​THANK GOD – A HABIT

As we prepare our tables, our travel, and our time off for another celebration of Thanksgiving Day, I find myself thinking that giving thanks is harder than it seems. I say “thank you” to people dozens of times a day. I say thanks for giving me my coffee, thanks for bagging my groceries, thanks for doing that thing I asked you to do. I do it so naturally and habitually that I wonder if I even know what I’m saying! Saying thanks is a habit. 

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Often my habit of gratitude is simply thanking someone who showed me kindness. I am thanking my neighbor. I am convinced that the world is a better place if we all do this as much as possible. Instead of thinking that the server is doing what is expected when they give me what I ordered, I can thank them and rejoice that they have answered the call to serve in this way.

When I “Thank God,” I am often embarrassed at how selfish and trivial I can be. “Thank God that (insert your favorite team here) won that game!” even though I’m unconvinced God cares about the outcome of a little boy’s game played by overpaid people. “Thank God I found a parking spot,” as if that is what how God spends the day – finding one person a good spot and punishing others with long walks.

Sometimes my thanksgiving gets warped by my cynicism, my judgments, or my bent view of the world. Like the Pharisee in Luke’s gospel: “‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’” (Luke 18:11-12) “Thank God I’m not that poor fool,” is not really thanksgiving at all. It is bragging. If we thank God for the lavish table before us because it means were better off than the people at a shelter or begging at a street corner, we may be missing the point.

On Thanksgiving Day (though perhaps it should be every day) we give thanks for everything to God. God is the object of our praise. When Abraham Lincoln first called the nation to observe the fourth Thursday of November, he directed our attention to the source of the gifts. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens . . . to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

The spiritual master, Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.” Turning our hearts and minds to the source of all that is what Thanksgiving is about, and so it is firstly about our relationship with God. Another more contemporary spiritual master, Thomas Merton said, “To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.” Giving thanks to God reveals more ways God has blessed us and allows joy to grow in our lives.

What about the time when we have nothing for which we can give thanks? When my table is sparse, my heath under attack, my family far away or gone how can I give thanks? These griefs are real and often painful. Yet, even in the face of these realities, giving thanks is a means of finding joy in what we have, not in what we do not. Tecumseh, leader of the Shawnee people, reminds me that my inability to give thanks is not a reaction to a lack of blessings. “When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.”

In this age and nation of plenty (and it really is), it is a paradox that we struggle to be content with the abundance all around us. Discontentment is at the core of the many things that divide us and cause us anxiety. One way we combat the discontented soul is to give thanks. Canadian Bible Scholar Henry Allen Ironside said, “We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction.”
I am learning that giving thanks to God in all things is indeed a discipline, a habit, a practice that is leads us into joy. I return over and over to an insight from a trusted spiritual guide, Henri Nouwen.

“Gratitude goes beyond the 'mine' and 'thine' and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. “

May you find joy in this season of Thanksgiving.

Pax Christi,
Tim Olson – Lead