|
By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
November 21, 2010
Reading
Thanksgiving Song
As the Great Dynamo who powers the wheels of seasons and years
Turns autumn once more into winter,
At this season of Thanksgiving,
We give thanks for all seasons.
For winter, who strips trees to their basic design,
For stark, minimalist winter,
We give thanks.
May we let go, and grow bright as stars in a clear, frosty night,
The more we are stripped of what we thought we could not do without.
For the springtime that bursts forth,
Just when we think winter will never end,
For irrepressible springtime
We give thanks.
May we never forget the crippled, wind-beaten trees,
How they, too, bud, green and bloom,
May we, too, take courage to bloom where we are planted.
For summer, when fruit begins to ripen more and more,
For the green, swelling high tide of summer
We give thanks.
May we trust that time is not running out, but coming to
fulfillment,
May we wait patiently while time ripens.
For autumn and its slow growing fruition
For that season of ultimate rise and fall
We give thanks.
May we gracefully rise to the occasion of our own falling,
Giving ourselves just enough time to go beyond time
To the great Now
At the quiet center of the turning wheels.
We give thanks for all seasons
At this season of Thanksgiving.
Br. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.
Gratefulness.org
Sermon
I don’t know about you, but I don’t always feel thankful—even when
I’m supposed to, especially when I’m supposed to. I know I ought to
feel thankful. After all, I have plenty to be thankful for, but I
don’t quite get there.
You might notice a subtle change in the title of this sermon from
how it was originally announced to what appears in your order of
service. My initial title was Giving Thanks, and I described what I
anticipated my sermon to be like this, “Thanksgiving serves to
remind us of what must be the most basic religious affirmation:
gratitude. Gratitude for what has been given to us, gratitude for
life itself. In this sermon I would like to reflect on these themes
of Thanksgiving and how they might both challenge and renew us.”
There’s nothing wrong with that. It sounded pretty good when I wrote
it back in October with Thanksgiving still weeks away, and several
sermons stuck in between. But what was safely in the future back
then has become now, and while I agree with what I wrote, I don’t
know what to say that goes much beyond that.
That’s why I changed the title to what it is now, Giving Thanks
(When You Maybe Don’t Feel Like it).
● ● ●
There is every reason to be intentional about expressing thanks.
According to something called “gratitude research,” people who
express gratitude are happier than those who don’t. They have a
stronger sense of self esteem because expressing thanks encourages
us to focus on what we have and who we are rather than what we don’t
have and who we aren’t. Expressing gratitude helps us negotiate
stress and trauma by reinterpreting negative life events; what had
seemed bad then doesn’t seem quite so bad now when placed in a more
positive context.
Living with a sense of gratitude encourages moral behavior in that
we are more likely to try to help others. We are also less likely to
be materialistic because we are satisfied with what we have.
Gratitude helps create and strengthen social bonds, brings us closer
together, makes it easier to form new friendships as it also leads
to deeper and more lasting connections with the people already in
our lives. In our family we have a practice of thanking each other
for doing everyday tasks and showing ordinary courtesies: picking up
after ourselves, working hard on an assignment, taking time to
listen, making a meal, taking out the garbage, raking the leaves,
showing care and consideration. We thank each other for ordinary
things as an everyday ritual that expresses the regard we have for
each other.
According to this research, living with a sense of gratitude
discourages comparing ourselves critically with others because we
are more attentive to appreciating the contribution each makes. It’s
also good policy in organizational work, be it that of the private
corporation, the non-profit world or the church. You get a lot
farther appreciating people’s good work and encouraging them to
build on that than by criticizing mistakes and faults at every turn.
I have heard it said that religion is primarily a matter of
gratitude, no matter what religion we encounter. Gratitude is more
basic than belief; it is more basic than faith. That is, gratitude
for the blessings that come our way in this life we have been so
mysteriously given. Gratitude for the gift of life itself.
