Closing out November on the tail end of Thanksgiving weekend. A balmy black Friday meant– not shopping!!– one more reprieve for that last garden work. Grateful for that, so needed; now we’re back to some normal late fall chilliness. The bluebirds have been around, unexpectedly, to check their houses and say good-bye til spring. Will miss their sweet beautiful blueness.
Have been thinking of the grace that is at the heart of thanksgiving. The simple giving of thanks before a meal, or the giving of thanks on the fourth Thursday of November for a plentiful harvest, or for just surviving another year: they all come from the same place.
The Latin gratia— granted my Latin at its best (!) was several rungs below rusty– encompasses both grace and thankfulness, or gratitude. Nice.
It seems to be kind of in vogue to express gratitude, and that’s not a bad thing for sure. When it overlaps on the cult of happiness though, it does set my teeth a bit on edge. The expressions of how blessed and grateful people are throughout social media feel like part of the Facebook phenomena of letting the world see how good you’ve got it.
The real giving of thanks, and the grace at its heart, is such a simple, unprepossessing act. Not to diminish the importance of gratitude in any setting, but it is easy enough to give thanks when one has a home, a job, food, family, friends. What of so much of humanity that is lacking one or more of these, and those suffering war, privation, unthinkable loss? There the giving of thanks takes on an aspect of true grace.
In a space of grace, we let go of the need to control, and with it the sense of anything like happiness as birthright, or financial wealth as a calling– even when claimed as a means to help others, as it is just such a slippery slope.
Easy enough to extend generosity or act magnanimously when one has so much more than enough. As the saying goes, when you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence. People are afraid of losing their security, it’s understandable. But grace and gratitude, being gracious are about relinquishing control. It doesn’t require turning in all your possessions and wearing a hairshirt, but it is an attitude for sure. Pretty much, from ashes we came, and to ashes we shall return, and those earthly possessions are, well, earthly. If tomorrow they should all fall away, who would you be, and what would you give thanks for?
Something to think about as we turn from our day of giving thanks toward that big day of giving. For myself, more often than not I wake up feeling unequal to the task– of being grateful and full of grace in the face of heartbreaking loss. Sometimes, just getting up is as graceful and thankful an act as we can muster. The rest, well we graciously recognize we’re not in control, and let it go. Then one foot in front of the other, and breathe.