Giving Thanks

It’s that time of year again. Quite possibly the best holiday ever invented, Thanksgiving is a holiday dedicated to eating, and eating, and eating, with a cool-down period of weeks of turkey sandwiches and chilled leftover pie. But wait! say alert readers: Thanksgiving isn’t just about food! It’s about friends, family, community, and, well, giving thanks. And so it should be, as much as our consumption-oriented culture would have us believe otherwise.

But what does it mean, really, to give thanks? What does it mean to be grateful? Be grateful, say parents across the country to stubborn children seated before plates of green beans. There are children all over the world who would love to have what you have. Be grateful, say employers to employees taking pay cuts. In this economy, you’re lucky to have a job. Be grateful, we say: at least you’re not like them.

And I am grateful. I’m grateful for a loving family that supports me in what is rapidly becoming a very unorthodox life. I’m grateful for thoughtful words from friends. I’m grateful for meaningful actions and useful gifts, books read and passed on, and songs recommended.

Today is Thanksgiving. In a few hours my house and I will begin preparing a feast designed to induce good conversation and, after that, a long and heavy food coma. We’re going to do so in a warm house, with good company. And I ask myself: am I grateful?

Today, Americans across the country will be thanking someone or something for the blessings we have. We’re grateful, we’ll say, that we have food on the table. We’re grateful for warm beds and safe streets. We’re grateful for our freedoms. And, God help us, we’re grateful for our big screen TVs, environmentally friendly hybrids, SUVs, guns, flowers, fat turkeys, and fat vegan-soy-turkey-alternatives. We’re grateful for these things because there are millions of people around the world who don’t have them. We’re only grateful for our jobs when the economy’s down, only grateful for our food when we see those who starve, only grateful for our lives when we are confronted with death. No one is more grateful for oxygen than a man who escapes a drowning.

We tend to think of these things as gifts, from God, from chance, from fate, but a gift is something given with no expectation of repayment, as an expression of love. That necklace, that book, yes, even that tie is a gift. A beautiful sunrise, the song of a bird, and the way the air smells after it rains, those are gifts.

So we are grateful; but let us be careful in our gratefulness., for these things you are giving thanks for today are not all gifts. Your social position, your prosperity, your talents, and even your life itself, are not gifts. They are responsibilities. So, when you gather around your feast this afternoon, give thanks for these things, but remember that they’re not free. All of us have a responsibility to act in this world and act well. Whether that means feeding the homeless next thanksgiving, or volunteering for a charity, or even just creating a beautiful piece of music, is up to you.

Being a child is about learning to give thanks; being an adult is about learning to give back.