In the Jewish tradition, we find this advice, “Whenever feeling
downcast, each person should vitally remember, ‘For my sake, the
entire world was created.’” In the Baha’i faith it is said, “A
thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining
soul complains even in paradise.” “Nothing is more honorable than a
grateful heart,” observed the ancient Roman philosophy Seneca. In
the Psalms, we are reminded, “This is the day the Lord hath made; we
will rejoice and be glad in it.” And the poet, e. e. cummings—son of
a Unitarian minister—began a well known poem, “I thank you God for
most this amazing day.”
Thankfulness is all these things: good for body, mind, and spirit;
creator and sustainer of relationships; the most basic religious
attitude. But sometimes we’re not quite there. We sit down to a
Thanksgiving dinner piled high with plenty, and we might find our
attention wandering to other places than feeling the gratitude
that’s supposed to come.
● ● ●
There’s a story from the Zen Buddhist tradition that involves a man
walking across a field when he hears a rustling in the tall grass
beside him. He turns to look and finds himself staring into the
hungry eyes of a large tiger. The man runs, fear giving him
extraordinary speed and stamina.
But the tiger is always behind him, drawing closer. Then up ahead
the man sees a cliff, too late for him to change directions. He
reaches the edge, pauses and the tiger too slows down, perhaps
relishing the reward that is about to be his. In desperation, the
man looks down over the cliff and notices a vine growing out from
the side. Maybe that vine would be strong enough to hold him and
besides, what choice does he have, so he leaps off the cliff, grabs
for the vine, and catches it—and the vine holds. He looks up at the
tiger that has reached the edge of the cliff, peering down at him.
Now the man looks below and realizes that the cliff is not so high
as he had first thought. He could cling to the vine and lower
himself just enough to drop to the ground. But as he surveys the
territory below, what does he see down there, looking up? Another
tiger.
Well then, he could wait these two guys out, cling to the vine until
after dark when at least one of them will tire of waiting and wander
off. But just then he notices two mice coming out of their holes,
scampering over to the vine, and they begin to gnaw at it, slowly,
resolutely, weakening the vine with each bite.
Now the man sees something else, off to the side of his vision. It’s
red: a spot of bright red—a strawberry that is just within his
reach. He picks the strawberry, brings it to his mouth, takes a
bite: he has never tasted anything so sweet.
● ● ●
Human beings can be perverse creatures. We experience gratitude at
odd times. Not necessarily when surrounded by plenty, which is when
you think we would be the most thankful, but also in times of
duress.
After 9/11, the second most commonly reported emotion—after
sympathy—was gratitude. Not gratitude for the attack but gratitude
for the lives we have. For a brief while, we did not take the simple
gift of being alive for granted.
In studies of people who experience sudden and unexpected good
fortune—such as, winning the lottery—they report feeling happier and
thankful in the immediate aftermath. But in a short while their mood
reverts back to about what it had been before. Good fortune creates
a blip in their quality of life that does not last. Their gratitude
is short-lived.
On the other hand, those who sustain a serious injury sometimes
report that, unexpectedly, their lives become better. A college
professor told the following story, “In one of my recent courses, I
had a severely disabled older student named Brian. He has some
mobility–but not much–in his hands and is able to control a
wheelchair by pressing on a lever located near his shoulder with his
bent right hand. One day the class was going around the room and
talking about their happiest moments in life. This is what Brian
said: ‘My happiest moment is kind of a perverse one. It was the day
that I came home from the hospital, after my accident. I felt
defiant. I said, ‘Ha! I’m still alive! I beat you!’ I don’t know who
exactly I beat. But I felt grateful that I was home. It seemed like
a little thing, but being home from the hospital after four months
was so good.’” (Sonja Lyubomirsky in The How of Happiness)
I remember hearing a presentation given by a person with AIDS. This
was back when AIDS was new and just about always a death sentence.
This young man was emaciated, yet his eyes sparkled, and his voice
was filled with life. He said “AIDS is the best thing that has ever
happened to me.” He let that sink in, then continued, “I know how
implausible that sounds, but AIDS has made my life better. I am a
better person than I was before.”
