There is hope. When I questioned my students in mid-November as to their favored tradition, Thanksgiving or Christmas, almost all declared Thanksgiving, defending it as a time to simply be with and thankful for family. A ray of light in this season of consuming contradiction, when our entanglement in "stuff" gets in the way of gratitude.
Gratitude, our most forgotten virtue, has nothing to do with gratification. And while good times and nice gifts make it easier to give thanks, heartaches have their way of jogging memories that reach into gratitude's deeper layers.
Our father died unexpectedly at his home just before Thanksgiving. These past weeks have been a prolonged blur. His leave-taking was sudden. I still can't quite wrap my head around it. A world without Dad? Without our anchor? This new reality will more than likely crawl over me, like some dark, wet rug. Gratitude's truth, however, becomes vividly clear.
When we lose a parent, life becomes bottomless in a moment. One reason is that our parents often teach us life's most precious lesson: It's all about what we give of ourselves to others. Of ourselves. Not the low-hanging fruit of material objects, but our own personal time, effort and sacrifice.
What we give of ourselves takes time, time to physically be with another. Dad worked three jobs, came home late, and still found time to go over homework with us. He still found time to play catch with me in our tiny backyard. I don't believe a day passed without his somehow finding time to plant a smile on someone's face, someone's spirit.
What we give of ourselves requires sacrifice. When Mom worked at the local plant assembling electric switches by hand, she came home with cracked and bleeding fingertips. Wearing bandages, she then spent the evening sewing clothes we couldn't afford to buy.
We can all remember these snapshots, postcards from the bigger portrait of our parents' struggles and sacrifices. What we took for granted now takes on a certain nobility. Appreciating their sacrifice sparks gratitude.
In William Sidney Porter's (aka "O. Henry") ageless "Gift of the Magi," Jim sells his prized watch to buy a comb for Della's long, beautiful hair. Della cuts and sells her cherished hair to buy a chain for Jim's watch. Sacrifice = Appreciation = Gratitude.
A simple tale with an uncomplicated truth. Our true gift to one another lies not in the What, the object, the purchase, but in the How. This How is its elan vital, life-force, the time and effort we deliberately carve out for the other. Therein lies the treasure, particularly in our hurried world. Otherwise, as Australian poet A.D. Hope describes "wandering islands," we more easily "grow closer and closer apart."
Gratitude ultimately demands attention. How we live is driven by what we attend to. Only through attention, a scarce resource in an age of chronic distraction, will we fathom our parents' day-to-day grind, storms they weathered, and the ordinary benediction in their simply being with us.
In these tattered times of discontent in which we generally attend to what's missing or broken, we desperately need to rekindle the virtue of gratitude. It directs the heart's compass. It grows a kind heart. Throughout our journey, the lasting footprints in our lives come from the kind-hearted. One kind heart outweighs fame, wealth, status, and any other counterfeit measures of success.
Cultivating gratitude enables us to nurture our souls. And the gift of self is priceless. Let us embrace this new year by first slowing down, and then asking ourselves "What have I given of myself to others?"
Michael Brannigan is the Pfaff Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Values at The College of Saint Rose. Reach him at michael.brannigan@strose.edu or >http://www.michaelcbrannigan.com>.