard to give and express gratitude and thankfulness and appreciation,
then you find it hard really to open your heart to love.
It's an insight that's worth looking at.
How can we love anyone if we can't appreciate them?
Consider what it is that you truly appreciate, and then you'll know what it is that you love.
It could be nature, could be beauty, could be the air we breathe, could be family, friends,
it could be a whole host of things.
But whatever we truly appreciate we are most likely going to love.
In Webster's dictionary it gives the meaning of the word appreciate.
Appreciate means to grasp the nature, the worth, the quality, or the significance of whatever is before you
or has come into your life. To grasp the nature, the worth, the quality or the significance.
And it is also to value highly.
So what do you value highly?
What is it that you grasp the nature, the worth, the quality, the significance of in your life?
Do you stop to pause and really think about how significant that is,
that it has come into your life—that person, that situation, that opportunity, that gift,
that breath of life, whatever.
What is really significant to you that you pause and really think about
and it opens something in you that has a bonding, connecting dynamic
with a presence that fills this universe?
It's very sacred.
The tendency of society has often been to give thanks only after they have received a gift,
a favor, something good has come into their life.
Remember Plato said, "A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things."
And so there is a spiritual law that says the more you practice thankfulness and gratitude,
the more you're going to have to be thankful for.
There is a little story I like to tell. It was a personal experience.
It was many years ago I observed a little boy, and he was playing on a pile of dirt.
It was soft and broken up dirt, and he had a Coke bottle and he had a funnel,
and he was trying to get the dirt into the Coke bottle through the head of the Coke bottle,
but he had the funnel turned upside down.
He was trying to get it in that little opening on the wrong side.
He knew somehow this funnel was supposed to be used to fill that thing up,
but he was just too young to really remember.
And so he was doing it and frustrated, and I finally went over and I took the funnel
and I turned it upside down and put it in the head.
And he looked at me and smiled and then he took a big 2 hands full of dirt
and put it in the funnel and let it go down in.
It was really kind of a neat experience.
Most or many people give thanks only after they have received.
And that's fine, but that is the funnel turned upside down.
It limits you.
We can all give thanks after we receive something, but there's another dimension
of just giving thanks and being thankful and having gratitude all the time going on.
You see, thankfulness and gratitude is not a reaction to good;
it actually often can be the cause of good and opening you to more.
And so there's nothing wrong with giving thanks, of course, after you receive some good
or some blessing, something comes to you, but that's just one level of thankfulness.
That's the thank as you go plan. [laughter] There's more.
Many great minds and many deep spiritual people have talked about the power
and the importance and the significance of gratitude and where it can take you in your life
and how it opens windows and doors of possibilities.
It just changes your awareness.
Albert Schweitzer had this to say:
He said, "To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude
"means to take nothing for granted but to always seek out and value
the kind that will stand behind the action."
He says, "Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course."
"Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you."
"Train yourself never to put off the word or action which is for the expression of gratitude."
He says, "Train yourself." It's so important. Albert Schweitzer.
The word thank comes from the root word thought.
And so when we're thankful all our thoughts—
thoughts carry energy, thoughts are things.
Thanksgiving is a form of praise. Praise is a form of thanksgiving.
And so what we praise grows. It sets something in motion.
The good was there to begin with, but praise seems to trigger its activity
and bring it into expression and manifestation in our life.
We activate it somehow.
Child psychologists suggest the importance of using the activity of praise in children
to help bring out qualities that need to be developed in them,
and praise them in those areas, because oftentimes it's so easy to fall into
focusing on what a child is doing wrong and what needs to be corrected.
A young mother once wrote in an article how her small, little daughter misbehaved quite often
and she would scold her.
And then one day she had been an especially good little girl,
and that night she tucked her daughter in to bed and she was headed downstairs
and then she heard her daughter sobbing.
And so she went back up the stairs, and in between sobs,
when the little girl saw that her mother was there again,
her little daughter said, "Haven't I been a pretty good girl today?"
And the mother said that question went through her like a knife.
She said, "I'd been quick to correct her when she was bad, but when she tried to behave I didn't notice."
"I'd put her to bed without one word of appreciation."
We all need appreciation. It works good for adults too, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.
The teaching is that praise and gratitude sets in motion the flow of more good in life.
That's the principle.
And it's something very powerful to step into the recognition that good exists even before it manifests,
to be giving thanks for good even before it has materialized in your life.
I'm going to surgery for my knee, and I'm already forming a prescription of giving thanks
for all the outcomes—quick healing, rapid healing, ease, diminished discomfort.
I'm painting how it is to be and giving thanks before I get there. All right?
I'm in partnership. We all are in partnership with the divine, with this universe that is our friend.
And so it's important to do these things.
Jesus before feeding the 5,000 took what he had
and he blessed the few fish and the pieces of bread and he gave thanks,
and those few pieces of things were able to feed a multitude. It multiplied.
And that's what gratitude does. He first gave thanks.
There are many passages where he first gave thanks
at times where it seemed strange.
But it's not strange because he knew what was beyond what is. You see?
Just like George Washington. What was, what is, and what is to be.
And he lived in the what is to be and what can be.
That's important.
Eric Butterworth tells a true story about a time when he was a child that stuck with him.
Eric Butterworth was a great Unity minister. He's passed on.
He was the author of many wonderful books, and he was a minister in New York City,
spoke to large audiences.
Anyway, he tells about a time when he was a young boy
and they were living through the Great Depression.
His mother was a single mom at the time
and she had the responsibility of having to care for her brood of children, several youngsters.
There was no visible source of income.
He said that she was rather ingenious. She always found a way.
