By Richard pelfrey
columbiagps@gmail.com
Why does gratitude only
become so important for a couple months at the end of the year? We go around the table at thanksgiving
and recite a short list of things we have to be grateful for, open up our
presents at Christmas and then go with our lives. The rest of the year maybe we’ll see some image on TV or
(God forbid) in real life of someone who is worse off than we are and feel
grateful that our situation is more comfortable than theirs. But as many a parent has told a whining
child, we don’t realize how lucky we are.
Last year, this publication
reminded me of just how lucky I am and how ungrateful I can be. A friend of mine was down in Cool Springs shopping. It was cold and raining pretty heavy – a
day no one likes to be out in. And
there was this man out there standing in a parking lot in a poncho selling The
Contributor. On a good day, these
folks make – what – 75 bucks selling papers at a profit of 75 cents apiece. My friend stopped and bought three
papers, then the vendor said “you look like a man of God”, and handed him an
envelope to give to the Church. In it was this note from his wife:
“Thank you God.
For keep on (sic)
blessing me. Please keep watching over me + family, Patrick
Green. Please keep us in prayer. Thanks for everything. Please pray for Melanie
Dickerson and Patrick Green.
Thanks,
Melanie Dickerson”
Also in
the envelope was twenty-six dollars cash. Now, here’s a couple who are homeless, spending their days on
street corners trying to make enough money to eat or stay in a hotel room every
once in a while. Washing clothes is an all-day affair, showers are a treat, and
where they sleep many times depends on the weather. Yet despite all of this
hardship, they have the faith to be thankful and feel blessed enough to give a substantial
portion of their daily income to a stranger, believing that the blessings will
continue.
It's really easy for us to
get wrapped up in all the stuff. We
have to work hard to keep what we've “earned”. We have to be tough fighters to
maintain our status and reputation. In the midst of this, it becomes very easy
to forget about blessings and gratitude.
We can see every day that material success doesn't equal joy or
happiness or freedom – many times it leads to the exact opposite. But nonetheless
we get caught up in the material part of life. We lose ourselves in “things”
and forget about what truly matters.
How can we be grateful for
our lunch if we've never been truly hungry?
How can we be grateful for our bed if we've never had to sleep in the gutter?
We can't, and so we end up taking this stuff for granted. I've been both hungry and homeless
before and I still find myself taking the basics for granted. Maybe without
even realizing it, we end up living for the “rat-race”. We forget about the joys of life that
come free of charge, and we forget just how lucky we are.
Grace. This is why a guy
standing in the rain can give his wages to a stranger, and people with nothing
can be seen laughing on street corners. In our pride, we try to seek out
substitutes for joy in the form of stuff, power, praise, etc. The chase causes
us to lose sight of the grace that we have, and gratitude ends up being relegated
to a one-day formality accompanied by turkey and football.
We can't all be tragic. It's
not our fault that we're so lucky. We didn't choose our birth. But we do choose what to do with this life. Receiving grace from God is a choice. Gratitude is a choice. So is love and charity. The charity of the gratefully fortunate
begets more gratitude from its recipients. So, as we kick off this new year, why don’t we try to
practice more of it? Let’s not
wait until next November to start feeling compassion for those less fortunate
folks around us. And remember, we
don’t have to be seated in front of a feast to give thanks. So be grateful for what you have.
Remember how blessed you are. Give
thanks for the grace that you’ve been given today, and share it - every day.
This letter was published in the January 2012 issue of The Contributor. The Contributor is a street paper distributed by Nashville's homeless to, among other things, provide homeless and formerly homeless vendors with a source of income.
15The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. 16This is what you requested of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the LORD my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” 17Then the LORD replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. 18I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. 19Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. 20But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak — that prophet shall die.”
