Sunday Service

When it comes to how we should travel through our lives, our culture and religion are clearly at odds. Culture cries, “Accumulate!” Religion counsels “Appreciate!” The mantras couldn’t be more different: The commercials surrounding us scream, “Go out and grab all you can!” The pulpits before us plea, “Learn to want what you have.” 

There’s an important reminder here: Gratitude is essential. It’s not simply a nice “extra” to get around to when we can. Or to put it another way, we aren’t built for constant striving and the pursuit of more. Instead, we need moments of pause in which we are filled and replenished by the large and small wonders of this world. As poet and philosopher, Mark Nepo, puts it: “The original meaning of the word “appreciate” means to move toward what is precious. So practicing gratitude reengages our aliveness—they awaken us to what is precious.” The implication here is clear: If we want to be truly alive, we need to pay attention when moments of gratitude arise.

But is that really it? Is that all we need to do? Wait for moments of gratitude to bloom and then stop and let their beauty sink in?

As our packet this month makes clear, many folks have their doubts. In one way or another, the voices within these pages point out that there is a big difference between appreciating the blessing of family and committing to sitting down together for dinner and intentionally sharing the blessings of one’s day. They go on to stress that it’s one thing to notice the beauty of nature; it’s quite another to pull yourself out of the rat race so you have time to enjoy it. And they certainly won’t let us forget that making a list of things we’re grateful for is impactful, but not nearly as powerful as the practice of “paying it forward.”

It’s all a way of gently pointing out that some of us practice gratitude passively and others actively. Or maybe the better way to put it is to say, gratitude needs our help! It can’t always flower all on its own, because there are serious threats out there: busyness, the lure of climbing the ladder, worries about the state of our world. They all work like weeds, suffocating and crowding out gratitude before it has a chance to sprout even the tiniest leaf.  

Which means that maybe the most important part of this month’s theme is the "nurturing" part. Sitting back and waiting for gratitude to arise is simply not enough. That’s just not how gardens grow. If we listen carefully to the call of gratitude, we will hear a challenge to change our lives, not just appreciate them.

So friends, as we weave our way through this month’s journey, may we carry with us the question of “What do I need to do a better job of noticing?” But may we also not forget the possibly even more important question of “What practices of weeding does gratitude need from me?”

And as we hold both of those questions tight, may the blooming begin!

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Nurturing Gratitude')

Ask Them About Gratitude

One of the best ways to explore our monthly themes is to have conversations about them with people who are close to you. It’s also a great way to deepen our relationships! Below is a list of questions to guide your conversation. Be sure to let your conversation partner know in advance that this won’t be a typical conversation. Telling them a bit about Soul Matters will help set the stage. Remember to also answer the questions yourself as they are meant to support a conversation, not just a time of quizzing them.

Come to your group ready to share what surprised you about the conversation and what gift or insight it gave you. As always, keep a lookout for how your inner voice is trying to send you a message of comfort or challenge through these conversions with others.

Gratitude Questions:

●       What’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? And if you could talk to and thank that lucky event, what would you say?

●       Which childhood experience are you most grateful for?

●       Which of your senses are you most grateful for at this stage of your life?

●       Has gratitude ever guided you through or rescued you from grief?

●       Who is the most grateful person you know? What part of them has rubbed off on you?

●       Which person in your life do you wish gratitude came more easily to?

●       What has life taught you about the power of appreciating others and telling them thank you?

●       What period of your life was gratitude most absent? What period was it most present?

●       When was the last time you were grateful for yourself?

●       What wakes you up to the gift of it all?

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Nurturing Gratitude’)

A George Bailey Gratitude Exercise

With all due respect to the traditional gratitude list, recent research suggests that, for some of us, it just doesn’t work. Adding up everything we are grateful for just falls flat.

The good news is that, for those of us like this, researchers have discovered a new and more effective way of helping us feel the deep joy that gratitude brings. Instead of adding up the gifts in our lives, this approach invites us to subtract them! Instead of reflecting on the presence of a positive event in our lives (“I’m grateful I met my spouse”), you reflect on its absence (“What if I had never met my spouse?”).

Think of it as a counterfactual meditation on our lives, inviting us to imagine a world where our most treasured blessings never occurred. It’s basically what the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life famously asked George Bailey to do. 

So, if you are one of those folks who never clicked with gratitude lists, give this a try:

●       Set aside an hour some morning or evening.

●       Pick something central to your life. It can be something you consider a blessing, but this works just as well with something you are neutral or negative about. So it could be your spouse, your kid, a risk you once took like taking a gap year to travel or starting your own business, a physical aspect of yourself like your red hair, a hobby like playing an instrument or doing a sport, an injury you suffered, or even a loss.

●       Imagine what your life would be like without this thing in your life. Play out what other things would not have happened if this thing about you didn’t exist. Make a list of those things.  

●       Spend some time with that list. Add to it and edit it as feels right. Once it feels finished, reflect on it, paying particular attention to what kind of feelings arose and what sparked those feelings.

