Grateful

 

              In Diana Butler Bass’s Grateful: The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks she explores the ins and outs of thankfulness, what it means to be and do gratefulness individually and collectively.

She quotes a Benedictine monk who observed, “Ninety-nine percent of the time we have an opportunity to be grateful for something. We just don’t notice it. We go through our days in a daze.” To shake off that daze Bass recommends habits of gratitude. An example she uses is the Buddha’s playful way of remembering to be thankful every day no matter what—start by being thankful that you learned a lot today, and if you didn’t learn a lot at least a little… and he keeps noticing smaller and smaller things to be thankful for until finally he says, “well, at least be thankful that you didn’t die today.”

Bass notes that gratitude is contagious, that scientists have noticed that experiencing moral elevation, that is, being emotionally attracted to acts of moral beauty, makes people more grateful. Celebrating charity and kindness creates more opportunities for the same in others!

Finally, she analyzes the book Pride and Prejudice, as well as Jesus’ beatitudes, as a way to think about the difference between quid pro quo (this for that) and pro bono (for the good). One fosters the aforementioned book title, the later their opposite—Humility and Equality.

So, if even half of what Bass says is true, the regular Christian practice of thanksgiving, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,” is where we are cultivating eyes to see goodness that is otherwise hidden by the daze of our every day. We’re expanding not only our own practice of gratefulness, but also opening up the opportunity to experience moral beauty to others. This in turn encourages our society as a whole to be humbler and more equal!

              One of the ways I have made the practice of thanksgiving during the Eucharist less subtle is to invite the congregation to take a moment to pause and reflect. To “consider what, since you last received this Thanksgiving meal, you are most thankful for.” And I’ve been astonished how 15-20 seconds of silent reflection before beginning the Great Thanksgiving moves folk. I think they are experiencing this moral beauty Bass describes.