What will you do with your gifts?1
Choosing to bless the world is an inspiring way to answer this question.
But sometimes, this blessed world is tiring! There are just never enough hours in the day, are there? Not to put away the laundry and dishes. Not enough to write the sermons or visit the congregants I want to. Not enough to relax, or reflect. To catch up on homework or hang out with friends. To spend time by the lake or curled up with a book.
The world feels scarce sometimes, doesn’t it? Always asking for blessings? When we look at the gap between what we have and what we want to give, scarcity stares back at us, hungrily.
Looking for an exit from scarcity, you might be thinking of what you would do with all the time in the world. Maybe you – or your children or grandchildren – will go to an elite university on a hockey scholarship, and become a virtuoso violinist along the way. You’ll cook and eat the most creative dinners every night of the week, and never worry about the dishes. You will be the super-volunteer of the year all while working through your massive reading list. All thanks to all the time in the world.
It’s a grand, enticing daydream. There it is before you, glistening on life’s mountaintop. Glistening at the top of that very insurmountable mountain. That mountain piled high with laundry and dishes, overpacked schedules, list after list of to-dos. And nowhere near enough time to climb it. So with a resigned sigh, you look back down at your schedule. Maybe the dream was too grand.
So you look down, and you notice something else. Now you notice what I did earlier this summer. that calendar is full of holes. Or maybe not holes, but windows. Windows, perhaps, of opportunity.
The hard fact of life is that all the time in the world won’t save us. There isn’t enough time to get all we want to do done. But what is also true, is that this might be an opportunity. It just takes a small shift in perspective.
Playing with perspective is one of my favourite things to do with a story. I had forgotten how much I love Stone Soup. It’s deliciously clever, really. These three wise guys rock up to the city gates and say, I bet we can trick these townsfolk into being generous with each other. I bet we can change their perspectives, just enough to make something magical happen.2
But my favourite thing to ask of a story is, what’s left out? What, for instance, was happening in each of those villagers’ lives? Perhaps their lives also felt too full, their to-do lists too long. Or their pantries too bare, their houses to dim and small and cold to be welcoming to a stranger. I wonder if they believed that because they didn’t have all the time or treasure in the world, they may as well give nothing. Did they think their gifts were so meagre and scarce that they couldn’t possibly matter?
What do you imagine was going on for them? I imagine that they got so used to the scarcity of their lives that they became stuck. It’s easy to get that stuck. To believe that there’s too much to do with too little. I’ve believed it, and sometimes it’s hard not to. Before becoming a minister, I worked with refugees in my hometown. The people in my program came from Nepal, Eritrea, Cuba, and many other places. They had gifts and stories I knew in part, and ones I never heard or saw at all. And each one was saving money for something different. A house for their family. A car to get to work. A small business that would support their own community. Little by little they saved up for their dreams. And we matched their savings along the way. It was a job where little things added up to some bigger pot of soup, every day.
At the best of times, that work felt so abundant. But there came a time when the lessons of abundance were lost on me. I was wrapped up in seeing just how much there was to be done, and with far too little. Too little time, too little support. More people needing support than I could give. I felt a lot of despair in that job, as many of us did from time to time.
And after talking it over with a coworker, she gave me a little gift. She found it in the back of our hymnal. She gave me a little piece of paper with these words we attribute to Edward Everett Hale:※
I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
What a blessing. What a perspective shift, just when I needed it. The real gift was that friend’s wisdom, which allowed her to perceive something I couldn’t yet.
In so many ways, that office was a big, bubbling pot of stone soup. Each of us supported our people with jobs, housing, and education. Each of us supported each other with the wisdom, experience, and attention of our lives. We were there for each other when we needed to get unstuck, and remember that abundance is closer to us than we believed.
The monks making the stone soup knew this was possible, too. They knew everyone had something to give. But to make that clear, they would need a little intrigue and trickery. First a fire, then a pot. Then some stones, and before they knew it, the villagers could taste and see and smell the abundance in their midst. An abundance of carrots, garlic, corn, and pots big enough to hold them all. An abundance of little, simple gifts that add up.
It just took someone else’s help. Sometimes I stumble into abundance on my own. I realized earlier this summer that the gaps in my schedule were more spacious, amounted to more than I thought. But what I have found to be true about abundance is that we rarely find it on our own. Sometimes it’s because I need someone else to redirect me with their wisdom. But often, it’s because my gifts can only go so far on their own. They have to be magnified by the gifts of others.
This is important and hard to remember. Any of you might stumble into unexpected abundance.
Maybe I could join the Canvass Team for a couple months this year, you think.
Maybe I could help make coffee or clean up in the kitchen.
But more often, we help each other find the abundance that already exists between us. The turning point I hear in the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker’s words is this, “More, the choice [to bless the world] will draw you into community…the endeavor shared…the companionship of struggle.”3 This perspective is especially important to share for those of us with deep roots in the community. So you might hear me say to someone, I know you’re busy with school, but I’ve heard you love sharing your music. Would you help us out in the service some Sunday? Or, I know you can’t join our kids in the classroom every Sunday, but could you help us once every month or two?
We are surrounded by blessing, by grace, by possibility.4 Blessing, grace, and possibility move through us and between us. They magnify each other and make the whole possible. We will not find abundance through ourselves alone, but with each other’s. Together–that is another possibility, waiting.5
※This quote is attributed to Hale in our hymnal Singing the Living Tradition as reading #457. The editors of WorshipWeb note that this quote never appears in Hale's archived or published materials. However, this exact quote was first attributed to Hale by Abbie H. Fairfield in a collection of quotes and affirmations. Other editors followed her citation, including the team which put together Singing the Living Tradition.
1. Rebecca Ann Parker, Blessing the World: What Can Save Us Now (Skinner House Books: 2006), excerpted as "Choose to Bless the World," WorshipWeb, uploaded February 9, 2017, https://www.uua.org/worship/words/blessing/choose-bless-world.
2. Jon J. Muth, Stone Soup(Scholastic Press: 2003).
3. Parker, Blessing the World.
4. Julián Jamaica Soto, "Celebrating Abundance," WorshipWeb, uploaded November 11, 2022,https://www.uua.org/worship/words/responsive-reading/celebrating-abundance
5. Parker, Blessing the World.