(With thanks to Pattie Lanktree for the image.)
For a few years
now I’ve been part of a male spirituality group. On occasion, distinct from our usual
meetings, we plan a special “Gratitude Meeting” at which the only agenda for
the meeting is for any who wish, to share what they are grateful for at that
moment.
It seems I don’t
get as excited by those meetings as the other guys. And I wonder why.
Am I just simply
ungrateful? Unwilling or unable to feel
and express gratitude for what I have, what I have been given, and what blesses
and saves me? Inclined instead to see
what I have as somehow my “possession” – mine to work at, earn, and claim as my
due reward?
Or am I
suspicious? Jaded and tempted to
cynicism by the kind of religious gratitude that thanks God for every big and
little answered wish and want – from the momentous to the frivolous, from the
deeply life-changing to the patently selfish?
The kind of thanksgiving that seems to cheapen the meaning of gratitude
and to shrink God down to a household deity pandering to self-centredness?
Or am I maybe
resentful? Envious of what others have, enjoy,
and have accomplished? Feeling cheated
and overlooked by life and by God in the blessings sweepstakes? Maybe sadly undone by my own mistakes and
issues along the way?
I’m thinking
about all this because I believe what’s said about gratitude being a first step
towards true spirituality, and a basis for contentment and resilience in
life. Also, gratitude is the theme of
both our Lenten discussion group and our worship this year.
The discussion
group will be using video interviews with Diana Butler Bass as the beginning
point for conversation about gratitude.
Bass has literally written the book on gratitude. It’s called Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks and in it she
chronicles her own difficulties with feeling and expressing gratitude, what she
has learned along the way, and the difference she sees it making to life. For five Monday evenings through March and
into April we’ll meet to talk about what her learnings might mean for us.
On Sundays the
theme of our worship is “Growing Gratitude.”
It will be a journey into the unknown as much for me as for you, and I
hope the journey will be good for us all.
At the moment,
two things stand out in my soul.
One – a general
point, is something Diana Butler Bass says early on in her book. She says gratitude at its deepest level is
not about specific things we get or that come our way and that we are thankful
for, but that it’s about learning to see how (and why) all of life, all that
is, and all that ever will be is gift.
That as one of many inter-dependent and deeply inter-connected creatures
(rather than as either creator or centre of the universe) we really make, earn,
and in the end deserve nothing as our own, and that the most honest thing we
can do is constantly to look around, feel wonder, and see what we can do to
happily and thankfully share what is there for the good of all.
As she puts it,
“the universe is a gift. Life is a
gift. Air, light, soil and water are
gifts. Friendship, love, sex, and family
are gifts. We live on a gifted
planet. Everything we need is here, with
us. We freely respond to these gifts by
choosing a life of mutual care.
“Some people
think of God as the giver of all the gifts.
Whether you believe God or not-God, however, gifts come first. We would not even exist without them. We are all beneficiaries … and we express our
appreciation by passing gifts on to others.
When we share gifts, we become benefactors toward the well-being of
all. Although it may be ‘new’ to some in
Western societies, this is an ancient understanding, one that echoes through
many of the world’s oldest and wisest sacred traditions. It is an invitation to … live more simply,
graciously, and freely, attuned to our own hearts, our neighbours, and the
common good.” (pp. xxiv-xxv)
The second thing
sitting in my soul is a practical thing.
It’s a minute – literally one minute in the middle of “A Beautiful Day
in the Neighbourhood,” the recent movie about Mr. Rogers.
Mr. Rogers,
played by Tom Hanks, is in a restaurant with a jaded, life-worn journalist
trying to figure him out. As their meal
arrives Mr. Rogers invites the reporter to join him in a minute of quiet
remembrance of all the people he can recall who have loved him into being. Reluctantly the reporter agrees and joins Mr.
Rogers in a full minute of silent remembering of all the people – good and bad,
easy and hard, likeable and unlikeable, who have loved him into being. (And it’s the “and’s” in the last part of
that sentence that are the important part.)
The way the scene
is scripted in the movie, the other people in the restaurant see what the two
men are doing and also fall silent for the minute. The way the scene is seen in the theatre, every
person in the theatre is also drawn into that one minute of silent, spiritual
remembrance of people along the way who have loved us into being. Japhia and I both felt it, and I know others
did too.
All of which makes
me both nervous about and drawn towards Lent this year. Gratitude as a spiritual challenge, a
transformative idea, and a practical exercise – what an interesting journey this
might be.
And one last
thing – yes, a third thing comes to mind, beyond the two I warned you about. A memory.
Of driving a few years ago to who knows where, listening to an Adele
recording of the Bob Dylan song, “Make You Feel My Love.” Crying as I listened to the song, deeply remembering
different persons who at different times in my life have loved me in ways the
song unveils.
“When the rain is
blowing in your face, / and the whole world is on your case, / I could offer
you a warm embrace / to make you feel my love.”
All the way through to “I could make you happy, / make your dreams come
true; / nothing that I wouldn’t do, / go to the ends of the Earth for you, / to
make you feel my love.”
I have known
people who loved me that way – at least, as close to it as they could manage
and as I allowed them.
And is maybe that
it? The secret – at least one of the
secrets, to gratefulness?
To know yourself
to have been loved in ways you neither earned nor deserved nor even could completely
comprehend? And to remember it?
p.s. The Adele version of the Bob Dylan song can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0put0_a--Ng
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