She was very spiritual also. She would work out the difficulties.
She in this instance talked to a man that had a house that was idle.
It was in a nice, upscale neighborhood but it was idle and a little bit deteriorating.
There were a number of houses like that, he said, at that time
and she offered to and convinced him that if she and her children lived in it
that they would keep it up.
They were hardworking and they would have a roof over their heads that way,
and it would be good for both.
And so he agreed and they went into it.
One day they were working out in the yard, Eric remembers. He was a boy.
They worked hard all day and it was time for dinner, so they came into the house and washed up,
and he noticed there wasn't much action going on in the kitchen.
His mother told he and his brothers and sisters to set the table for dinner.
So they did. And she said to set it especially beautiful because it was a special day.
So finally they gathered around the table and there was still no food.
When they sat down, she told them that they were down to their last
and there was nothing really for dinner. Nothing.
She said, "But we're going to join hands and we're going to pray."
So they began to pray, and he says he remembers it was a long prayer but it was filled with thanksgiving.
All the things that she could find to be thankful for—the roof that they had over their head,
various things that had happened, small, large, whatever.
It was praying for a great Thanksgiving.
And he said they were still in the middle of the prayer and it was interrupted by a knock at the door.
He said it was miraculous.
He said, "My mother went to the door and there was a servant there from one of the nearby homes."
She said that the lady of her house had just given a garden party that afternoon
and they had a lot of food left over, and they wondered if they would accept the food.
His mother said, "Of course we will."
And so the servant left, came back with another servant.
The two of them were carrying big, huge silver tureens of hot food.
And they had a feast that Thanksgiving.
And it was something that he never forgot.
Right in the middle of prayer, giving thanks, the knock at the door and the feast arrived.
There are no accidents in the universe.
That was a statement to him.
He went on to be a great minister, spoke to thousands upon thousands,
wrote books that reached millions.
The point that Eric makes is that at that time his mother really had very little to give thanks for
in the usual sense, but she had so much to give thanks from.
She lived from a place within that knew that she had an infinite God that was there
and was a present help in time of need.
As George Washington says, "To give thanks to that great and glorious Being
who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be."
I've been to India to the Oneness University.
They emphasize gratitude again and again, the importance of it in bonding with God
but also in bonding with your friends, your family, neighbors, anyone.
They have 5 levels of gratitude, and they also say that gratitude is what completes an experience.
You may have something come to you and people take it for granted.
It's like gratitude completes the experience.
There's something incomplete if you don't really go to your heart and feel gratitude.
But the first level is the person gets thoughts about how hard another has worked to do a kindness.
Level 2 is to be able to feel what the other person maybe went through
in terms of their stress, their commitment, their time, their talent given to help present something to you.
The third level is simply expressing gratitude to that person through words or a hug
or in some way letting that person know.
Level 4 is being prepared to help the other in some way as a need arises in their life.
And then level 5 is you consciously go about creating an opportunity to help that person
and make a difference in some way in their life.
You don't wait for the need to arise.
We shared a lot about thanksgiving here today,
and hopefully it's brought into your awareness the importance of it and the significance of it.
It's an ageless law and principle that opens the heart, bonds you with all who surround you in this life,
bonds you with the source that gave us all life.
And so the takeaways should be simply that it does indeed help you grow spiritually,
it is a form of love, it opens the heart.
What you can't love you can't appreciate,
and what you can't appreciate you can't love.
And there's an attracting power that brings and opens you to even more good in this universe.
It bonds you to God. It's very important.
Scripture states, "In everything—in everything give thanks. It is the will of God."
We like to say God is good. >>[congregation] All the time.
Again. God is good. >>[congregation] All the time.
I am grateful. >>[congregation] All the time.
Happy Thanksgiving. [applause]
[♪ music ♪] [Rev. Howard Caesar and Mrs. Diane Caesar] Happy Holidays from Unity of Houston.
I'm Reverend Howard Caesar. >>And I'm Diane Caesar.
And we would like to invite you to join us Christmas Eve at our wonderful candle lighting services
in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, we have wonderful soul-enriching music,
and each and every person is given the opportunity to light a candle to feel their connection to God.
Our Christmas Eve services are at 4:00, 6:00, and 8:00 p.m.
And we'd also like to invite you to join us for our New Year's Eve services
in which we give everyone an opportunity to release the past and have a fresh,
happy, fulfilling start of the new year.
[Diane Caesar] Join us New Year's Eve at 6:00 and 8:00 p.m.
And if you want more information and directions, please go to our website, UnityHouston.org.
[www.UnityHouston.org] [voice-over] Thank you for joining us for today's message.
We invite you to be with us again next Sunday. [Sunday Service Times - 9:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m.]
[(713) 782-4050 - 2929 Unity Drive @ Hillcroft - UnityHouston.org]
At Unity we believe that God's presence of love and goodness is everywhere
and that life is meant to be good.
You can find out more about Unity and our teachings at UnityHouston.org. [Copyright 2013]
[Rev. Howard Caesar] Are you currently church shopping, looking for that right church
for you or your family? Perhaps you've been looking and been turned off by organized religion.
It happens. Let me suggest you try Unity Church.
We are a positive, practical, progressive approach to Christianity.
Many who have found us have said, "I didn't know there was a church
that taught what I always believed."
Let's be honest, people shop for clothes, good restaurants,
and the right church that feeds them spiritually.
If you're seeking a spiritual truth beyond tradition, try Unity Church. Come join us.
[Unity Church of Christianity - 2929 Unity Drive, Between Richmond & Westheimer - 713-782-4050]