“The Gratitude Method”

“Thanksgiving Lectionary Improv—Matthew 6:25-33,”
by the Rev. Maren Tirabassi

Philippians 4:4-8

     “Don’t worry,” Jesus said.

     “Rejoice in the Lord always,” wrote the apostle Paul. “Again, I will say rejoice.”

     Always? we think, considering our problems. Don’t worry? we scoff, considering the state of the world and the destructive and worrisome plans of the incoming administration.

     It might be easy for us to dismiss such teachings as quaint but hopelessly naive if we didn’t know that Jesus was preaching the good news to brown-skinned peasants living and suffering under Roman occupation and waiting desperately for someone to save them.

     We might be inclined to denounce Paul’s “rejoice always” instruction as nothing more than happy talk from a person of privilege with no understanding of hardship. But he was writing—and rejoicing—from his prison cell.

     The German poet Rilke described his art with these seemingly simple and occasionally impossible words: “I praise.”

     As in:

     O tell us poet, what do you do? —I praise.
     Yes, but the deadly and the monstrous phase,
     how do you take it, how resist? —I praise.

       No matter the circumstances, no matter how extreme the scenario posed by his imaginary interrogator, Rilke’s answer remained the same: I praise.

       And yet Rilke suffered from debilitating depression.

       Diedra Kreiwald, one of my seminary professors, was 25 years old and newly married when she and her husband led a church mission trip to Mexico. Their hard work done, they were enjoying a few days’ relaxation when there was an accident. Dedra’s husband and three young people were killed.

       I don’t know how long Diedra’s grief lasted, how angry she got at God, how she managed to get through the lonely nights, how many twists and turns her spiritual journey took, or how often she struggled to trust anyone or anything at all.

       But when she wrote a book about her experience, a book about suffering and grief, faith and life, she called it Hallelujah Anyhow.

Hallelujah anyhow.

     Which is, essentially, how legendary songwriter Leonard Cohen ended his most-covered song, singing:

      And even though it all went wrong
      I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
      With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah

       And when President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November “a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe,” the year was 1864 and the United States was, quite literally, at war with itself. Two years earlier, 22,000 men had been killed in a single day at Antietam; a year after that, 51,000 had died at Gettysburg; and still the war raged on.

        Despite all that, Lincoln said it had “pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year,” and so he designated a national day of repentance, prayer, and thanksgiving. It must have seemed an odd—or desperate—prescription for a nation well on its way to self-destruction, but the president said, in essence, Do not cease to give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord always. Praise. Hallelujah anyway.

So here we are, on the brink of another Thanksgiving holiday. And while our nation is not officially at war with itself, there are people on both sides of our political and cultural divide who feel alienated, forgotten, misunderstood, mistreated, threatened, or under attack by the current or incoming administrations. While our nation is not officially at war, the struggle for power and absolute control over it is ferocious and calculated, and the stakes for us and the world could not be higher.

        And so it is that many of us come to this Thanksgiving finding it harder than usual to summon feelings of gratitude. It’s not that we aren’t thankful, of course, but we’re worried about the future. It’s not that we don’t have much—so much—to be grateful for, but that, given the uncertainty and potential danger so many are facing, rejoicing in God’s goodness and our own blessings might feel insensitive or even inappropriate.

        We wonder how we can sing a song of Thanksgiving in a world of hurt, fear, hatred, and division.

        Oh, beloveds. How can we not?

The words of Jesus and Paul, the poetry of Rilke and Leonard Cohen, the life of my seminary professor and the lives of so many of us here are not meant to tell us to buck up and give thanks as if our hearts are not broken, as if our souls aren’t anxious, as if everything’s just fine. Instead, their words, their exhortations, their examples tell us that even in the midst of suffering, oppression, and grief, they had found a way to live with thanksgiving and praise. They had landed on a method that gave them much needed peace and hope during hard times.

       Jesus didn’t tell us not to worry because there’s nothing to be anxious about, but because worrying steals our joy, ignores God’s goodness, and doesn’t change a thing.

       The apostle Paul didn’t say “rejoice always” because he was promoting denial as a spiritual practice, but because he had discovered in gratitude a joyful way to resist evil and oppression.

       My professor didn’t say “hallelujah anyhow” because her life hadn’t been shattered, but because—even though it had been—God’s love was still with her, healing and comforting, guiding and renewing her.

