Day without burden
Ihave an ongoing love affair with the Thanksgiving holiday. (Christmas too, but that’s another story.) And, every few years, I try to rewrite this essay as a way of giving thanks for a day of thanks.
Three things fascinate me about Thanksgiving: The idea of a national day of gratitude; the lack of pressure (gifts and commercialization) associated with the day; and the quiet and slowness of the day. For years, in Connecticut, we shared the meal with friends and all of our children, and we always took a long walk, as a group, after the feast, often in very chilly weather. That walk seemed to last forever.
We slow down our lives to experience our lives. People do this in various ways — church, mosque or synagogue, yoga, music, transcendental meditation, running.
This is the opposite of most of what is going on in our culture, in which, as the comedic genius Bill Murray observes, we document our lives instead of living them.
And maybe that’s why we document our lives so compulsively — we don’t seem to be able to create the time or space to live them as they unfold. So we have to relive them.
Imagine if you could really be in every moment as it happens instead.
Imagine making gratitude the organizing principle — and attitude — of your life. Every day.
Imagine making “each day your masterpiece,” as the great coach and teacher John Wooden sought to do.
It all seems possible on Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving is a day without burden. It is one of those slowing down things we do to try to recapture our lives, like a spontaneous prayer or a moving meditation.
Ever heard someone give such an unrehearsed prayer, maybe on this day? I have.
It doesn’t have to be grand, or even grammatical, to be eloquent.
Such a prayer can remind us, in a way that a rote prayer cannot, of what it means to be a human being.
There used to be T-shirt available commemorating and quoting the great German theologian Karl Rahner. It said: “Grace is everywhere, as an active orientation of all created reality toward God.”
Some T-shirt.
I await the tattoo.
But gratitude opens us to the grace, often hidden but abundant, in our lives.
When, some years ago, the singer and folk composer Neil Young was in a New York hospital with a life-threatening malady, he awoke groggily early one morning and watched the New York traffic beyond his window. He became aware of a presence in the room and a nurse, an older black woman, appeared and said to him: “Don’t forget to thank the master.”
I have my own personal litany of thanks. It changes a little every year: I am thankful for my wife and our three children; for first responders in Pittsburgh and many other places; for the resilience of all who suffer, young or old; for all acts of mercy and kindness, no matter how small; for movies; for Mozart and Haydn; for quiet places and sacred spaces; for animals; for exercise; for wit.
William F. Buckley, who died ten years ago now, is a hero of mine. He lived a full and grateful life. He wrote many books, always as an enthusiast. I have several, and a few are inscribed, usually with the word “gratefully.”
Bill Buckley had great fun with the life he was given. He made each day count. He rhapsodized about Fifth Avenue in New York. He marveled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He wrote the best prose I have ever read on sailing. His finest book is a little one called “Gratitude.” In it he writes about giving back. He endorses the idea of universal national service. Service gives purpose, and purpose brings gratitude.
We slow down our lives today, have a meal with loved ones, and say, maybe to someone in particular, or to the great I Am, or to no one in particular: “Thank you.”
Just, thank you.
It’s enough.
I am going to Coshocton, Ohio, today, where some family will share a meal together in a home where living is “assisted.” We will talk to our children by phone, at length no doubt, and see them all for a week at Christmastime.
I’m going to take the day slowly. Savor it. Try to make it a miniature masterpiece. Live it twice the first time.