Newer Essays

We do not need to know any more about ingratitude than not wanting it as an attitude for ourselves and not liking to see it manifested in anyone else. Our strong preference is for living gratefully for all that we receive, have, and are as beloved children of God. Even naming the other possibility is unpleasant as a consideration, but it serves as a caution to take none of the good in life for granted, and to give thanks as much as we can.

One of the surest antidotes to the misery of thinking about all the disasters and potentially worse consequences of some of the present movements in our world is not to deny whatever is real, but to stay close to true causes for gratitude that are present in, with, and around us wherever we are. Whatever afflicts us, and especially whatever we think may befall us, cannot help but enter consciousness. But we are under no obligation to retain those thoughts, especially since they elicit negative feelings that can lead to further injury-causing thoughts leading in the direction of ingratitude. “No,” we tell ourselves, “There is more to my life than this.” From there, we can deliberately call to mind some experiences of love, whether received or given, that affirm the goodness which founds our lives.

If we reflect on our human capabilities, one of the most significant is that of gratitude. A “thank you” is such an easy and almost universally welcome gift to offer that we might not recognize that it is a powerful force for good that we can exercise freely whenever we choose to do so. We did not acquire this capacity by taking an academic course or paying a license fee. Rather, we knew at a very early age that we could be grateful and were likely encouraged to thank people for even small expressions of kindness. We are still learning from experience how to expand occasions for expressing gratitude according to our unique personalities.

We can be grateful for much in life without directing our thanks to anyone, but we gain much satisfaction for ourselves, besides blessing others, whenever we direct our thanks to people for gifts received, including especially the spiritual goods of friendship, respect, care, and all other forms and manifestations of love. Thanking God for not only direct personal blessings, but also for all that we perceive of the ongoing creation of everything that exists, also satisfies us, for we are thereby exercising our graced capacity for gratitude. Our likeness to God becomes visible whenever we acknowledge goodness wherever and whenever we recognize it.

Gratitude is a response to love, which is the purpose of our lives.

Airports are a relatively recent location for arrivals, since terminals for ships, trains, and busses had listed arrivals for many years before air travel became common. By now, we might have become so accustomed to comings at expected times that we become frustrated when a plane is delayed, or someone comes late to a meeting. Arrivals for us are almost always in terms of specific minutes, and are only rarely open to occurrences within days, weeks, or even months. Imagine, if you can, those who looked for the arrival of the One who was spoken of in the Hebrew prophecies, when there were no clocks or precise measures of time. Becoming frustrated would have been as useless then as it is for us now, who expect almost all arrivals to be at a designated time.

Unlike frustration which exhibits a flawed belief that things should take place when we want rather than whenever they do happen, anticipation is a much more pleasing movement. Most of us have learned from experience to anticipate with joy the arrival of persons we love, even when the timing is not as we had hoped or wanted. This is the proper attitude for the Liturgical season of Advent, the approximately 4 weeks prior to the celebration of Christ’s birth at “Christ Mass,” which has been abbreviated to “Christmas.”

Children are often encouraged to anticipate the arrival of the many family, social, and faith aspects of Christmas, and they can become somewhat impatient. However, they usually retain their positive hopefulness of good things that are to come. We cannot go back to being children, but we have the capability of choosing an attitude of hope and expectation of future good. Sometimes we can do this on our own, while at other times, especially when we find it difficult to imagine how things can turn out for the better, we manage quite well by turning directly to the One whose arrival is celebrated at Christmas.

We might anticipate with pleasure, usually for only a short time, our birthday and anniversary celebrations and those of relatives and friends. These, like Christmas, occur on specific dates. The season of Advent is much longer, not primarily because the birth of Jesus is by comparison of far greater significance than our annual events, but to encourage and allow for much more than a birthday celebration. The season is presented as a series of gifts that keep on giving, as we reflect on some of the mysteries of God’s faithful and abiding love for us in fulfilling old promises and initiating new ways of relating with us in our present circumstances.

Enjoy the season of Advent, one day at a time, and savor the mysteries of faith that become meaningful and supportive as we reflect on them.

If we think about it, there can be no life that is not real. So, the expression, “real life,” would seem to be a redundancy. For us, there is nothing more real than being alive. However, when we refer to specific persons as having died and being numbered among the dead, we also think of them as real, because we implicitly accept that they are alive within a reality transcending this life, one that includes us as well.

Some could rightly say that this is a statement of faith, but it is more than a religious doctrine. We have an innate sense of life and reality as being tied together in a manner that extends beyond the evidence we can obtain through our senses. However, we also understand intuitively that people who are visibly and actively alive can be so fully involved in behavior destructive of others, and to have so fully repudiated their own spiritual essence, that they do not seem to have a life. 

Rather than being merely a logical redundancy, “real life” makes sense if we engage freely with the mysterious aspect of our lives where they are seen as a gift of God and as a participation in the very being of God. We did not have anything to do with being chosen by God to exist and to be thereby related with God directly as beloved creatures. However, we make free decisions in response to the unique environment and circumstances of our lives. We know well that our behavior is not pre-programed, nor do we find evidence that any aspect of our lives has been decided for us beforehand. God freely creates us, but we choose whether we will even believe that, and we decide whether to accept that we are more than simply what we think and do.   

Sometimes we might hear or even make comments to the effect that some people who are not earning their living are not participating in “real life.” No matter what we might say to distinguish between earning a living and being provided for by others, both are realities, no matter how different one way of living is from the other. The more important issue is how we respond to our present situation, whatever it might be. Doing so with love rather than selfishness is to be fully alive, whether we are rejoicing or grieving, actively participating in or passively accepting the pleasant and the unpleasant experiences that are a part of our lives. 

