Monday night’s 12th annual Interfaith Thanksgiving celebration at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine attracted close to a full house in the 400-seat church sanctuary. Whether due to it being held on Monday, instead of the customary Tuesday, or because of full-throated encouragement from the participating church pulpits, the attendance was impressive. I would guess that many of us were searching for the comfort that comes from the unity of spirit, and we yearn to truly believe in the power of thanksgiving and gratefulness’a desire so profound that it transcends religious or non-religious allegiances. There is no doubt that the elephant in the room Monday night was our ongoing struggle to align the Founding Fathers’ call for virtuous leaders, protection of human rights and sovereign authority with our country’s present state of political polarization, disequalization of property and financial instability. And so the positive and hopeful message in prayer, chorus and chant was for unity created by our shared prosperity, altruism and compassion. The scripture vocabulary speaks of a bounteous God who has blessed us on our way, guides us when perplexed and fills us with peace. And while we are reminded at least once a year to meditate on our good fortunes, which even the most cynical of us can appreciate’if only the freedom to complain’we also know that we must stretch, to reach out beyond ourselves to ‘do instead of merely to pray/to become instead of merely to wish’ (from ‘A Prayer for Unity,’ adapted from Jack Riemer.) Helping those in need is really the key to lasting contentment and freedom from the exhaustion of acquisitiveness and overwrought competition. In a beautiful recitation in Hebrew and English by Kehillat Israel Rabbis Steven Carr Reuben and Amy Bernstein, the message of Isaiah underscored this truth: ‘If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.’ In his homily, Community United Methodist Reverend Dr. John Nagle honed the lesson with metaphor and amusing vignettes. A seemingly innocuous chant”God is good, all the time/All the time, God is good” distilled the message in it simplicity. Being thankful for what we have is more than a litany of clich’s, Nagle explained. ‘We can be thankful for all we have, but we seldom give thanks for things that are part of our daily living.’ He cautioned us not to concentrate on what we don’t have. That can lead to complaining, and how easily we can fall into that morass. ‘Gratitude breeds gratitude, complaints breed complaints,’ he said, supporting this truism with a story. ’A family was gathered around the Thanksgiving table and the father thanked God for the family together and the food, and then as soon as the prayer was over began to complain: the turkey was dry, the relative was late. At that point his little daughter asked him if he thought God had heard his prayer, to which he responded, ‘Yes.’ Then she asked him if God heard the conversation after the prayer? ‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘Which do you think He believed,’ she asked, ‘the prayers or the complaints?” The message of unity and thanksgiving was supported in music and chant. A combined inter-faith chorus of some 42 singers, conducted by Victor Long, performed the choral anthem during the offertory, ‘Peace, Shalom, Shalaam Aleikam,’ by local composers Barry Fasman (SRF member) and Rick Joswick, and ended with a prayer and eternal hope: ‘Today we come to Jerusalem, breaking down the walls of hate and fear until your will is done.’ The Congregational chant, ‘When Thy Song Flows Through Me,’ written by Self-Realization Fellowship Founder Yogananda Paramahansa, sealed the message of the evening in our hearts. Brother Satyananda, who has been director at the Lake Shrine for a year, offered the guided meditation and later, after we recessed, oversaw a gracious and bounteous reception. Representatives from seven of the Pacific Palisades Ministerial Association religious organizations offered a prayer for unity, which concluded with: ‘We all pray for our world to be safe, and our lives to be blessed.’ Amen.
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