This is Thanksgiving Day. And as much joy as the day itself may bring, as we are blessed to gather near to those who love and care about us most, the big payoff actually comes when we elevate thanksgiving from an annual day to a daily practice and discipline.
Gratitude is the highest of virtues and a daily choice that ennobles the grateful person, ushering him or her beyond the dark and dreary cave of obsessive self-interest and anxiety about one’s own future into the bright sunlight of altruism and magnanimity in service to a future large enough for us all. When we embrace thanksgiving as a way of life, we are happier, and the world is made better.
The truth is, the people most of us admire — those who have done the most to change the world for the better — honed their craft of transformation as practitioners of a deep and abiding gratitude for life, its interconnectedness and its great possibilities.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “We are tied in a single garment of destiny.” As he took flight in an historic campaign of justice-making in America, the frequent flyer often expressed his profound gratitude for the unsung heroes whom he sometimes referred to as “the ground crew.”
Another Nobel laureate, Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani school girl and activist for girls’ education, commented after nearly losing her life to a vicious attack by the Taliban, “It didn’t matter to me if my face was not symmetrical. … It doesn’t matter if I can’t smile or blink properly. … The important thing is, God has given me my life.” So young, yet mindful and grateful, Malala has found her purpose.
Perhaps that is why all the great religious traditions counsel the cultivation of gratitude as an essential mark of wisdom and maturity.
In Judaism, gratitude springs from the collective memory of a people who escaped Egyptian slavery and oppression. Jews are commanded to extend kindness and generosity toward those most marginalized — namely, resident aliens, orphans and widows — with the recurring phrase, “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt.”
The Jesus of the Gospels summarizes this basic view by identifying love of God and love of neighbor, that is deep reverential appreciation, as the basis for good ethics. And Muhammad teaches that “gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue.”
Yet, one need not be religious to be grateful, and one need not be an extraordinary person like Martin or Malala to serve. We can all serve. And that is the way to “thanks giving.” For the true measure of our gratitude is service. Our deeds, much more than our creeds, demonstrate a mature recognition that we all enjoy the fruits of others’ labor – the living and the dead – and we are obliged to plant gardens large enough and cultivate soil rich enough to pass our abundance on to others and to those yet unborn.
The Rev. Raphael G. Warnock is senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church and author of “The Divided Mind of the Black Church” (NYU Press, 2014).
