Even in Hard Times

 

We Choose Thanks

“…God, this [season], we do not give thanks. We choose it. We will make this choice of thanks with courageous hearts, knowing that it is humbling to say, ‘thank you.’ We choose to see your sacred generosity, aware that we live in an infinite circle of gratitude. That we are all guests at a hospitable table around which gifts are passed and received. We will not let anything opposed to love take over this table. Instead, we choose grace, free unmerited love, the giftedness of life everywhere. In this choosing and in this making, we will pass gratitude onto the world…We choose thanks. Amen”

Diana Butler Bass (from her Thanksgiving Prayer, 2016)

          Choosing thanks is a powerful message. This morning, some of us are probably not feeling thankful at all. Our candidates may have lost their races and we may be afraid to even contemplate what changes will take place in the next year. We still choose gratitude—that we live in a country that has free and fair elections, without violence. Even when it’s hard, when the chips are down, we put on our boots and go to the polling places to vote. Even when we know we will lose. Choosing thanks is courageous.

          This prayer, excerpted from Rev. Diana Butler Bass’ Thanksgiving prayer in 2016, was originally prayed in the wake of another election. We knew big change was upon us, but we could not imagine what would happen. We had no idea that in the next 4 years we would go through a pandemic that killed more than 3-million people on earth, and an insurrection at the Capital of the United States of America by our own citizens. We faced a chaotic future: wars and the destructive consequences of global warming, two impeachment trials, and for all practical purposes, a government so consumed with itself that it was unresponsive to the plight of its people. And yet, we have survived and watched as winter turned to spring and spring to summer for six more years. For the fortitude that life demands, we choose thanks.

          It’s important to understand that even when we don’t know what’s coming next, we maintain an attitude of thanksgiving. We are fortunate to be alive, and to be here in this place at this time. We are blessed by friends and family and the beautiful season of autumn. We are surrounded by beauty and grace, and we can walk outside knowing that we breathe the air of freedom—whether we win or lose, we are thankful because we choose to be. We choose gratitude.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane