A Natural Response
Thanksgiving & Wonder
“What if we were grateful for everything?”
Charlie Brown
It would be so weird to go to the mailbox and not get it. You know, the cards we all count on that our parents or grandparents send on our birthdays or holidays year, after year, after year whether we thank them properly or not. They are a sure thing. That is, if we’re lucky enough to have parents and grandparents that are still physically and mentally with us, if not then you will probably understand this Field note better than anyone today.
A friend who’s parents recently passed burst into tears lamenting how she wished she would have been more appreciative of her parents. She discovered going through their storage bins that they saved every single card and tiny thing she ever made or gave them for the past 50 years. They cherished her. She felt it as she poured over the sea of photos and journals, the notes, the newspaper clippings with even the mention of her name… all of them distant fuzzy memories but irrefutable proof of their unconditional adoration.
They lived practically and were careful with their money. They left her their life savings. A mountain of money they had saved for decades to help her so she never have to worry for herself or her own children ever again. She never really understood the depth of their love and generosity until that moment and she was inconsolable because she had no way to express her gratitude in a satisfying way.
Then there is the other side of the tears that happen when gratitude is fully felt and openly expressed…
At the end of life if we are fortunate enough to have a chance to say goodbye to our loved ones before they leave the earth. To reassure them that they were loved. Appreciated. Forgiven. Whatever they need to know from us to make a smooth peaceful transition into the great mystery.
It also happens during acceptance speeches thanking our families for putting up with us, inside book covers in dedications and it even happens in change rooms around the world after big matches or games. I love it and I confess I even follow some teams in IG so I can see clips of the captain give their rousing thank you speech and the players, almost on cue, cry. I’ve heard one captain comment in an interview: “We don’t cry any other time. Something weird and deep happens…I don’t know what it is.”
I do.
It’s The Gratitude Effect.
It’s happened to me and maybe the best example was the time I taught my very first yoga class during my 200 hour certification. As part of the curriculum, after you nervously teach the class to your fellow graduates, they circles around you closely and gives you a long standing ovation. They clap and smile for the longest time and look at you in the eye in a “Wow, you did it!” kind of proud way and inevitably there is this wash of emotion that comes 100% of the time. We all stand there and cry like babies in front of everyone just like the football, baseball and hockey players. It feels so good to receive that love. To be seen, appreciated and adored.
At wedding rehearsals I find it helpful to walk the couple through the parts of their entrance with their parents and wedding party and exchange pretend vows so they know what is going to happen on their big day to give them confidence and of course to help settle their nerves. One thing I’ve noticed is how they all nearly always get caught off guard with the overwhelm of emotion and the tears come more often than not during the rehearsal even more than the wedding. The tears of love and gratitude for their parents and partners overwhelm them almost every time.
This week I’ve been feeling it.
That spontaneous and soul-uprooting feeling that being grateful emits.
It’s Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and we are up north visiting family. Even the beauty of the drive up moves me. I quickly snapped this photo through the passenger side window…
Similar to the American holiday or the one celebrated at different times around the world, it was established on the second Monday of October here as a day to give thanks for the bountiful harvest and for one another.
It’s my favourite time of year and I was just looking over some past Thanksgiving weekends from when the kids were little in the albums here and the same heart expanding feeling creeps up…
These may be my photos like the one of our son Charlie propped up on the pumpkins but they could be any of our photos. Just change the faces and the places.
There are ten of us at my in-laws cottage this weekend and Scott, Gracie (our dog) and I slept in the garage on a mountain of inflated thermo-rests, sleeping bags, pillows and soft duvets. It was surprisingly cozy. We all took a long walk on the beach yesterday to blueberry island which is one of my favourite parts of the weekend…
Isn’t it sometimes the little things that we feel grateful for?
My mother-in-law makes the most mouth watering fluffy pumpkin chiffon pie that we all look forward to as much as we look forward to seeing one another. She jokes that after spending about 10 days shopping, prepping, cooking when we finally all sit down together the turkey dinner only takes about 20 minutes to devour and I am always moved when we look in the rearview mirror and give a honk as we pull away to head home to see her wiping her eyes.
I’m not sure why it’s so memorable to me.
We’re not really doing much. Just chatting, making puzzles or playing football, having saunas, laughing and trying to help each other make sense of the different stages of work and life that we’re negotiating. Being heard and seen. Maybe it’s our low key version of giving each other a standing ovation.
I will say, it’s a very bad weekend if you’re a pair of pants. I heard someone joke that they wonder what pumpkin pie tastes like when you actually have room for it? There is something so sweet about the sweaty chaos of all squeezing around a table together.
“I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage”.
Erma Bombeck
I feel fortunate, we are close with both sides of our family, but I know this is not the case for everyone.
Family dynamics at the best of times can be complicated and I think Jimmy Fallon said it best when he joked: “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! It’s the day you forget about all the fighting and division in the world and just focus on all the fighting and division in your family.” That may have seemed more true during covid with our polarizing opinions about vaccinations and our short sighted political resentments that seems to have done irreparable damage to some of our extended families.