●       Finally, if you feel comfortable doing so, share the thing you picked to remove from your life and the list of things that would have disappeared with it. Who should you share it with? Trust us, you will know.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Nurturing Gratitude')

Self-compassion isn’t about escaping your darkness but learning to love yourself there.

~ Jennifer Healey

Having compassion for yourself means that you honor and accept your humanness.

~ Kristen Neff

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.

~ Jack Kornfield

Hold yourself as a mother holds her beloved child.

~ The Buddha

She doesn’t want to wear short sleeves, she says,

because they will show her “old woman arms.”

Sometimes worry is just another word

for wanting to be loved just as we are…

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Compassion is not foolish. It doesn’t just go along with what others want so they don’t feel bad. There is a yes in compassion, and there is also a no, said with the same courage of heart… Buddhists call this the fierce sword of compassion. It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.

~ Jack Kornfield

You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.

~ Unknown

When you avoid conflict to make peace with other people, you start a war within.

~ Cheryl Richardson  

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Cultivating Compassion')

For many, meditation and compassion go hand in hand. By setting aside time to direct our attention and thoughts in very intentional ways, meditation re-wires our brain so we are able to experience the world and interact with others differently. The Buddhist practice of metta meditation (also known as loving-kindness meditation) is one of the most well-known compassion meditative practices, but there are so many other compassion-oriented guided meditations out there.

To honor this long-established connection between compassion and meditation, you are invited to establish a daily compassion meditation practice for a week (or two) this month. To help you explore the many types of meditations out there, we’ve put together a list of diverse guided meditations to try. You can find that list by following this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13QPwt93L89fvmbTTfBAOXEm4B4XYWCnHkjSdqGGoVjM/edit?usp=sharing

You do not have to do all the meditations on the list. Just pick the ones that interest you most.  

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Cultivating Compassion')

Those who do the most growing in this life are those who offer the most compassion to the parts of themselves that have not yet grown.

~ Andrea Gibson

We must admit—compassion is not always easy. Still, we choose it. Not because the world is kind, but because we can be.

~ David Breeden

 There is a hierarchy of responses when we encounter suffering. Pity says, “I see your pain.” Sympathy says “I understand your pain.” Empathy says, “I feel your pain.” Compassion says “I am with you in your pain and I will help.”

~ Rabbi Esther Adler

We were all broken from the same nameless heart, and every living thing wakes with a piece of that original heart aching its way into blossom. This is why we know each other below our strangeness, why when we fall, we lift each other, or when in pain, we hold each other, why when sudden with joy, we dance together. Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together.

~Mark Nepo

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

~ Pema Chödrön

Hurt people, hurt people… but, they help them too.

~ Iain Corbett

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Cultivating Compassion’)

October 2, 2025

This list of questions is an aid for deep reflection. How you answer them is often less important than the journey they take you on. So, read through the list of questions 2-3 times until one question sticks out for you and captures your attention, or as some faith traditions say, until one of the questions “shimmers.” Or as we like to say, “Read over them until one of the questions picks you.” Once you’ve identified it, go deeper by asking yourself:

●       What might my inner wisdom be trying to say to me through this question?

●       How might this question be trying to wake me up or get me to realize something through this question?

1. Has compassion ever helped you find your way home?

2. When were you offered compassion in an unexpected or unique way.? 

3. What’s your first memory of being compassionate with yourself?

4. Who is to thank for the way compassion “naturally” arises in you?

5. Where did your unkind and self-critical inner voice come from? Or maybe the better question is, whose unkind and self-critical voice taught your brain how to talk?

6. What do you need to do to stay tender and compassionate in the face of our consistently cruel political culture that wants you to go numb?

7. Which of these self-diminishing cultural lies do you struggle with the most, maybe without even realizing it: 1. I am what I have, 2. I am what I do, 3. I am what other people say or think about me, 4. I am nothing more than my worst moment?

8. Is it possible that your self-improvement efforts have subtly become acts of self-aggression?

9. How would your feelings about and actions with that “difficult person” in your life change if you somehow discovered they were doing the best they can or that their aggravating behavior is not a character defect but a wound that runs deep?  

10. In a world that needs so much compassion, many of us feel tangled up in and worn down by compassion fatigue. How might that struggle be eased if you more regularly asked yourself: What's mine to do? What’s not mine to do? What’s mine to say? What’s not mine to say? What’s mine to care about? What’s not mine to care about?

11. Is it time to stop beating yourself up for that poor decision you made long ago? Is it time to remind yourself that you made the best decision you could have with the information and skills you had at the time?

12. What if your busy and important life is the true enemy of your compassion?

What’s your question? Your question may not be listed above. As always, if the above questions don't include what life is asking from you, spend the month listening to your days to find it.

(Curated and adapted for KUF from the 2025 Soul Matters materials on the theme ‘Cultivating Compassion')