Gratitude

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.