Gratitude

I woke up from a disturbed sleep, actually remembering what I dreamt about for much of the night. I was somewhere other than our library, asking little children to write out what they were thankful for, on tiny index cards. It was proving to be quite the challenge. And you know right when you wake up from dreams sometimes, and you think you really did all that was in  your dream? It took me a few minutes to reorient myself back to “reality.”

Asking adults what they are grateful or thankful for can be a challenge as well. One would think we would be thankful for some of the same things: family, friends, employment, a roof under our heads, having a spiritual force in our lives. Many are thankful for the freedoms we have in our lives, and owe that to the armed forces: this month when we are especially thankful, coincides with a day of remembrance and honoring our war veterans.

As human beings, in a world of disparities and various kinds of strife, we are in different places as far as gratefulness goes. As far as happiness goes. We struggle with the faults in the roofs over our heads. Or we are estranged from our families. Or we struggle with finding work and ensuring our basic survival. Homelessness abounds. So many struggle with finding that sense of inner peace, and happiness that is part of thankfulness. Or thankfulness that is part of happiness. Or both!

Woody Allen responded to a question someone asked about his outlook on life at a press conference, at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, “I do feel that it’s a grim, painful, nightmarish, meaningless experience and that the only way that you can be happy is if you tell yourself some lies and deceive yourself.” In such an experience, where the only path to happiness is through deception, is it possible to find the good? To be thankful?

Speaking as someone who may not fully embrace Woody Allen’s view of life, but who is closer to such a view than to optimism, I believe it is. I agree with Frederic Lenoir’s assessment that it is possible to reduce the negative character of our thoughts, while approaching life with greater gusto. And in doing so, we can be thankful for a number of things. We can find the good in the actions of certain people.

 I have been able to find the good in the actions of total strangers who are strangers no more. These strangers saw me walking, assumed that I was in difficulty, stopped their cars and introduced themselves so they could offer me a ride. From that day forward, each time they saw me walking, they would stop and offer a ride, and it was difficult to refuse their kindness, even when all I wanted to do was walk. During those rides, we have been getting to know one another. One day I told one of my new friends that I needed to find a way to stop people from wanting to give me a lift. He, a Pastor at one of the churches in town, gently admonished me for wanting to take away the blessing of being able to help someone. This makes me think of what Heather Lende writes in Find The Good:

                        I believe gratitude comes from a place in your soul that knows the story could

                        have ended differently, and often does, and I also know that gratitude is at the

                        heart of finding the good in this world -- especially in our relationships with the

                        ones we love. I see proof of this all the time. (Lende, 60)

I am filled with gratitude for what my new friends do for me, but they are blessed with gratitude as well, for letting a stranger into their lives and their cars. And so gratitude truly is at the heart of “finding the good” in this world.

Here’s what some folks have said about gratitude:

                        “Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” -- Jean-Baptiste Massieu

                        “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but

                        rejoices for those which he has.” -- Epicetus

                        “Gratitude is the best attitude.” - Unknown

                        “Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger

                        kind for what we give.” -- Edwin Arlington Robinson

                        “Wherever I have knocked, a door has opened. Wherever I have wandered, a path

                        has appeared.” - Alice Walker

                        “I feel a very unusual sensation -- if it is not indigestion, I think it must be

                        gratitude.” -- Benjamin Disraeli

                        “Who does not thank for little, will not thank for much.” -- Estonian Proverb

                        “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation

                        is not to utter words, but to live by them.” -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

                        “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” --

                        Cynthia Ozick

                        “Gratitude is merely the secret hope of future favors.” -- François de La

                        Rochefoucauld

Here’s to being thankful for what we do have. And thank you for what you have to share with us: your love of the written word, and more.