Today my good friend and I ventured out into the cold in her minivan. Freezing temperatures drove us to capitalism! We sported five children between the two of us, and people in stores watched our slow cart procession with concern or humor. Finally, the Sam's & Lowe's trips ended; we, who are not true shoppers, flopped exhausted into the van packed with huge packages of Romaine Hearts and Organic Potting soil. A latte seemed in order.
As we waited in line for our decaf-grande-extra-hot-vanilla-lattes, the children began a symphony of complaints behind us. "It's not fair," they wailed. "We want a snack; we want hot chocolate, etc."
We established life was not fair, an echo from every childhood that only in adulthood seems ironic.
The Starbucks drive-through was slow. The children continued to whine. Then one of them asked: "Why are we here?"
His mother did not skip a beat. "To love and serve God," she replied. "Isn't that what the catechism is?" she muttered to me.
"Sounds right to me," I said, laughing.
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Beyond that funny moment, a moment that was as perfect as my creamy, extra-hot vanilla latte, I thought occurred to me tonight as I vacuumed our forsaken floors: Gratitude.
Gratitude. Suddenly, the other day, I realized that this childhood, for my children, is the only one they will have. I will not be able to rewind their lives or offer them alternatives. Sometimes their childhood seems long and everlasting. Other times, as when viewing a faded picture of my grandmother lounging trim (younger than I now!) in a white swimming suit, I realize that life is short, every minute precious.
Though I desire Gratitude to be a way of life, a rhythm that marks the passage of my minutes, I am sloppy at best in my thanksgiving. Often brief moments of deep gratitude catch me off-guard, as when I cleaned tonight, Elspeth on my hip, the world cold and unpredictable outside our warm windows.
As I age, Gratitude, if I choose it, will gentle me. It will put my pride, my impatience, my chafing, in its place. It will give me the space and the silence to love well without demanding many things in return. Someday it will help me die well.
So tonight, I am grateful for my children, my lover, the warmth of my family and my house. I am grateful for my own childhood, and for everlasting books and music and food. I am grateful for the delphinium and marigold seeds waiting on my back porch, and for lamplight. For the callouses on my hands, my breasts that have fed my daughters, for all of my fingers that touch and wash and plant and write. I am indeed grateful.
2 comments:
Gratitude is a funny thing, hey? How to be thankful and full of gratitude for all that we have... I struggle with this- not because I am NOT grateful... of corse I am- intensely grateful for all that I have... for my family, for my childhood, my life, my relationships, all that I have been able to see and do... But because I don't know what that means for those for whom life has dealt a very different deck of cards... what does it mean to be grateful for something when others have nothing, or even very little? And we're not even talking all the extras, but simply about about the basics- safety... security...love. To be thankful, or grateful, seems somehow to imply that those for whom those things are not a given, are somehow lacking, or not "blessed" enough, or "lucky" enough or however you choose to think about it... And why? Why me? Why not me? Why you?
I don't know... any thoughts?
Boy, I relate to what you're saying, Rachel. It seems like whenever I feel grateful, that position or gesture comes with an undercurrent of dread--sometimes directed toward myself, but often toward others: The realization that what I take to be God's blessing is not extended to others. Growing up, the message I heard--probably more implicitly than explicitly--was that the obvious wealth we enjoyed as Americans was due to a sort of special status with God, America being a Christian nation. Could this be part of the reason evangelicals often irrationally support military action--to protect our assets and interests which have been, the theory goes, handed to us by God in congratulation for our devotion. The flip side was always that the erosion of the "moral fabric" in this country--family values, et al--would lead to the removal of those blessings.
That's an aside. But since I grew up associating--again, sort of subconciously--wealth with spiritual light and poverty with spiritual darkness, and since I now feel ashamed for believing those things, I think I may have false guilt at times for even enjoying, as you say, "all that I have."
Two anecdotes from the gospels come to mind: The rich young ruler, instructed to sell all he had to give the proceeds to the poor, and Mary Magdalene, who wasted a jug of expensive ointment or perfume on Jesus. It seems to me that our gratitude ought to lead to a real motive to do something for others with less, in whatever form that takes--and there are so many forms (another problem). But it would be a sort of gnosticism to deny the pleasure in both physical necessities and, sometimes, the extras--a glass of wine, a dinner out, etc.
I can't explain the inequity in the world, much less solve it. I'm certainly not trying for that with this response. I've always liked what Bruce Cockburn sings in his song "Strange Waters": "Everything is bullshit but the open hand." That seems to sum it up--the open hand to give and to receive.
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