Thanksgiving Day (U.S.)
Gratitude is strongest, clearest, most robust, and radical when things are really hard.
—Diana Butler Bass, Grateful
During a time of crisis, historian and author Diana Butler Bass shares an experience of committing to a practice of gratitude:
I did the only thing I could think of doing—simply saying “thanks” as I went through the day. I woke up with a brief prayer: “Thank you that I am alive.” I got coffee and breakfast: “Thank you for this food, this day.” I looked out the window: “Thank you for sunshine.” I went into my office: “Thank you for words, for work.”…
Even when it comes to thankfulness, sometimes you have to take what you can get. I took nothing for granted…. Over the weeks, with my hapless prayers, I discovered something quite unexpected: gratitude, like interest, compounds. This simple form of giving thanks made me pay attention and start looking for particular reasons to be grateful. There would always be grounds for ingratitude. Always. Seeking out the small things for which I could give thanks, however, changed my field of spiritual and emotional vision. I learned not to focus on what was lacking….
Gratitude is not a form of passive acceptance or complicity. Rather, it is the capacity to stare doubt, loss, chaos, and despair right in the eye and say, “I am still here.”
Butler Bass describes how a practice of gratitude empowers and enlivens us:
Gratitude is defiance of sorts, the defiance of kindness in the face of anger, of connection in the face of division, and of hope in the face of fear. Gratefulness does not acquiesce to evil—it resists evil … by tunneling under its foundations of anger, resentment, and greed. Thus, gratitude strengthens our character and moral resolve, giving each of us the possibility of living peaceably and justly. It untwists knotted hearts, waking us to a new sense of who we are as individuals and in community. Being thankful is the very essence of what it means to be alive, and to know that life abundantly.
Gratitude is not a psychological or political panacea, like a secular prosperity gospel, one that denies pain or overlooks injustice, because being grateful does not “fix” anything. Pain, suffering, and injustice—these things are all real. They do not go away. Gratitude, however, invalidates the false narrative that these things are the sum total of human existence, that despair is the last word. Gratitude gives us a new story. It opens our eyes to see that every life is, in unique and dignified ways, graced: the lives of the poor, the castoffs, the sick, the jailed, the exiles, the abused, the forgotten as well as those in more comfortable physical circumstances. Your life. My life. We all share in the ultimate gift—life itself. Together. Right now….
Gratitude calls us to sit together, to imagine the world as a table of hospitality. To feed one another. To feast, to dance in the streets. To know and celebrate abundance.
Reference:
Diana Butler Bass, Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks (HarperOne, 2018), 184–186.
Image credit and inspiration: Debby Hudson, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The silhouette of the person with hands open to the sky visually embodies gratitude as a recognition of life’s gift, showing how grace flows inward and outward, connecting self, community, and the divine.
Story from Our Community:
At 75 years and still growing, I find ever more appreciation for the CAC and its teachers. My wife and I have grown deeper in our faith and are continually grateful for the wide range of teachings and resources. I’m still grateful for Dr. Finley’s suggestion years ago to SLOW down in my reading and to take note of what I think the text is saying to me. What a difference it makes to go line by line and add my notes!
—Mike W.
