Gratitude[i]
Former General Assembly Moderator John
Buchanan writes: “The basic Christian
response to God is gratitude: gratitude for the gift of life, gratitude for the
world, gratitude for the dear people God has given us to enrich and grace our
lives. The basic Christian experience is
gratitude to God for God’s love in Jesus Christ and the accompanying gift of
hopeful confidence and wholeness and wellness that comes with it, regardless of
the worldly circumstances in which we find ourselves.”[ii]
In her book, Help, Thanks, Wow –The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott, in the
chapter on “Thanks,” tells of a day she and her friends Barbara and Suzie were
getting together for what she calls a stroll and a roll, since Barbara has Lou
Gehrig’s disease and uses a walker with wheels on the front. The outing was to take place at a spot where
one can overlook the Pacific Ocean from above San Francisco’s Moraga steps.
When Susie’s car arrived at their
destination, the view was obscured by a thick fog. They got out of the car anyway only to find
that there was a fierce wind blowing, the kind of wind Lamott says “that prick
at your body and your mind and your very being.”
The anticipation of a great day was
falling apart rapidly. With effort they
got back into the car and drove around some more. Lamott writes: “At some point, warmth and golden sun flooded
through the car windows, and Susie drove us a-round the neighborhood, and from inside
we took in the brilliant gardens of succu-lents and crazy bright exotic
petals. We found the one perfect parking
spot at the foot of the steps, where we could spend as much time as we liked
looking up directly at the magical mosaic on the tall steep steps…
“We all got so happy,” Lamott
remembers. We talked about real things
for an hour: life, death, families, feeding tubes, faith. I asked Barbara… “What are you most grateful
for these days?” She typed on her iPad,
and a mechanical voice (she calls Kate) spoke for her: “The beauty of nature,
the birds and flowers, the beauty of friends.”
Says Lamott: “This is called radical gratitude in the face
of whatever life throws at you!”[iii]
Gratitude is good for you! John Buchanan writes of a webmd piece titled: “Boost Your Health
with a Dose of Gratitude." The essay
cited thousands of years of philosophic and religious teaching urging gratitude
and then cited new evidence that grateful people, for whom gratitude is a permanent
trait, have a health edge. It may be
that grateful people take better care of themselves, but there is evidence
that gratitude alone is a stress reducer, that grateful people are more
hopeful, and that there are links between gratitude and the immune system.” Buchanan concludes: “So your mother was right when she made you
call your grandmother and thank her for the birthday card.”[iv]
It all begins as simply as that. Gratitude in general, and gratitude to God in
particular, are habits of the heart that can be developed. It begins with seeing and it ends with
doing. It is like the childhood lesson many of
us learned when someone gave us something. Mom or Dad said: “What do you say?” We learned to say, "Thank You!"
“Praise God from whom all blessings
flow!” Amen.
[i] Excerpt from my sermon, “What Do You Say?” October 13, 2013, First United Presbyterian Church, W. Pittston, PA. (during our sojourn at St. Cecilia's Roman Catholic Church in Exeter)
[ii] John H. Buchanan, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2010) p.169
[iii]
Anne Lamotte, Help, Thanks, Wow, (New
York, Riverhead Books, 2012) p. 55-6
[iv]
ibid., Buchanan
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