Saying thank you is huge, really huge. When we say thank you, we open up to the fact that we don’t exist in isolation, that we have fellow travelers on the journey of life. Saying thank you implies that we have something or someone to thank, something or someone beyond ourselves. And so gratitude is about connection, about relationship. It is about not being alone.
Our lives are more complete and more beautiful because of the other people with whom we share it. But do we ever stop to thank them? Do you ever lean over and tell your best friend that you’re thankful for your friendship? Do you ever tell your siblings that you’re thankful that you have each other? Do you ever tell your parents you’re thankful for the childhood they provided you and the future they’re helping you to reach? Some people believe there is something bigger than us out there that deserves their thanks, and find religion as a means for displaying their gratitude.
Saying thank you requires you to slow down for a minute. You need to pause—think about what is really important to you, and of the debt you owe someone else. And then whether in your heart or aloud, just say it, “Thank you.”
So pause for a minute and tell us, what are you thankful for?
In particular, see the end:
“When Stanley Cohen, the friend and attorney to the artist Alexander Calder, moved to Paris in the 1960s, he ordered The Sunday New York Times. It would arrive the following Wednesday. He would take the paper and store it unread until Saturday night. Then he would place it outside his door so that, on Sunday morning, he had the illusion of finding his beloved paper waiting.
I like that story. It’s a reminder of how not to be a slave to time, of the need to be imaginative and humble in our thankfulness, and of the fact that news can wait a week. A day off to read it is dandy. Turn off, tune out, drop in. And a decent-sized turkey takes five hours to cook.”
... Read more Thu 22, 2007 6:20
... Read more Sun 25, 2007 7:30
I’m thankful for the decision NOT to eat Turkey, and the ability to make decisions that try not to hurt others, and rather to help them.
... Read more Thu 29, 2007 1:50
I am thankful for my family, health and education.
Thu 29, 2007 3:23I am thankful that I live in a country, have the education, resources, family and friends to be happy. Happiness is something for which I will always be thankful.
Thu 11, 2008 2:47Tonight we enter the Hebrew month of Kislev, in which Hannukah takes place. During Hannukah, the traditional liturgy adds a paragraph thanking God for the miraculous achievements of the Maccabees. Significantly, this paragraph is added not as its own blessing during the daily Amidah, the litany of eighteen blessings; instead, it is included in the daily blessing of thanksgiving.
Why is this significant? Because the ancient Rabbis had the option of mentioning Hannukah anywhere during the Amidah: during the blessing for redemption, for instance; or the blessing that mentions our hope for the coming of the Messiah. Yet the Rabbis decided to mention Hannukah as part of the blessing of thanksgiving, and thus we can legitimately ask why.
Gratitude requires a certain view of the world, a certain existential posture. It requires openness–the same openness that leads to curiosity, to learning, to inspiration and to courage. That basic openness is at the root of all that makes goodness possible in the world. If Moses had failed to open himself, would he have noticed the burning bush? If Judah Maccabee had failed to open himself, would he have had the courage to lead a revolution? If Dr. King had failed to open himself, would he have been able to inspire?
The Talmud says that “An embarrassed person cannot learn.” If we cannot open ourselves to the world and admit the limits of our knowledge, we can’t ask questions. At the same time, that openness to learning needs to happen in a context of wonder. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “Humankind will not die out for lack of information, but for we may perish for want of appreciation.” The interpretive move that has poisoned the achievements of modernity was a move of closure, a move that encountered new knowledge with a spirit of doubt, instead of a spirit of gratitude.
Thankfulness is a habit that has to be practiced. That is why Jews say blessings, and why all religious people pause in gratitude around mealtime. It is why the Jewish tradition mandates blessings for encounters with all sorts of natural phenomena, and why Jews are commanded to pray three times a day. It is easy to become selfish, to forget the miraculousness of our existence. It is particularly easy during the winter, when the night is long and the day is short. So we have Hannukah, when we literally light a candle just when we are ready to curse the darkness. And like all observances on the Jewish calendar, Hannukah concentrates our focus on a value habit we have to practice all the time, in this case the habit of gratitude.
So in that spirit, thank you for reading, thank you for being open to my reflections.
Happy Thanksgiving.
... Read more Thu 27, 2008 2:48