A Thanksgiving of Unnoticed Gratitude

It’s Thanksgiving time here in the United States, and what a strange season we are in.  There’s a war being waged on peaceful indigenous people and their allies in North Dakota, people who are continuing to stand strong to keep the Dakota Access Pipeline from being completed (and eventually poisoning the Missouri river watershed.)  People in high office in this country seem to have missed the history lessons that taught us about the horrors that result from unchecked, systematic racism and the danger that lies in acting from fear, hate, entitlement, and greed. Work hours are long, jobs are lost, people are sick, loved ones are hurting, the dog is getting old.  There are many things to lament.  But we might do ourselves a favor and take a break from the lamenting to give thanks as well.  Gratitude is always possible. Elie Wiesel wrote, “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”

So, let’s take that to heart shall we?  Let’s let some gratitude in to sit next to all the other things that need our attention.   Sometimes it takes a little digging to get under the surface.  But when we can go there…..that’s when we can tap into our full humanity.  I don’t know about you, but I’d like gratitude to be included in my attitude description.

When asked to give thanks at the holiday table, we might say we are thankful for good health, family, friends, and food, if we are fortunate enough to have those things.  Maybe we are thankful for a good job, a nice car, a successful quarter, a negative test result. But what goes unnoticed, even for those who are veterans at practicing gratitude?  Maybe it’s the feel of a warm oak-plank floor as the wood stove gets going late in the evening.  Maybe it’s the contrast that a chaotic barn provides to the unusually tidy house when you go out to feed the chickens before the holiday guests arrive for the long weekend.  Maybe it’s the gasp of frigid air into your lungs that pierces your attention and reminds you how extraordinary it is to experience life on a living Earth that is constantly in flux and always changing.  Maybe it’s the vivid red of a cardinal against a backdrop of pure white, framed by the boughs of an old evergreen.  Maybe it’s the way the late afternoon light filters through the ice crystals that cling to the hay that got left in the fields.  Maybe it’s a heart that beats, even if it feels like it’s breaking.  Maybe it’s a mind that seeks clarity even when the fog is thick.  Maybe it’s a spirit that craves the presence of something bigger than yourself.  Maybe it’s a force that you can’t see that reminds you that you aren’t alone, no matter how many others say grace with you at your table.

May these final weeks of the year, whether if felt like a year of joy, pain, hardship, triumph or defeat, be for you a season of gratitude, whatever country you are in and whatever beliefs and cultures inform your actions.  May this season invite you to honor the abundance and the beauty that is possible when you dare to look for it.  May you always notice the beauty that punctuates the days, even if you have to look under the grime.  And may that attention to gratitude give you a foundation from which to be in the world.

may you see grace
wherever your eyes land.

May you need not look far
to feel the humbling knee-buckling delight
in being alive.   ~Chris Heeter