I’ve been struggling with the temptation to go
around barking that we are ungrateful and should be more grateful. In the end,
isn't it like telling someone they have to love someone? Can thanksgiving ever
be commanded? Can it be elicited by yet another scolding? Thanksgiving does not
come naturally or easily to me, as Goethe said, we remember thanks not given
but what of one we owe thanks? I think it a sterling spiritual practice ot read
and rewrite psalms of thanksgiving to learn the practice to get a good start on
that fundamental aspect of prayer.
Dt. 26 has an element of pushing a sense of
gratitude but presents the cause for gratitude in a most matter of fact way. No
one is self-made, not only in the very conception and gift of life, of course,
but we are social creatures who draw on the gifts of others all of the time.So,
the idea of gift and legacy is a sterling reminder of what we owe each
other. It pushes us into considering what we owe the future, or our posterity
as the founders of the nation called it.In our day, we have come to see the
environment as a gift as is life itself. Instead of a thing to be despoiled, we
are inching back to see it as a gift, legacy, and obligation to the future. Jefferson said that the fruit of the earth belong to the
living. Notice well, the fruti of the earth, what we use, is our right, but we
have no right to despoil the very cause of that abundance. Yes take the fruit,
but do not cut down the tree.
Phil. 4 concentrates the mind wonderfully
and then expects the heart will follow. If one keeps the mind focused on noble
truths on aspirations, it moves toward thankful wonder at life in this good
world. At the same time, I wonder if all of the nagging about being grateful
and thankful can reach into us. Thankfulness does not come naturally to the
human heart. When our hearts constrict it becomes even more difficult to find
that sense within. Words such as you should be more appreciative often fall on
deaf ears and hard hearts. Still, perhaps the words themselves and the thought
behind them may start to seep into a heart, to thaw its frozen core and let it
beat with gratitude. Paul’s advice gives structure to the organization of
an open mind and heart toward virtue. The vice of pride inhibits our ability to
feel gratitude, to even grasp the idea of a received gift.
In the movie Shenandoah form the Saturday
service Jimmy Stewart’s grace is a hilarious, to me, words of grace that most
of us consider one time or another, where he cleared and tended and harvested
and milled the grain, but he is thankful anyway. In a similar vein, J. Smith it
requires great grace to thank God for the grace given to others, when we are
convinced that we deserve plenty more. In the Saturday service, I was
struggling for finding a look or sound of gratitude, and I found something of
what I was seeking in of all places, in Schindler’s list. Recall Schindler was
an utter reprobate, but he started to use his con man skills to start to save
Jews in his employment as they started to come under his protection. Toward the
end, his assistant actually types up a list of people he would try to save that
would require that he spend most of his ill-gotten fortune to save, over a
thousand people. His assistant puts the typewritten list together, after he
realizes that Schindler is paying for each name on it r and says this is an
absolute good; this list is life, all around its margins lies the gulf.” Jefferson also said that life belongs to the living.
Westermeyer offers the great reminder that the
Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts...nevertheless they set aside a
day of thanksgiving. On the other hand, as Aristotle said, gratitude soon grows
old.
In the end, thanksgiving emerges from an enlarged spirit that nurtures heart and mind. Thanksgiving and gratitude flow from a life that sees gifts raining down as gifts,already given and gifts yet to be received.
No comments:
Post a Comment