Thanksgiving
The
concept of thanksgiving (or gratitude) implicitly connotes three
elements. First, and most obviously, thanksgiving connotes a person giving
thanks or being grateful.
The second
element of thanksgiving or gratitude is that the person or group giving thanks
or being grateful has recognized and appreciated something as good or
beneficial. Today, people give thanks for a wide variety of things and on
diverse occasions including promotions, completing a project, births (and
sometimes a death), anniversaries, a new job, winning the lottery, an
unexpected kindness, etc.
However,
the third element that thanksgiving or gratitude connotes is both the most
important and least recognized. To be meaningful, the person must thank
someone.
Consider
winning the lottery. Being thankful for winning a game of chance is, at least,
a poor choice of terminology and, at worst, completely illogical – unless one
believes that the game's outcome resulted not from random chance but an agent's
intervention. This agent may be human or otherwise, depending upon whom one
believes has rigged the game, for true randomness precludes any form of
intervention. The winner of a random game may feel elated or exhilarated, may
feel they have fared better than have the losers, but cannot rightly give
thanks. For to whom should they give thanks? The winner of a random game may
give thanks for their skill or their opponents' lack of skill; they may thank
Lady Chance, God, the game's host, or a guardian angel. An almost endless list
of to whom one might give thanks is possible, but all of the options are
completely illogical in a true game of chance, because the outcome depends upon
random events, beyond anyone's control, and not upon any agent's intervention.
This
Thanksgiving, I encourage you to ponder two questions: For what are you
thankful? To whom should you give thanks?
Most
Thanksgivings, I observe people thanking God for many things (aka blessings) for which God's
responsibility is very minimal and indirect. The health of any particular human
depends very heavily upon genetic inheritance, behavioral habits, and random
events more than it does God's direct intervention. To believe otherwise
entails blaming God for the bad health – painful cancers, life-destroying
diseases, disrupting disabilities – that affect so many people. Similarly,
harvests depend upon random weather processes and a farmer's choices and effort
more than upon God's direct intervention. Otherwise, why do some farmers
prosper year and year and other, neighboring farmers, struggle to survive year
after year?
I am
slowly learning to be thankful to myself for much of what I do, feel, and think.
Variously formulated Christian theological doctrines such as original sin and
total depravity wrongly and completely devalue humans. Created by God, humans
are valuable and able to do good things.
Similarly,
I am learning to be thankful to others for much of what they do and for my
relationships with them. Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to cultivate the
habit of intentionally thanking persons for enriching your life through the
kind and good things that they do, or through their relationship with you.
Finally,
thank God for life. Life is our real blessing from God, an idea enshrined in the
classic Jewish toast of Le Chaim (to life). For in life – whether in the
beauty of the world, relationships of love, human creativity, our limited
autonomy, or our self-awareness – we experience an echo or reflection of the
divine.
To thank
God for more– for blessings that we and not others have received – implicitly presumes
that God loves us better or more completely than God loves the others to whom
God has been less good, less kind. That presumption is patently false, because
God loves everyone equally. Collectively, American exceptionalism (believing
that God loves, favors, and blesses the United States more fully than God blesses
other nations), which too often colors Thanksgiving holiday celebrations, reflects
unhealthy, unchristian hubris.
Although I
first posted this essay on Ethical Musings in 2013, years before my diagnosis with
cancer and President Trump’s insistence on America first as the foundation
of his foreign policy, I find its ideas even more timely in 2017 than in 2013.
For what
are you thankful? To whom do you give thanks?
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