Thanksgiving is the day many (most?) of us will reflect on what we are grateful for. Often people have told me that this is their favorite holiday of the year, because it is simple. We just gather for a meal, and give thanks.
Because most every other day of the year is focused on what we want that we don't have, it is a blessed relief to have one official day focused on the abundance and goodness in our lives. Even if some of us live very modestly in America, we are very, very wealthy by the standards of the world.
I’m not sure one day of gratitude is enough. In the last church I served, I took liberty with the liturgical calendar and declared the month of November the Season of Gratitude. We have plenty to be thankful for. Don’t get me started.
The Christian theologian Karl Barth called gratitude the best expression of God’s grace on earth. Whether you believe in God or not, this is a wonderful statement, because grace means that your life has meaning whether or not you think it does. And that itself is something to be grateful for.
As a logical concept, grace is very hard to pin down, and so is gratitude. Both of them are really about the great gifts we have been given, which are way beyond any “deserving,” and therefore also beyond any understanding. Thus gratitude is the best reaction to grace, and its best expression.
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