By Peter Laarman
Forget the turkey, the travel angst, the football, and the Black Friday deals. Forget even more the self-serving fairy tale about grateful Pilgrims entertaining the same helpful natives whom they would soon commence to exterminate. The real deal about gratitude is how it opens to a world of wonder and generosity.
When my mother passed on, we sang “For the Beauty of the Earth” at her simple graveside service. An odd choice, you might think, yet her children thought it would be appropriate for someone who loved the change of seasons and who lived close to the earth on our small farm. My dear mother was a believer, but you don’t have to believe in a Creator to believe that Earth itself is generous in unexpected and marvelous ways, bringing forth every good thing in its season, not to mention all of the bonus delights.
Among those delights: many in North America were filled with awe and wonder recently as we got to experience multiple nights lit up by the aurora borealis. When I put my little community garden plot “to bed” last weekend, cleaning out the last of the plants, turning the soil, and covering it with marsh hay for the winter, I was both thankful for the joy of tending it all summer, for the goodies stashed away in the freezer that will extend its bounty, and for the pleasure of anticipating what it might yield next year. And although I foolishly dropped the practice of mealtime prayers for most decades of this short life, in my seventh decade I’ve gone back to bowing my head briefly before eating my dinner when I am alone. It’s not that I feel compelled to say grace; it’s that I receive grace from doing it.
Just as Earth gives us every good thing, so Jesus urged us to bring forth good things from our inner depths — from our inner treasure. An attitude of gratitude comprises a major part of that treasure. But Jesus was far from alone in inviting us to understand how indispensable it is to live our lives out of gratitude.
The African concept of ubuntu, taught and used so effectively by moral giants like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, reminds us that we do not find happiness or any healthy sense of self apart from the community we are part of. In its simplest form, ubuntu awakens us to the reality that “I am because you are.” In its strongest form, ubuntu gives us the strength — the soul force — to struggle for the well-being of the community, which is so much more admirable than narrowly seeking to get “what’s ours.”
As this Thanksgiving approaches, please do yourself the favor of naming the things you are most deeply grateful for. You will quickly realize that they are the very same things everyone else needs and everyone else deserves. And as this realization grows, you will be growing into the ubuntu space and preparing yourself to make your own contribution to the in-breaking of God’s great Shalom.