The Art of Truly Being Grateful
Some Ways To Help You Count Blessings After Turkey Day Has Passed
Another Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone. Turkey, ham, stuffing, pies, sweets, and drinks have all settled in our stomachs. Now, the allure of shopping deals and the upcoming December month is pulling us into the holiday season. We may find our money spent as quickly as extra food will settle in our hips. All of the extra excitement will certainly put us in the holiday mood, but will we remember Thanksgiving’s deeper meaning of gratitude? Paradoxically, the motions of the season may actually hinder our progress in an essential year-long journey the holiday season is meant to propel us towards — the journey towards attaining permanent and unrelenting gratitude. How can we remember to remain grateful after Thanksgiving has passed? How will this gratitude continue after all of the yuletide carols, candles, and cheer bestowed over the holiday season? Here are just a few of innumerable things that may help.
Embracing Those From Different Walks of Life
Thanksgiving is certainly the time for gathering with loved ones — those family members you haven’t seen in years or the friends you have made your family. Pass the potatoes and gravy, carve the turkey, and scoop up the pumpkin pie. Let all be happy and lovely. Smiles abound as conversations linger through food and drink. But was all so merry and grand this year when you saw those people you may even ignore every other day of the year? There were those kinfolk who just couldn’t seem to even remember your name or significant details. And what would the family gathering be without pulling out the common gossip files? Who was the infamous freeloader sponging off now? Did the relative with multiple criminal counts make parole? Oh, did you hear silent vibes of rebuff floating through the air toward those with dissenting paths from the social unit’s cultural, moral, and spiritual norms? Oh, is so-and-so’s wife from that other religion making a weird dish again? Did you see the bumper sticker of our out-there relative, the one who supports you-know-who running for office?
But aren’t the holidays about love, acceptance, and celebration of diversity? Does gratitude not include celebrating our unboundedly multi-faceted world with its countless hues and colors? Why not make this holiday season the time when you aim to begin offering more acceptance and understanding to those from different walks of life? For those people we know who come with an included abominable past or who would not receive the Person of the Year award, ought we remember their unlimited worth as human beings(and even some of the greatest of saints had a horrible history)? For those people with opinions, views, or even values and understandings contrary to our own, ought we embrace them with humility, open-mindedness, and maybe a pinch of appreciation for their distinct perspective? We do not have to agree with them and may not even be able to understand their viewpoints from our different frames of reference. However, we can at least be open to the prospect that their views and insights have just as much relational value and truth from a different angle(as well as considering areas where they do not).
Savoring the Small and Mundane
Thanksgiving was all so extraordinary and grand — grand get-togethers, grand food(and grand extra eating), grand decorations, and grand vibes all around. But soon that grandness may well up quicker than the dressing settles in our stomachs. As soon as you wake up from that turkey-induced nap, your smartphone may start ringing with to-do reminders while your household members may start begging you to go to the store for something other than overflowing leftovers. Monday will come around when the demands of work and home coalesce into limited time for relationships, rest, and rebalance.
But this is where the spiritual traditions emphasize you can find greater levels of spiritual insight — by learning to savor the unlimited riches in the ordinary. It is not just grand buildings, gatherings, or one-time-per-year celebrations where the sacred and numinous can be further discovered, but at the heart of everything in our world. As Thoreau writes in Walden:
“And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us.”
Those teeth-grinding work tasks, morning carpool arrangements, and heavy schedules light on relaxation time can be avenues for remembering and connecting with the Divine, offering thanks for blessings bestowed, revering the unlimited value of other people and things, and finding rebalance.
Giving Thanks In Each Season
As Thanksgiving quickly fades into the rearview mirror, the airs of the Western world soon bring a fragrance of holiday cheer. How wondrous and delightful! But not everyone is in a state of cheer and light-heartedness as lights glow on each street corner, and no life is without periods where a whole series of lights dim or seem to almost fade out. It is easy to be thankful when things are happy and merry(as we can easily tap into the unlimited riches unfolding each moment). But what about those not-so-bright times?
But just as the Bible prescribes: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). This is not saying that we should be pulling out the trumpets and banjoes to celebrate when bad things happen(often there is not enough sorrowful music that could be played to capture many dark realities). It is entirely reasonable and even necessary to fully experience, endure, and positively channel the toughest of emotions — among these are grief, anger, fear, and sadness. But the virtue of gratitude involves the active mining of the hidden blessings rising from the dust of those most horrendous of events. Even just the realization of one’s inner strength and resilience through a dark event is a discovery and celebration of a miraculous and immeasurable blessing.
Humility and Awe at the Unlimited Richness of Things
One thing that can happen during the holidays is the overwhelming necessity of poise, properness, and precision. The lights have to be hung at just the right angle. The turkey must be properly basted and cooked while the stuffing must have just the right sampling of vegetables and spices. And let’s not forget the provisions for Santa and his reindeer — a full plate of cookies(sugar perhaps) with a full glass of milk and carrots for the reindeer!
But the vast majority of things are beyond our understanding and control(in a positive sense). There is a dimension of unlimited mystery, incomprehensibility, and wonder at the heart of things. While carving the turkey or trimming the tree just so is important, it is also critical to keep an attitude of humility and awe at the unlimited richness of things. A deeper truth is that the continuous acquisition of knowledge and precision over numerous details of any quest does not need to diminish our realization of the infinite mystery of things, but can enhance it. As Albert Einstein so eloquently stated:
“To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms.”
Even the most mundane of tasks can bring us to a state of greater wonder and awe. Are you preparing the holiday vegetables steamed or cooked in a succulent special sauce? Does it not just astound you to consider the unlimited possibilities of combinations and mixtures available just in the small subsection of elements or compounds able to be prepared as food? Do you have to hang the ornaments on the Christmas tree just right? Do not lose yourself too much in awe at the incalculable number of possible ways those ornaments can be arranged! If ten ornaments could be arranged in 3,628,800 different ways (this is 10!), then you could spend whole years of your life and countless memory files just attempting to rearrange and capture a fraction of these possible combinations! Just imagine if you keep this eye for wonder and unbounded richness even after the holiday season! And this does not need to apply just to freshly carved meats or elegantly placed decorations, but to every part or parcel of the world.
Just a Starting Point
So we have thought of a few ways to keep the spirit of gratitude alive not just during turkey season, the holidays, or the coming New Year but throughout every season. But just like anything else, we have barely scratched the surface here. Countless other things can help instill an attitude of gratitude, just as I finish this I opened a charity fundraising email that markets: “Show thankfulness through giving.” Remember, it was Meister Eckhart who said “If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” Yet we can never be grateful enough for the unlimited riches unfolding each second in the world around us. So the prayer and spirit of gratitude need not be restricted to just one date in November or during a special season but can be offered throughout the whole of each of our lives.
