A chance conversation with my wife opened a world of wonder for me recently. I mentioned to her that, as I reaching for a scarf before my walk on a chilly morning, my thoughts drifted to a woman (a parishioner, now deceased) who had knitted several items for me. As I remembered her, I prayed and gave thanks for the kindnesses she had shown me. My wife’s response was to say that she had recently remembered her as well, as she came across several potholders that had been given her by the same woman. The conversation that ensued was our mutual remembrance of the “avalanche” of kindnesses that we overlook and too easily forget while small injuries, generally insignificant, linger on.
A couple of years back, I read a small book called The Body Keeps the Score. It described the small ways that trauma affects our bodies and the cumulative result that becomes the burden we take up every day. There’s a very practical reason that our bodies (and our brains) recall these many infractions: we’re designed for safety. It is useful that our body learns (and remembers) not to touch a burning object – a single lesson should suffice.
The same body that remembers, however, frequently becomes the body (and brain) that torments. Wounds and trauma become ever-present companions through resentments, fear, and a nagging darkness that mis-colors the world.
If our life were purely a matter of the body, I suspect that we would find ourselves crushed beneath the weight of a collective remembrance of wrongs. It is little wonder that those who experience the dangers of life in a war-zone emerge with a war-zone within themselves. I had a friend, a Vietnam vet, who came home and moved to the Everglades for 18 months. He said, “I needed to live in a jungle for a while without someone trying to kill me every day.”
Our bodies do not have the last word. The mystery that we name as “heart” (and many other names) is, happily, able to transcend the “score.” For, though we live in a world that is sometimes dangerous, we are, on the whole inundated by a world of kindness, generosity, forgiveness, and love. I believe we often forget this part of lives, for there is no part of our embodied existence that stores up remembered kindness (at least to my knowledge). To access that abundance of good, the heart is required to “mine” its experience.
The modern economy is such a large feature in our news cycles, it is easy for us to take everything around us for granted, assuming that the money we pay for stuff is sufficient as a form of “thanksgiving.” If you think about your own work, you will realize that, though you may be “paid,” money rarely covers the true value of what you do. The workers in a store are not “paid” to be friendly. The vast number of drivers who do not provoke you to rage inasmuch as they observe the rules are not paid (nor do we bother to remember them). Money does not make the world “go ’round” nor does it make our day worthwhile. We are, instead, surrounded by kindness, generosity, goodness, and tolerance on such a scale that their absence provokes our notice.
That we take such things for granted, however, starves the heart and darkens our view of ourselves and the world. Since the body does not “keep the score” of good things done and received (there being nothing to fear), it remains for the heart to make a frequent tally of such things and reckon them with thanksgiving.
I have written time and again regarding the offering of thanks. It is at the very heart of the “priesthood of all believers,” an offering made with the lips, the heart, and every form of art. It is a source of almsgiving and every form of charity. It is said by one of the early fathers that “he who feeds the poor does a greater work than he who raises someone from the dead.” With that in mind, I would suggest that the offering of thanks is perhaps the most essential and great work of life.
The trinity of beauty, goodness, and truth is best perceived through the lens of thanksgiving. It is at the center of noetic perception. It forms the greater part of the devotion that “lays up treasure in heaven” in the thankfulness of almsgiving.
In my own experience, thankfulness is a healing balm for the dark wounds of bitterness and resentment. The Patriarch Joseph’s generous words to his brothers (who had sought first his death and then sold him as a slave), “You meant it to me for evil but the Lord meant it to me for good,” can only have come from a heart that had long been healed through the practice of giving thanks.
Once a year, in our culture at least, the topic of “thankfulness” is broached. Though not all are certain to whom they should be grateful, at least the topic is brought out of hiding. Some will offer a moment’s thought and feel somewhat lighter. Others may ponder its depths and begin to discover the sweetness in its mystery.
In our Orthodox life, the center is found in the Eucharist, named from the simple Greek word for thanksgiving. St. Paul states the case quite succinctly: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1Th 5:18).
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