My little nephew came out onto the deck yesterday to announce matter of factly after having seen something on the television that “there is a big war in the world somewhere”.
Israel and Palestine. I woke up this morning thinking of the hundreds already killed on both sides and I felt the tears prickling. Sadness for the suffering. Another long war looming. There is such a difficult history on the Gaza strip and I’m not sure any of us on this side of the world will ever fully understand it.
As sad as I feel for both sides, I can’t also help but just feel so deeply appreciative of the peace we enjoy on this side of the world today.
Peace in our homes.
Peace in our families.
Is there anything more important?
Have you ever heard the French term for Thanksgiving?
“Action de grâce”. It could be translated as Grace in Action. This just feels like the perfect segue into what I can see hidden just beneath the surface of this special weekend every year.
To begin with, as the french translation eludes to grace an action word.
Do you consider yourself a grateful person?
I think most of us believe we are. But maybe we don’t really understand it.
I’ve been asked many times from clients how to teach their kids or partners to be more appreciative and grateful. I’ve heard from Grandparents that are sincerely worried about grandkids that seem to take things for granted and wonder how to “make” their family more grateful, so today we’re going to dip into this dynamic of gratitude because if that’s how we’re feeling, we may be missing an important aspect and the true beauty and meaning of Thanksgiving.
It’s not simply a transaction or about keeping track. It’s not just about saying thank you for a deed done or a gift received. Although who are we kidding, we all love getting those cards and cute crayon drawings from our kids - I confess I’ve even kept a journal of some of my faves because they make my heart grown two sizes when I read them.
This is a bit more than that.
And as much as they can help us focus on what’s right, it’s not about our lists. Gratitude journals burst on the scene in the 1990’s and they seem to be here to stay I was just gifted one at the conference I was at but this goes even deeper than that.
Gratitude is a natural response to benevolence.
That is, the unearned good we receive every single day. And yet, despite what our minds tell us, what also seems natural is our ability to take that benevolence for granted.
Many neuroscientists and spiritual teachers have covered the imperative of having this practice in all of our lives.
Gratitude is a deep gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us.
Our brains LOVE being grateful. I read a quote from Alex Korb’s book The Grateful Brain in Brainpickings and Korb explains that:
“Gratitude can have such a powerful impact on your life because it engages your brain in a virtuous cycle. Your brain only has so much power to focus its attention. It cannot easily focus on both positive and negative stimuli. It is like a small child: easily distracted…
On top of that your brain loves to fall for the confirmation bias, that is it looks for things that prove what it already believes to be true. And the dopamine reinforces that as well. So once you start seeing things to be grateful for, your brain starts looking for more things to be grateful for. That’s how the virtuous cycle gets created.”
So why is it that the simple route for most of us is one of being dissatisfied with life and focusing on what we lack? That is the nature of the brain and ego, that there is never enough and more than enough that is not right in our world.
True gratitude requires an honest accounting of what we do have.
Universally, spiritual traditions have tried to create a scaffolding of practices to help support us.
Buddhist monks begin each day with chants of gratitude for the gifts of food and shelter, of friendship and for the teachings that benefit all. Gratitude to them is the confidence in life itself.
The necessity of gratitude is a fundamental teaching of Islam. Muslims bow on the ground daily as an expression of gratitude and devotion.
In Judaism we’re encouraged to count our many blessings all day long. Woven into thousands of years of Jewish thought is the overriding idea that taking time to recognize what you have in life is one of the uniquely beneficial rituals we can undertake.
In Christianity there are many biblical references that remind us of not just being grateful, but the harm of forgetting to say thank you in the Gospel of Luke. To paraphrase, Jesus is in a village and there are 10 lepers that ask him for help, and without hesitation he sets to work and heals them and they are on their way. Only ONE of the 10 stops to make a point of showing his gratitude by saying thank you.
In fact, he’s so grateful that he prostrates himself on the ground in worship and deep gratitude. Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”(Samaritan). To be clear it’s not Jesus looking for a thank you note for his healing services or any credit at all, he is pointing to source or God doing the healing through him and it being God that we need to thank.
Jesus is telling us in this gospel and many others that it matters.
Why does it matter?
On the one hand, it multiplies our blessings. For instance, when Jesus gave thanks, five loaves of bread and two fishes multiplied supernaturally and fed five thousand. (John 6:6-11; Psalms 67:5-7)
“In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God”.
Thessalonians 5:18
I have yet to find a spiritual tradition that does not teach the absolute necessity of gratitude and thanksgiving as an essential life practice and today it’s worth our deep reflection.
To recognize what we have yes but even more what we are all a part of.
ALL of it.
To live with reverence.
“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
Meister Eckhart
Our reciprocity, sharing, humility, the recognition that ALL of life is a gift, even our challenges will MAKE US WHOLE.
Thomas Merton claimed that “There is in all visible things…a hidden wholeness”. It’s as though the gifts are so big and all consuming that we don’t even notice them. It feels like if we’re not falling on our knees in wonder then we’re not seeing things properly.
