What do we have to be thankful for?
Say what?
For much of my life, I have lived at a pace that didn’t allow me to stop to smell the roses. Even worse, when I was forced to slow down and smell some roses, I began developing a defense for the practice in relationship to my work. Smelling the roses had to be something that served the larger purpose of work. I smelled the roses so that I could rest, or be inspired, so that I could get back to work. Why? Well, simply because I believed that I never did enough.
That has changed a bit in the past few years, thankfully. My experience of burnout, my life turning upside down on account of the pandemic, and a tactile encounter with a way of life that didn’t spin me out of order, all pointed to the real possibility of a different way. The grooves of intense productivity, singular focus, and high achievement are still there and often take significant work to not land in again. However, my experience of the alternative – a life of ease, lightness, peace, and rest – is strong enough within me that I know what it feels like. I have some sense memory of the difference between the two. Which brings me to thinking about thankfulness.
One of the aspects of a life of speed is the need to take things for granted. There is no time to remember that someone giving attention to your need is a gift, for example. It becomes just what is necessary for you to do the next thing. Of course, if you are continually wrapped up in whatever the next thing is, the current need is the most important thing, if only for the sake of the next thing. The problem I’ve encountered with this way of living is that there is always a current need and a next thing. It never ends. That is, unless there is an interruption.
Interruptions can be experienced numerous ways. Illness, revelation, injury, a good friend, mental health crises, caring family, or a new opportunity, can all bring an end to the destructive cycles that we are susceptible to. Of course, the interruptions that cause less physical, mental, emotional, even spiritual hurt, are preferable, and for good reason. Regardless, interruptions signal an end to – even a loss of – something that we have gotten used, or may have even thought was good. I was deeply invested in my achieving what I thought was the fulfillment of my purpose in this life – succeeding in each one of my roles as son, tap dancer, leader, teacher, and more. An interruption to any one of those pursuits of success signaled a failure to me – a loss of a goal, a win, or an opportunity to bring joy to others who were betting on me. It wasn’t until everything failed at the same time that I was forced to stop and rethink the way I was approaching things.
A Different Way
The first thing I had to do was begin to stop taking things for granted. To do this, I had to think very slowly about all the things that were necessary in order for me to do all that I was currently doing. This list began to look something like this:
My parents, the good and the challenging aspects of our relationship
My friendships, the hard and the easy ones
My mentors, the healthy and unhealthy who both shaped me
My past experiences, the ones that hit the mark and the ones that didn’t both propelled me
My body, with all its strength, frailty, past achievements, future deterioration, and injuries along the way is what allows me to move
This is to make little mention of the habits of thought and action that had served me so well up until this point. I realized that all the access to information, technology, people, and spaces that I have been gifted with throughout my life had also been taken for granted. All of it. I say all of it, because even as I share this, taking one bit for granted seems to be akin to taking the whole gift of life for granted. It is at least a slippery slope for me. I thought I was thankful, but I realize that it has been more of a hi-five-while-on-the-run kind of thankfulness. Writing this list made me slow down and really see things differently.
One of the key experiences here was encountering a sober kind of gratitude for the harder things. This isn’t to say that the harder things are innately good, make me happy in any way, or have to have some larger purpose in them. Sometimes hard things are just hard and hurt things hurt. Sometimes we do the hurting and sometimes we get hurt. I’ve been on both sides to be sure. The thing I sit with today, is that I wouldn’t have become who I am without going through the hard experiences, including betrayal and bullying, resistance and resentment. Even this acceptance is a hard thing to work out as the remnant of such experiences is formative. We can become a particular kind of person on account of hard things, and not necessarily in the best ways. Of course, I’m not done and I’m thankful that I’m more aware now of how I’ve been shaped thus far. With that awareness I can be engaged in how my current thoughts and actions may be shaping me for the future. With that engagement I can interrupt myself, make new choices, and experiment towards becoming more of the kind of person I’m aiming to be. And for that I am thankful.
A Daily Practice
Just in case anyone reading thought that something like practicing thankfulness was a one-and-done endeavor allow me to reassure you of something different. Practicing thankfulness, that is reminding myself of what all I really have to be thankful for – from the tiniest thought, to the life changing opportunity – is a daily practice. It is a daily practice in the same way strength training is a regular practice, or studying a particular topic is a regular practice. These practices are regular so that I, my being, can adapt into them. Without the regularity of practice, my previous habits of thought and action will be what I land in. They are like magnets attracting me towards them. There is effort that I must exert on a regular basis to pull me away from them. That is what I can do. The rest I leave up to God.
Speaking of God
You may have noticed the blaring omission of God from my list of things I had been taking for granted earlier. There is something that I have noticed about my relationship with God that is brand new for me, and that I am only recently being able to articulate. It has to do with formalities. There is an aspect of thankfulness – expressing gratitude – that is wrapped up in the formalities of etiquette. After you receive something, you say, “Thank you.” If you receive a gift, you write a thank you card. Etiquette is a matter of respect and honor, both good things. Respect and honor are both ways of building a kind of trust that can lead towards greater intimacy. I know you and see you as someone I want to respect and honor through my choices. Such an acknowledgement can be the beginning of something much greater and deeper between two people.
But there is a hitch here that we may get caught on. That is, the moment when intimacy is offered and we respond with a formality. When I approached God in the past, I used to be highly concerned with the rightness of my approach. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I was caught up in honoring God. I didn’t want to be with him if I thought I had done something wrong, or felt bad about a situation. I didn’t want to be with him if I wasn’t sure about what to say. I didn’t want to be with him if I thought I hadn’t done enough yet to earn my position. I wanted to be sure I looked good as I approached so that my presence would honor God.
More recently however, my concern is with just being with God. I know now, quite viscerally, that there is nothing I can do outside of being with God that would actually be honoring to God. Instead of making sure my heart is right and then approaching God, now I rip myself out of the stuff of the day, whatever feeling of iniquity I may have, and even the state of my heart, to be sure that I can be with God. I trust that time with God is the primary method by which I may be transformed. In relevance to our topic this week, it is to be transformed into the kind of person for whom nothing is taken for granted – for whom the breathe of life, the revelation of God, and the wonder of the day are all gifts. They are gifts that I get to play with, no doubt, but all in the company of my loving Father. Now that, is something to be thankful for.