      Gratitude makes a way out of no way. Gratitude grounds us in what is good. Gratitude centers us in what is true. When everything around us is telling us to close up, hunker down, protect, defend, and resist, gratitude opens our hearts—and there can be no peace or healing without a humble, trusting openness.

      To be both blunt and somewhat transactional: Gratitude works.

      So, how do we do it? How do we not worry? How do we rejoice always? How do we find a method that works for us?

      Paul gives us a beautiful template: First, he says, pray about it. Take everything to God in prayer—not because God is like Santa Claus, but because turning your problems and needs and worries over to God’s love and care will give you a peace that is beyond human understanding.

      Then, he says, in so many words: Ground yourself in goodness.

      Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything—anything!—is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.

In other words: Look for the good.

       Now, Paul didn’t offer a method—a practice, if you will, for exactly how to do that, so I’m going to make a few suggestions.

       The first is to make gratitude a regular, daily spiritual practice. To every day write down at least three things you’re grateful for, and then the next day think about and write down three different things. And so on.

       A second, sort of special-occasion approach, is to look back over the year at Thanksgiving, and make a list of all the things you’re thankful for.

      I’ve had a daily gratitude practice for more years than I can count now, and I’ve made time on many Thanksgivings to count—that is, list—my biggest blessings.

      But this year I’m taking a slightly different approach, and so I offer it to you. Instead of making a list of all the different things, all the many blessings, I’m focusing on one big blessing and then thinking about all the different aspects of that and what it all reveals to me. I’m calling it the “going deep and wide” method.

      This year, for example, I am beyond grateful that my dog Scout wasn’t killed or lost after she was hit by a car (a pickup truck, actually) in New Mexico, and that she’s still with me.

       And when I start thinking about that and giving thanks for it, I can’t help thinking about the three women who pulled over on a dark stretch of busy road and followed Scout down an embankment. I think of how these three friends who live in different parts of the country and had just come from dinner interrupted their reunion and stopped what they were doing to help an injured animal. I think of the lovely man who was driving the truck and how distraught he was and how much he loves dogs and how many phone calls and text messages I’ve exchanged with him. I think of the unknown woman who stopped her car and gave the three women a blanket to wrap Scout in while they tried to reach me and figure out where to take Scout for care. I think about how they took Scout to a 24-hour animal hospital, waited more than two hours until I and my friends arrived, and, meantime, signed a paper saying they would pay at least $800 for Scout’s care if I never showed up.

       I think of my two friends—one of them a veterinarian—who drove me the 90 minutes from Ghost Ranch to the animal hospital in Santa Fe and stayed with me, my vet friend actually participating in Scout’s care. I think of how the three women who rescued Scout immediately stood up when the three of us walked in the animal hospital and rushed to hug us. I think of how they stayed in touch with us the next day, refused our offers of thanks, and said all the gift they needed was in meeting Scout and us. I think of how the very next day, one of those angel-women adopted a puppy—black and white and, just like Scout, part border collie.

       I think of how the leaders of my spiritual direction program completely changed our focus for the next day so that we would have more contemplative, caring time built into the day. I think of how the top officials at Ghost Ranch not only gave me permission to keep Scout there with me for the next two days but also expressed their care and well wishes. I think about how Scout and I were held so closely in love and care by everyone in the program, and how our need for that care deepened the bonds we share.

      I could go on—trust me, I could go on and on about this—because the goodness went on and on and on, but you get the idea.

      The point is where all this looking for the good, thinking about the all the things in this horrible, traumatic situation that were excellent and praiseworthy takes me, which is that there are so very, very many good—really good—people in the world.

       And having experienced that goodness in such concrete, life-giving ways has given me comfort and hope in these days. When I begin to despair over the cruel, hateful, demeaning, and divisive messages of the winning presidential campaign, I am tempted to think that everyone who voted for him shares those views.

      But thanks to my recent experience, I know better. I know that most people are unbelievably good, caring, and generous. And I can rejoice in knowing that God’s love lives in all people and all creation, and that it is God’s spirit of love and goodness living in and through us and all people that will overcome all manner of evil and death.

        Beloveds, my challenge to you this Thanksgiving is to find or create your own gratitude method and to ground yourself in it. And may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

       Thanks be to God.

       Happy Thanksgiving.