Our attention to a new way of seeing and of perceiving has the miraculous power to shift and transforms our lives.
Thanksgiving to me is not so much about the small symbols or things like a meal or a gift we give one another, it’s about the overwhelming generosity of the source of our being. Thoreau described his thanksgiving as “perpetual” and that is what this really is.
Our awareness of the abundance of God. On the source of our being.
This NO strings attached kind of giving.
Not keeping score or waiting for a thank you note kind of giving and feeling offended when it never arrives.
The beauty of our planet, the wonder of a good song, our dreams, our ability to create, to love, the diversity of life on this planet. Peace, playing in the leaves with our kids AND okay, I’ll admit it…homemade pumpkin pie made by a grandmother with love.
The thing few of us understand that the kind of action this grace or divine giving takes has NO conditions, no expectations but is just an endless stream of extravagant giving that our egos cannot begin to comprehend.
It’s an expression of pure LOVE.
This primary organizing principle that keeps the planets spinning in space, the arrangement of the solar systems in the universe, is the very same life force behind the creation of the 2 million new red blood cells in each of us every second of every day without us having to do a thing.
Surely we are blind if we fail to recognize the working of a supreme intelligence.
Guiding, moulding, directing us with purpose.
Out of the creativeness of this intelligence that runs through us, ALL things sprung.
For fun today take a moment to bend over and pick up a leaf off the ground and just notice the geometrical designs. The fractal branches and veins that we step on clearly show us that behind creation lies a supreme mathematical mind. A millionfold MORE comprehending than the most intelligent among us.
That is a different kind and new level of gratitude from the depths of our being.
The humble acknowledgement that we are only fractionally aware of who and what we are.
I once heard a saying that made me laugh: “No whining on the yacht”. I sometimes whisper it to myself when I think I have a problem. Any problem. It’s a reprimand when I get (often) tempted to lose sight of just how lucky I am. How lucky we all are. Like when the internet goes out momentarily and my work is disrupted or I lose something I thought was critical.
Look what we get to do. Look where we get to live.
The same force that pushes grass through cracks in the sidewalk invigorates our own life and yes, we all have challenges, just like that grass. When we do we can notice that there is more for us to be grateful for.
In Tibet, the monks and nuns even offer prayers of gratitude for the suffering they have been given: “Grant that I might have enough suffering to awaken in me the deepest possible compassion and wisdom.”
Putting out gratitude aligns with us with abundance.
A lack of thanksgiving and wonder keeps us shackled in darkness and lack.
"Wonder calls us back to the curiosity we are each born with, and it makes us want to move closer to what sparks our attention. Wonder opens our senses and helps us stay in touch with a humbling sense of our own human smallness in the face of unexpected beauty and the delicious mysteries of life on this planet."
James Crews (poet)
When we shift from transactional giving hoping for gratitude and instead we move to an actionable grace where we encounter every new moment with wonder and gratitude, and we’ll experience that it’s never too late to open our minds and hearts.
To life.
To all that came before us and will come after us.
To our beloved imperfect family and all of the ancestors that came before us.
“What we appreciate, appreciates.”
Lynn Twist
Spending time in nature, hanging out with loved ones (even the ones with opposing political views;), allowing them to help us see things differently, feeding the less fortunate, praying or meditating on peace, having a good laugh raking up a pile of leaves to jump into are soul food worthy of savouring this Thanksgiving.
Like a feast unto itself, thanksgiving delivers nourishment for the heart's greatest tenacity and generosity - so needed in our lives.
“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other”.
Randy Pausch
Life truly is a banquet of blessings. When Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate and and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel experienced this inner shift and understood this deeper truth that limits so many of us until we do:
“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile”.
Ellie Wiesel
This is grace in action.
Our wholeness includes our imperfection. Our proclivity to be offended, to fight one another and our egoic need to control others and be right. To attack and to defend.
On my walk yesterday I was thinking that Jack pines won’t win a beauty contest and they are not lumber trees but they are as beautiful as a living thing can be. They have a wholeness and integrity that all life possess by simply being their prickly selves.
Nature can help us reconnect to our own wholeness better than anything and it’s from this deeper sense of ourselves where grace is our most natural response.
Maybe Charlie Brown was right. Let’s give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of our life.
May we never take for granted what we have, because we have life. We have each other. No matter what circumstances we’re facing on this day or tomorrow let’s remember that it’s only our thanksgiving that will lead us to experience authentic joy.
With love and blessing to you and your family,
Rev Nona
ps. I deeply appreciate the gift of your time. I’d like to leave you with a favourite poem about life and spirituality. Harjo depicts through an eagle without words and sounds she shows us how the cycle of life keeps moving.
In the last few lines, she says that, if one prays for knowing themselves, their way of thinking will change. They will see the world from a different perspective.
May we all keep revolving in our beauty and wholeness…
Eagle Poem
by Joy Harjo
To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.