Prayers Of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is something we do. Gratitude is something we feel. This can be important to someone with a limited emotional range. It is useful when preparing for prayers of thanksgiving.

We may begin preparation for thanksgiving by asking “What am I grateful for?” It is a logical starting point, but tends to return immediate and emotional answers. That’s just fine; not every prayer session ought to aim to go deep. We have limits of time, endurance, focus, and balance to consider in prayer as in everything else.

But when it is appropriate, it is also possible to go deeper than our immediate feelings and impressions. We can ask what we could be thankful for that we have become accustomed to – what we are taking for granted.

Notice I said “could” rather than “should”. We can destroy genuine thanks by turning it into an onerous duty rather than an authentic recognition.

Walking

Let us consider walking. Most adult humans can walk a mile in 20 to 30 minutes.  My average was about 28 minutes when I was in my mid-60s (before arthritis began to set in).  35 years ago my average was closer to 19; I walked a lot, almost every day.  These are facts that do not represent any special effort; my personality and temperament were and continue to be amenable to walking.

There is a lot to be thankful for in these little facts, though. That personality and temperament that led me to walking was not something I had to work for or struggle with; it was a gift from God. There are plenty of people who have had to struggle to have gotten even that minimal and mild exercise over their lifetimes.

But I feel the benefits every day. When I remember to, I give thanks . . . and sometimes that leads me to gratitude.

Of course, arthritis in my spine has made longer periods of walking more difficult over the last 5 years, but in general my joints have held up nicely to the years of activity. My knees are a bit worn but an injection of lubricant every 6 months restores them to good working order.  What was beginning to become a painful ordeal is—with two simple injections—restored  to a pleasant stroll through the neighborhood, with a pause halfway at either the library, a coffee shop, or both.

Resentful or Thankful?

Again, this is a lot to be thankful for.  But it’s also a lot I can take for granted. And a few things I could feel resentful about. The shots are not pain free, for instance, and if slightly misplaced can lead to some instability in walking for a day or two.

The problem in my spine, however, cannot be remedied easily and without consequences, so I now have to settle for shorter walks, even though my knees will hold up fine. Enough rests between sessions helps, but the long circuit to the library, the coffee shop, and back home is no longer guaranteed trouble free. I can pull it off once a month or so, but I have to settle for shorter walks between the longer sessions.

And here is where choice comes in. I can be resentful for the limitations of age, or thankful for the freedoms I have . . . and especially for the temperament and character that allows me to take pleasure for the walks in the first place.

Not everybody enjoys a walk, especially repeated walks over familiar ground. Walking around a mountain park or a seaside resort or through a manicured garden are special pleasures that can appeal to almost anybody.  But simply taking some pleasure in walking, in noticing things that have changed in the last days or weeks, in chatting with people who spend time outdoors (at different seasons) – these are temperamental things that everybody does not share. Nor should they; others are gifted with other simple pleasures that would likely bore me silly.

Stamp collecting? Ugh!

Take stamps, for instance.  In my youth at least two of my elders tried to get me interested in stamp collecting.  I’ve had the privilege of meeting a few avid collectors over the years, and their enthusiasm is inspiring and even slightly contagious. They are filled with stories about how they came across this or that stamp, what was going on in the country of origin when the stamp was issued, what is unique about this issue, who spent their life pursuing the special stamp that would complete their specialty collection – perfectly delightful stories. That is, delightful for them.

Twenty minutes after leaving, any desire I had to join in was swallowed by thoughts of tweezers and white gloves and paper hinges and catalogs and conventions and the idea of going to estate sales and looking for old packets of letters from people’s grandparents to see if there were interesting stamps and.  This is not for me.

But what a blessing for them is their temperament. And what a blessing for me mine is, because it leads me to other things that give me that same kind of joy. I don’t have to be grateful for stamps.  But I can be grateful for steam locomotives and the intricate models of them available to hobbyists. I can also be grateful for flowers and gardens. And I can be grateful for the temperament that allows me that appreciation, gratitude, and joy.

Giving Thanks

We may not all feel gratitude for the same things. We may not feel gratitude for one thing after it becomes a part of us and its presence in our lives becomes routine and taken for granted. But simply taking the time to include such things in our prayers of thanksgiving can restore our feelings of gratitude and wonder.

Better still, when we apply this discipline of giving thanks to our friends and acquaintances, what delight we can gain in realizing that their particular joys and temperaments can transmit to us a level of appreciation and joy we are not equipped to reach on our own. I don’t have to understand the glories of dual hemi carburetors and high-torque transmissions to feel and enjoy my friend’s delight in such things (or in some things that have names something like that).  Such things are not and, gloriously, do not have to be my passion.

Genuine Gratitude

This is how I can sometimes turn prayers of thanksgiving into genuine gratitude – by thinking about all the things I so take for granted in my life, in my friends and my community and the world around me, and giving thanks for them in detail and with a renewed eye to what life would be without them.

Understand, however, that I am not speaking of manufactured gratitude.  One of the most gratitude destroying experiences any of us can have is being scolded for being ungrateful. We may be shamed into contrition and express thanks and gratitude, but underneath it that feeling of shame and the force deployed in the scolding can create a simmering resentment.  This resentment can inhibit the development of genuinely deserved gratitude for years.

I am talking about gratitude that shimmers with joy, one of the most rewarding and fulfilling of feelings we can be gifted with. We cannot manufacture it. But we can encourage it by prayers of thanksgiving, prepared and delivered thoughtfully and with whatever heart we can muster.

A Prayer

Father in Heaven, thank you for all the souls you have led into my life to show me the joys of thankfulness and gratitude. Please teach me the humility and discernment to give thanks more clearly and experience gratitude more fully in the world around me, and especially in the precious exemplars into whose presence you have led me. Open my eyes and heart to learn from their examples, and lead me, in time, to be an example myself, especially in my gratitude for all your uncountable graces and mercies in my life and the lives around me.
Amen.