In elementary school, I was an altar boy for our Catholic services, meaning I’d help prepare for the Mass and put things away afterward. I assisted at weddings and funerals, too.
One funeral remains in memory after all these years.
A small group – perhaps two dozen people – gathered for a funeral the day before Thanksgiving on a bitterly cold day in Cleveland. At the cemetery, the wind off the lake turned their teary cheeks bright red. Their pain was palpable.
I wondered: What will these people feel tomorrow on a day set aside to give thanks? What does “gratitude” mean in such moments: death, divorce, illness, depression, separation, a lost job, not enough money to pay all the bills?
What is gratitude? Is it even possible in those times?
Our culture has rendered gratitude irrelevant. We’re told to earn everything. Everyone must pull themselves up by their bootstraps. You get what you deserve.
No wonder we skip over the one day annually set aside for thanksgiving. When we convince ourselves that everything is earned, we develop a sense of entitlement – I’m just getting what’s coming to me – that leaves no need for actual thankfulness.
The “prosperity gospel” sells the same illusion that we earn our health and wealth and God’s favor by believing the right things and following the right code of conduct. Some people are worthy; others are not. If someone’s struggling, just tell them to pray harder and live more like you.
Our prayers of thanksgiving can absorb this sense of entitlement: Thank you God that I have a roof over my head … unlike those other people; thank you that we have this food … unlike so many others.
Thank you, God, that I am not like them.
No wonder our thanksgiving is a miserly confinement to one meal on one day in the midst of a months-long Christmas spending splurge.
The illusion of worthiness
We need to get back to gratitude, which is more than a day or a prayer or a meal. It’s how we get to know God.
Gratitude sets aside our illusions of worthiness and grounds us in humility. We recognize all we have, all we are, is a freely given gift – none of it earned.
Creation has gone on a long time without you and me and could have continued just fine without us. Yet in this moment, God decided creation was incomplete without us.
Think of that! We’ve been invited to the divine party — an invitation totally unearned and unmerited on our part. And all we can say is: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
As we grow in the spirit of gratitude, we become less like the older child in the famous parable, the judgmental one who stands with arms crossed and jaw set, refusing to join the party. He’s not thankful for the Parent’s unlimited and unearned love; he’s only interested in making it an earned reward for those like him.
Like his prodigal brother, he lacks a grateful heart, one that recognizes love and trusts it. Gratitude involves a deep trust.
When we’re in tough times – someone has died, something has been lost, we’re struggling and confused and anxious – we’re reminded to trust that God’s love and presence are always with us.
Gratitude involves a deep trust
The One who decided creation is incomplete without us will take care of us and get us through whatever we’re up against in the moment, including the transformative moment of death. For that, we’re thankful.
Gratitude grows as we get to know God more intimately and trust more deeply. We become less clingy and let go of some of the anxiousness that blocks gratitude from taking root in our hearts.
We relax into God’s love and hear that voice calling us beloved. We’re thankful not just with the words of our prayers, but with the generosity of our lives. We’re grateful not only for what we have, but for all that is in the moment.
For all of it, we humbly say: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Living Gracefully 