In our society the prescription for achieving the good life centers
around gathering more strawberries. If one is good, two is better,
and a basketful must be best, except when compared with a truckload
of strawberries which must surely be better still. But the
commentary on the Buddhist tale I have just told offers a different
direction. If we want to grow spiritually, perhaps what we need is
not more strawberries. Perhaps what we need is tigers—tigers that
bring us into the intensity of this moment and teach how miraculous
it is and call us to be thankful and make the taste of that one
strawberry so intense.
● ● ●
Last year Amy and I had a traditional Thanksgiving in our home with
all four children, plus a girlfriend and a boyfriend, two grandmas,
Amy’s brother and sister-in-law and their son. We set up a big table
in our downstairs family room because there wasn’t enough room
upstairs where we usually eat, and we spread out a feast of plenty.
The two grandfathers had died during the previous year so there was
a bittersweet quality to the celebration, but we toasted this
opportunity to be together and felt thanks all around.
This year will be different. Amy and I are under doctor’s orders to
have a quiet Thanksgiving. We’re not supposed to go anywhere or do
any entertaining so that Amy can get the rest she needs to recover
from the effects of the cancer treatments of this past year. And
also to give me an opportunity to recover some grounding after this
challenging time.
Our grown-up children will be scattered in different places for
Thanksgiving this year: one in Cleveland, one in London, one in
Tennessee, one landing at Dulles airport on a flight from Uganda on
Thanksgiving day. Other members of our family will be in North
Carolina and Illinois while Amy and I have Thanksgiving at our home
in Silver Spring, just the two of us, together. That sounds just
fine to me. Actually, it sounds quite wonderful. We are both looking
forward to it. After a year of tigers—tigers above, tigers below—our
strawberry is this quiet simple time. This is the Thanksgiving that
is ours this year and for that we are grateful.
So it appears that this year when I’ve had a hard time getting into
the mood of Thanksgiving, what’s finally got me here is not
contemplating the things for which I’m thankful. I am thankful for
all kinds of things, but what has brought a stronger sense of
gratitude is something else: tigers.
My point is not that we should all go off in search of tigers in
order to experience our full measure of thankfulness. We don’t have
to go out looking for tigers; they find us. There’s lots of tigers
out there, and they find us. Different tigers find different people,
but they’re all tigers nonetheless.
What I want to say, rather, is that our losses, our disappointments,
the things that have come up short in our lives: they have their
place in this feast of plenty we call Thanksgiving. They are not to
be consigned to a place of shame. Life’s imperfections are part of
the feast. They provide its flavor and intensity. No tigers, no
sweetness.
The poem called Thanksgiving Song with which I began, speaks of
gratitude for all of this: the good times and the bad, the victories
and the defeats, life’s imperfections and limitations—all of the
seasons, thankfulness for all of life’s seasons.
As the Great Dynamo who powers the wheels of seasons and years
Turns autumn once more into winter,
At this season of Thanksgiving,
We give thanks for all seasons.
For winter, who strips trees to their basic design,
For stark, minimalist winter,
We give thanks.
May we let go, and grow bright as stars in a clear, frosty night,
The more we are stripped of what we thought we could not do without.
For the springtime that bursts forth,
Just when we think winter will never end,
For irrepressible springtime
We give thanks.
May we never forget the crippled, wind-beaten trees,
How they, too, bud, green and bloom,
May we, too, take courage to bloom where we are planted.
For summer, when fruit begins to ripen more and more,
For the green, swelling high tide of summer
We give thanks.
May we trust that time is not running out, but coming to
fulfillment,
May we wait patiently while time ripens.
For autumn and its slow growing fruition
For that season of ultimate rise and fall
We give thanks.
May we gracefully rise to the occasion of our own falling,
Giving ourselves just enough time to go beyond time
To the great Now
At the quiet center of the turning wheels.
We give thanks for all seasons
At this season of Thanksgiving.
Br. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.Gratefulness.org
● ● ●
|