Real life is about all our ordinary decisions to love.

The concept that we are free to do anything we want is significantly different from the thought that nothing in this world can keep us from the love of God. We can freely choose to do things that are good for us and for others or we can cause harm, but there is nothing that has the power to prevent us from receiving God’s love or from being loving persons.

A paradox of our freedom is that although we can choose to give our attention to anything, including impulsive ideas, but only some of the options available are truly worthy of our notice or personal involvement. Everything that exists participates in the goodness of God, but the way we relate with some thoughts, material beings, and actions direct us away from love, which is the ultimate good for which we are created and that truly satisfies the desires of our hearts.

We do not have the capability of deciding to make a purely selfish act into something that is good for us or for anyone else. Our freedom, rather than a radical power to choose anything we happen to want, is a precious gift that requires at least as much vigilance and care as does the most financially valuable possession we have. Anything that proves an obstacle to love of God and others is to be avoided. Rather than limiting our freedom, the choice to turn aside from anything contrary to conscience enables us to see more clearly the options for love that will fulfill us.

We can likely recall an incident when we had an impulse to exercise our freedom by choosing a specific action that satisfied an immediate impulse but left us not only unsatisfied but also disappointed in ourselves. We had the freedom to make that decision, but when we did, the vision of our minds and hearts was a little darkened as to our purpose in life. If we learned from the experience, and responded differently at the next similar situation, we might recall not just that we felt better with the consequences but also that we found ourselves with an expanded sense of our freedom: we were more firmly convinced that we did not want to be pushed into action by mere surface attractions and impulses. We learned that such uses of our freedom to choose diminished our freedom to be the kinds of persons we truly want to be.

Freedom is most realistically the freedom to love, not just to do anything that might appeal to us. When we freely open ourselves to God’s love, we become freer to love God, people, and everything God creates.

We might imagine an infant gazing back at a parent leaning over and saying, “I see you.” Contained in such a few words are a bundle of meanings, from a simple statement of fact, through an expression of intense feelings of love, to even providing words for the infant’s use someday in the future to accompany the gaze that so entrances its parent. We might say, “I see you,” to let someone know that we are aware of their presence, but we might also intend a much deeper meaning, perceiving the movements in their hearts that they have not communicated in words. When we are fully present while relating with others, we have a wonderous capability of including insightful and powerful messages in a few words that bear far more meaning than those that even the best of dictionaries can provide.

For someone trying to remain hidden, or attempting to prevent anyone from perceiving their intentions, “I see you” is not what they want to hear, but it might be a truth that they need to face. Most of us, who are going about our lives trying to do whatever we believe to be right and good, being recognized is supportive and consoling. “I see you” comes as an expression of respect and perhaps admiration as well. Whether we say this to one another or not, the interior disposition of one person fully attending to another can be one of the most significant gifts we bring to an interaction. When we “see” others and are not focused on anything that we might gain, our attitude is that of our care for them, an aspect of love that is real and present.

The Christmas story is about an infant in a crib. A best practice for us is to meet the child’s gaze, and allow ourselves to receive “I see you,” as a true expression from Emanuel, God with us. We are welcome to reply spontaneously with whatever is in our hearts, but receiving those words from Jesus first, acknowledges that he has the primary role in our relationship of love. Letting that gaze and those words enter our minds and hearts enables us to go about the Christmas Season ready to see Christ in all those we encounter, friends, family, and many others, perhaps looking at us with at least some of that gaze of the infant, and we, in turn, looking at them with an implicit “I see you.” 

We call the first of January “New Year’s Day,” acknowledging the celebrations taking place all around the world. While it is reasonable to call the year “new” since it is just beginning, we can question whether it is a serious cause for celebration. We do not always publicly welcome everything just because it is new. And there is nothing intrinsic to the beginning of a new year that benefits us or will bring joy to our hearts. Rather, if we consider what we are doing, our observance of the new year is about gratitude for all the good that we experienced in the year just ended and hope for a better future.

A truly holistic New Year’s celebration includes the two complementary movements, both deeply spiritual, of gratitude and hope. We know that the movement of a clock or the marking of a date in a calendar does not cause any substantial change. Instead, we give meaning to symbols and symbolic actions that readily convey to one another significant interior movements that are worthy of celebration. The more conscious we become of what we intend, the more suitable will be the ways we celebrate the new year.

Because we are social, we might participate in some traditional rituals that are widely practiced. We might also decide to take time that does not necessarily coincide precisely with clocks and calendars to engage more fully with the gratitude and hope that will fill needs in us that no amount of external celebration can deliver.

For all the sayings about the problems of the “old” year, we can find many causes for gratitude and thankfulness in both “the good times and the bad,” for God was with us in all of them. We might choose to reflect and pray about this on our own, and we can join a religious or non-religious gathering of people who together respond to the human need for recalling from the past some of those positive and learning experiences that we want to carry within us into the new year.

Hope does not cost anything, but it is extremely valuable and not at all to be taken for granted in a world where there is more profit for presenters of negative information and opinions than there is for those who witness to the truth of how love is the essential good and limitless movement within us that empowers and guides whatever we say and do. There is no need to seek proof that there is cause for hope, because it is a gift that accompanies acceptance of God’s love for us that is absolute and unfailing in all circumstances.

Every day of the year offers new opportunities for gratitude and hope for those open to the love of God.