A little gratitude never hurt anyone
The date was Nov. 24, 1951. The canvas for the painting was the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. The artist was Norman Rockwell. The setting was an old, bare-tabled diner that could have been located anywhere.
Listen to Frederick Buechner describe the scene: “An elderly man with a raincoat and umbrella has turned at the door. Another man glances up as he sits there smoking a cigar over a newspaper and the remains of his coffee. Two teenagers sit at a table, one of them with a cigarette in his mouth. They are all looking at the same thing, which is an old woman and a small boy who are sharing a table with the teenagers. Their heads are bowed and they are saying grace. The people watching them watch with dazed fascination. The small boy’s ears stick out from his head like the handles of a jug. The old woman’s eyes are closed, her hair untidy under a hat that has seen better days. The people are watching something that you feel they may have been part of once but are part of no longer. The watchers are watching something they’ve all but forgotten and will probably forget again as soon as the moment passes. They could be watching creatures from another planet. The old woman and the boy in their old-fashioned clothes, praying their old-fashioned prayer, are leftovers from a day that has long since ceased to be.”
When I read Buechner’s description I immediately Googled the now famous portrait and spent a considerable number of moments studying it.
More than 60 years old and it still packs a punch.
When did saying grace disappear from the landscape? Is there a connection between the sense of entitlement so prevalent in today’s culture and the loss of this basic demonstration of gratitude? Is saying grace more than a ritual? Does it foster a basic life perspective?
These and many other questions surged through my mind as I both gazed at the painting and re-read Buechner’s poignant description of the scene.
The simple concept of saying grace raises additional penetrating questions. Some might object to the practice by asking how one can give thanks to God for their food while so many in the world are starving.
“What kind of God would do that?” I hear the question and wonder whether devouring our food with a self-centred sense of entitlement rather than gratitude would solve the problem of starvation around the world. I suggest it would not. In fact, I wonder if the loss of gratitude for life’s blessings has somehow contributed to the problem of inequitable distribution.
We live in an era that has discarded what have often been called, mindless rituals. Unfortunately, we’ve not replaced them with anything more meaningful. The resulting vacuum has only impoverished our lives.
The elderly woman and the little boy in Rockwell’s painting continue to remind us of a vital truth. As independent and self-made as many of us think we are, very little of anything we have actually comes from our own hands. Gratitude is always in order and it does much to enhance the quality of our lives.
The next time you have the family together around a table, shock them all by pausing to say grace. I suspect you may be in for some lively table discussion about a topic that really matters.
Tim Schroeder is a pastor at Trinity Baptist Church.