Thanksgiving is usually a
great day around here with family and a magnificent turkey and all the
trimmings, but I find it difficult to consider a single day set aside for
giving thanks. I’m quite a grateful
person, offering thanks regularly not only to the Almighty but to everybody who
makes a day brighter for me from a pleasant clerk at some store to those who
are closest to me. I found the need to
offer thanks just this morning when I bit into a cookie at my sister’s and then
ran to where she’d gotten the box of them so I could get myself five
boxes. Thanks all around to the folks
who baked ‘em and boxed ‘em. To the
shippers, the stock boys, the clerk. To
my sister for having gotten them in the first place. To the Lord for providing such delicacies by inspiring the bakers
and creating the ingredients that make them possible.
Though that might’ve
sounded a bit flippant it’s not meant to be.
I’ve always been in the habit of giving thanks. Even if I drop a piece of bread and it lands
butter side up I find myself exclaiming, “Thank you, God,” like the kid in
Animal House who had a Playboy bunny come flying through the window to land on
his bed. (That kid is now a grown man
and a pastor! You can read about him here.) Expressing thanks is just something I’ve
always done and probably because of my maternal grandfather who taught me most
of my earliest lessons in the Faith and about being a good person or at least
trying to be.
I find that being thankful
highlights the good in life because it makes me conscious of how blessed I am
rather than going through life just expecting everything to work out the way I
want it to and considering myself as simply being lucky when it does. As I approach my sixtieth year of life I
even find myself grateful for each day when I say my evening prayers and
express thanks for my having had another day of life to enjoy. When I was younger I used to wonder about
old people, if they ever think about their lives being mostly spent. Now that I’m “old” myself I know that yes,
the limit of our mortality is something we sometimes think about. I don’t have a bucket list. I can’t think of anything at all that I’ll
wish I had done when I’m lying on my death bed. My best fantasies about adulthood have all come true. Everything I ever really hoped to have I do,
and I’m grateful to be content and mostly happy most of the time.
I suppose if I could make
a heartfelt and fervent wish for everybody in my life it would be simply that –
for each person to be content.
Happiness is nice when it’s around, but it’s fleeting. Contentment is long lasting and while there
might be a grey cloud over it some days because of circumstances that don’t
warrant happiness in the moment, the overall contentment with life makes even
those times better than they’d be if one only dwelt on the immediacy of the
right here and right now.
Getting around on a scooter was never something
I wished
for nor dreamed of as a child.
It’s a decided bonus!
So, after all, I suppose
it is that for which I am most grateful – contentment. Knowing that there’s nothing out there that
I need in order for me to be thankful.
In terms of the things that, as a child, I wanted for my adult self to
have, I’m as rich as any king, and grateful beyond measure to have them.
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
and my
wish
for your own contentment!
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