Thanksgiving, giving thanks. . . it seems easy. A pause from work. A big meal. Get together with family, friends. Or just relax.
But there is nothing easy about Thanksgiving.
Being grateful takes guts actually.
It is far easier to be resentful, to dislike someone, to disagree, to lash out at imperfections, to spit disdain at another's effort, to stand over another’s failure. Then go eat good food, give nebulous thanks and ignore the kind of gratitude that goes deep to the core.
Embedded in real gratitude is an underlying sacrifice. Someone did something for you when you needed it. Someone gave you something they had and probably needed too. Someone suffered in loss while you were in comfort. Someone got the dirty work done so you could relax. Someone helped you cross the mine field of sorrow, anger, recovery.
Having gratitude implies you know life is limited and that someone gave you a piece of something that isn't bottomless.
Having gratitude requires that we do the same, that we sacrifice too. Deep gratitude becomes our inspiration to do the same, for someone else.
Thanksgiving is what I think we, as a culture, are losing.
We like to criticize. To point out failures. To turn on the TV and watch ads for what we want want want. What we can get get get. Whether things or flings. Turn on the morning news and lazily believe it word for word – we listen to the heals of the supposedly leading Presidential candidate stomp on her own muddy past while she scrambles along her campaign trail to Iowa. On her feigned heals of feminism, she slams the dignity of our troops with falsified gratitude dripping with her embedded disdain for their sacrifice. And we naively call her carefully cloistered, couture disdain leadership.
It's all hard to watch, knowing there are troops, citizens who deserve more from us. They deserve our gratitude, the kind of gratitude that doesn’t snip criticisms from our little urban and politicized havens of narrow safety. Walls of safety held up by those willing to sacrifice their time, their energy, their life – so that we can bolster the muddy heals of candidates who makes us feel better. Even when we should know better.
Instead of the deep Thanksgiving of a free country, many of us swallow that last drip of latte from the bottom of the cup, say something funny about the stupidity of leaders and never show up to the play the messy game of doing something for someone we don’t even know.
Yes, the sacrifice of others sadly allows us to make mistakes. I’m afraid they are increasingly costly, as people in the comforts of urban and suburban aren’t willing to volunteer the cost of their time, their energy, their life, their sacrifice to enter the muddy fray. Sacrifice is messy. It's imperfect. It's packed full of blunders and confusion. And pain, lots of it. That's why it's called sacrifice.
With Thanksgiving down to the core for those who have sacrificed. I only hope I can give as much in return, I hope to at least try.
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