For What Should We Be Thankful?
My friend Joe’s trip to the airport the other day was the stuff of nightmares. He was headed to Detroit by way of Newark, and it was not pretty. On the way to the airport his car blew out two tires, and the tire shop which he eventually found charged him $600 for replacements.
From the tire shop he continued to the airport by taxi, but by then he had a little cushion because the flight had been delayed thirty minutes. Finally on the plane and out on the runway, however, one passenger got sick, and it was back to the terminal to let that guy off. Then the plane taxied out again, only to develop engine problems. Back to the terminal they went, yet again, and this time everyone got off. Then at 3:30 pm they cancelled his 9:50 am flight. Have a nice day.
That was just the beginning of Joe’s travails that day, but this portion of his tale of woe is enough to make a point. Life does indeed have its major and minor catastrophes, but it’s important always to maintain a sense of perspective, and there’s no better time for that than Thanksgiving Day.
I’m always amazed to meet people who have no sense of how blessed they are. All too often their daily thanks tend to be of the sort that goes like this: “There but for the grace of God go I.” In short, we reference the lowest common denominator of inconvenience or human suffering, and then are grateful that our lives are not worse than they are. We might even give thanks that life is good because it’s not terrible. It’s true that we can be grateful for all that, but isn’t there just a little bit more to our lives? Sure it could be worse, but is there nothing to excite us on Thanksgiving other than a feast, a day away from the routine, and a surfeit of televised sport? Of course there is, and happily most of us know that.
This Thanksgiving I will pass up the chance to give thanks for great wealth, power or influence. These have always eluded my grasp anyway, and to be honest I’ve never spent the bulk of my energy trying to acquire them. Instead I will rely on the tried and true items for which I tend to be grateful on a fairly regular basis.
First off, I give thanks for life and for parents who cared enough to provide me a home and share their values. I give thanks for friends, who really are a gift from God and aren’t something you can buy at the store. I give thanks for enough material goods to keep me going, but not so many that they take over my life and distort my vision of myself and reality. And then I’ll give thanks for the faith which others have shared so generously with me. Faith is a pretty intangible thing, but it’s been the key ingredient that’s given me direction when I’ve been lost at sea. It’s provided the reason to go on in those moments when life can seem pointless.
This year I’ll also give thanks for those simple words of encouragement that have made all the difference in the world to me, since childhood. Generous people scarcely realize the good they can do when they offer a kind word or point out the talent they see in others. Often they never know what such a simple gesture can accomplish. But it happens, and it happens far more than you might imagine.
This Thanksgiving one last-minute addition will make the list, and it’s this: it’s the awareness that I can and ought to do better, and that I still have some time to do it.
On the day that Joe didn’t go to Detroit, I was at the airport grousing about how it was taking forever for the shuttle to get from the terminal to the car rental facility. Then I was cranky because people couldn’t get off the bus fast enough. And then there was the long line at the counter, filled with people who seemed never to have rented a car before. Could life possibly get any worse than this? Two hours later I read Joe’s email and realized it could.
On Thanksgiving I’m not going spend time being grateful that my travel experience was not as horrible as Joe’s. Rather, I plan to be grateful for the ability to put things into perspective. Besides, I should know better than to pray for a seamless travel experience in life when there are other things of far greater import.
So this Thanksgiving I’ll express gratitude for friends and faith, but I’ll also give thanks for the good sense that lets me rank these things first in my life. On any given day, they are even more important than an on-time departure and arrival.
+On November 17th I presided and preached at the abbey Mass.
+On November 17th and 18th I attended meetings of the Trustees of Saint John’s Univesity. Unfortunately, they were cut short by an impending storm, which materialized on the morning of the 18th. It was our first serious freeze of the winter, and we got all of four inches of snow.
+Beginning on the evening of November 18th, and continuing through to the 19th and 20th, I gave a retreat to members of the Federal Association of the Order of Malta, gathered at Montserrat Jesuit Retreat House, located north of Dallas, TX.
+The topmost photo in today’s post is a glimpse into the garden greenhouse. There a selection of squash, raised in our garden, prepare for storage in the abbey’s cellars. My friend Larry Haeg happened to take this beautiful photo, and I am grateful for his willingness to let me make use of such a lovely fall portrait.