Good evening. It is always a joy to spend time at a Dialogue Institute event with so many old friends and now new friends. While the flyer said I was presenting a keynote, I don’t want to put too many words between your food and myself. But I will share some words with you tonight.

I must confess that when I was asked to share on the topic of Thanksgiving and gratitude, I was a bit amused and even surprised. I do not think of myself as a very grateful person. Giving thanks is not always easy for me. “Thanks” was not a word that was used much in my family setting. Additionally, if any of you have taken a personality test such as the Myers Briggs (MBTI®), CliftonStrengths™ Assessment, the Enneagram, or others, my personality type tends to fall in categories that deal more with critique, rather than gratitude. Again, my mom, who I love dearly, was great at what we called “constructive criticism,” leaning more heavily on the “criticism’ part. So gratitude and giving thanks have always been elusive for me. It is not my default reaction.  Some of you may be very similar. And yet, many of you find a sincere level of gratitude and thanks, and awareness of the gifts and privileges we all enjoy in various ways. Giving thanks comes so naturally for you without thought or hesitation. Makes me nervous sometimes!

The reason I am addressing the topic of thanksgiving and gratitude is obvious as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day later this week. As many countries celebrate a day of thanks, I think it is important to consider the context of our Thanksgiving celebration here tonight in the United States, It is a complicated expression of thanks. The mythic story of Thanksgiving stems from the story of the First Thanksgiving Meal, reenacted in just about every elementary school this time of year for decades where a kids dress up in paper Indian bonnets and Pilgrim hats they have made. The Indians and Pilgrims greet each other and then all sit down and share in a meal.  In some sense, it has become a creation myth, a story that is part of the civil religion of the United States. It marks the arrival and survival of the first Pilgrims, whose story is one of seeking freedom of religious expression, also part of our national narrative. Yet, they were also known as Puritans, coming from their desire to practice a pure version of Christianity. Ironically, they were basically considered religious extremists for their day, not accepting of other expressions of Christianity, let alone any other religious traditions. They did however endure much losing almost half of their community during the harsh winter. Their relationship with indigenous peoples was more complicated than the elementary story tells. They were eventually encountered by the Wampanoag People, a community that had lost 50-90% of its own community due to disease brought on by European fisherman who visited the coast. The Pilgrims had robbed the graves and stolen food to survive from this same community. But there were other Indigenous tribes in the area, and a need for security brought these two decimated groups together, perhaps more out of need than virtuous charity. Sometimes necessity is the means of overcoming barriers of difference, prejudice, and fear.

For many in our indigenous communities, perhaps even here in this room tonight, Thanksgiving Day is also considered a “Day or Mourning,” a reminder of colonization, the theft of culture, a genocide of their people, a history that we have been reminded of this past year with the numerous remains of children found in unmarked graves at several sites of boarding schools operated by many Christian denominations, such as Catholics, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. For them, the days is one of conflict, one of thanksgiving and one of conflict.

It reminds me that the process of Thanksgiving and gratitude can be complicated. Often, we are experiencing gratitude while our neighbor may be experiencing the opposite, such as a tornado touching down or a fire hitting Central Texas, taking one neighbor’s house, but leaving the another’s intact. One is grateful while the other is suffering loss.

Yet, the idea of cultivating a heart of gratitude can be found in most faith traditions and worldviews. The Hebrew Psalms say, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Yet, the idea of cultivating a heart of gratitude can be found in most faith traditions and worldviews. The Hebrew Psalms say, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Catholic priest, Fr. Richard Rohr in describing a central tradition in Christianity, the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving”, says that in embracing God, “you are making a choice for gratitude, abundance, and appreciation for Another, which has the power to radically de-center you. Your life and death are pure gift, and must be given away in trust, just as they were given to you as gift—in an attitude of gratitude.”

Fethullah Gülen says that the word “shukr” “Literally means gladness felt about and gratitude shown for the good done to one.” He goes on to say, “Sufi’s use shukr to mean using one’s body, abilities, feelings, and thoughts bestowed upon one to fulfill the purpose of his or her creation: being thankful to the Creator for what He has bestowed. Such thankfulness is to be reflected in the person’s actions or daily life, in speech and in the heart, by admitting that all things are directly from Him, and by feeling gratitude for them.”

I would like to offer up the consideration that “gratitude” and “thanksgiving” encompasses a “responsibility,” particularly in our corporate or communal understanding of the world. We are a communal people, something that is not endemic to the American ethos, but it is very much a part of most religious traditions. For those of us in the Abrahamic traditions and I suspect in many others, God created the world and humanity long before the United States was created. Our worldview, if perceived through the lens of faith, calls us to a communal understanding of the world, and of humanity. It is an understanding that what impacts us, also impact those around us, both for the good and for the not so good.

Our “responsibility” in the action of gratitude and thankfulness, is to enter into the narrative of our neighbors, into their joy and into their pain.  It is also entering into the narrative of Allah’s presence in the creation, of Allah’s ongoing work in our lives in the smallest of things and in the largest of things. The small things of life are often easier to be grateful for. They are often visible, the bread on our table, the clothes on our backs, the car we arrived in here tonight. And our gratitude for such things, help us to cultivate a heart of thanks for the more difficult things in life that we often don’t understand, particularly those things in the world about us that seem out of our control. But the process of gratitude takes an intentionality, an awareness, and remembrance, and perhaps even a vision or recognition of God’s enduring presence.

For myself, I must give more thought about what is at the heart of gratitude and thankfulness for myself. Is it my “Stated Trust” in God? Or is it something else?  Am I mindful of what blessings I have had in my life. We each are grateful for different things, and that is all right. We have to be careful on how we judge or impose the focus of our own gratitude onto another’s focus of gratitude. I realized in putting this little talk together that I once started a spreadsheet of things I was grateful. I haven’t looked at that or added to it in many years. It took me awhile to find it, but I am going to return to it as an exercise of cultivating gratitude. As I expand my awareness of others, of my community, of my world, perhaps my gratitude will become grounded in a deeper awareness of God’s presence in my life while also in the integrated communal presence in the lives of others. I think a celebration of Thanksgiving Day, as a national commemoration, calls us to the larger responsibility of the interconnected of our lives, and the gratitude we gain from living together in the pain and joy of each other’s lives, experiencing the presence of God in each other at the same time, which is something we can all be grateful for.

(delivered at the Dialogue Institute Austin Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner, 11/19/22)