The Gratitude Season

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the appreciation season. From now until the end of the year I will open my mailbox and find cards: from charities I've given to, my car dealership, and probably Groupons, all thanking me for the money I spent with them this year. And I will be making cards and baking for people I appreciate: the woman who cuts my hair, the maintenance guys where I live, friends who've done me special kindnesses this year. There will be a lot of appreciation flowing for the next five weeks. This is good.

Appreciation expresses who we are and what we like; what makes us happy. Gratitude, on the other hand, profoundly changes who we are and how we see and, I guess, what we appreciate. This year I find myself grateful for something I have always merely appreciated: water.

My grandparents lived within the limits of their cistern. If the cistern went dry they had to buy water and fill it. They didn't know the plentiful water that we take for granted until very near the ends of their lives. Their gratitude for water, though never verbalized, was evident in the way they handled it. Water rarely went down the drain. It was used and later returned to the earth. Hand washing was accomplished in a basin of water that grew cold as the day went on, and when it became too dirty to clean your hands, was dumped on trees. Water was scarce; scarcity made it precious.

Water has been scarce in my part of the world this year. We are experiencing a drought on par with the one during the dust bowl. Stage two restrictions are in place: No water in restaurants unless requested. You can't water your yard more than once a week. Cars can only be washed at car washes that recycle a certain percentage of the water used. We are encouraged to turn off the water when we brush our teeth, and to use our toilets more often without flushing. This is a far cry from the scarcity of my grandparent's situation, but a significant change for many of us.

Scarce as it is, water is also common. It is our first home – before we are even born water in a womb cushions us, cradles us, and nourishes us as we grow. The waters of baptism become our second home, marking us with the cross of Christ and sealing our identity as children of God forever. Tears allow us to release our deepest joys and sorrows. My body is more than 50% water. None of us can survive very long without it. In that, all of us are one. The need for water may be the most unifying of all human qualities.

Much has been written about the power of gratitude. From monks in the Middle Ages to Oprah Winfrey, thoughtful people have pointed out that being grateful changes us. Gratitude shapes our attitudes and impacts our choices. It creates awareness and empathy. Moving from appreciation to gratitude is movement toward God.

I am grateful for water this Thanksgiving; for its scarcity and its commonness. That gratitude allows me to encounter the sacred many times each day. Sacred water points me to the creator, provider, and redeemer of all. Thanks be to God.

Go Bears!

I read a great story today.  It seems that a woman who works at Baylor University was watching news of the Bastrop wildfires and began worrying about the kids.  Over 1,500 homes have burned leaving around 5,000 people without a place to live.  So she started researching ways that the staff, faculty and students at Baylor could help.  That's when she discovered that the Bastrop High School mascot was the Bears.  Same as Baylor!  So she organized the Bears2Bears drive which hopes to collect a teddy bear for every displaced kid in Bastrop.  This kind of thing just makes my heart sing.  When a whole bunch of people come together to offer what they can, big things can happen.  I'll be watching to see how they come out, but I expect it will be successful.  How could it fail with all those cuddly elements!

At my church, we're working with all the kids on a project we're calling Sock-It-To-Me.  I rolled it out last week for the parents and they put it down on their to do list and I was sure we'd get some socks.  Last night I rolled it out for my 8th grade confirmation class and was delighted to see how the challenge energized them.  They were told that they could buy socks out of their allowance, beg socks from their friends, swap work for socks, or pretty much anything else they would like to do but that there were people without socks depending on them.  "That's EASY!" one of them said.  "Can we bring more than 12?" was another student's question.  And, as I expected, "Who doesn't have SOCKS?"

No donor fatigue here.  Generous hearts are dancing at the call.  Maybe it's not as efficient to give socks or teddy bears as it is to give money but I think we miss something in the exchange when we just write a check. The kids most certainly do.  Giving goods makes the recipient real.  Knowing that some child's toys burned up in the fire is something a kid can imagine.  Visualizing an empty sock drawer is easier than conceiving of a life without a sock drawer.  This awareness sparks both generosity and gratitude in kids.  It puts them on the path to being compassionate adults.

In the current economic climate we tend toward scarcity thinking, focusing on what we don't have or can't buy rather than on what we still have in abundance.  We are in the midst of deep drought here in Central Texas, but our neighbors to the east are getting flooded.  Maybe there IS enough, it's just not evenly distributed.

Whatever need cries out to you, find a way to respond.  Take your kids along and let them help you help others. Tell them why something makes your heart hurt, or why you want to help in this particular situation.  You will be helping people for generations to come. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver.  What isn't explicitly said is that God loves the person in need too - and you're the "bear-er" of that love.  Go Bears!

Waiting and Wanting

When I talk with older folks, well, older than me, I hear a recurring opinion about young people - they don't appreciate anything! There is some truth to this - especially that they don't appreciate any THING. I think that most people under 35 have had a lot of stuff in their short lives. And they aren't impressed. Stuff is just stuff for the most part. Most of them have known very little want or wait for things, and so they don't appreciate things, as we, who have experienced want and wait, do.

When I talk with younger people, I hear a recurring opinion about older people - they don't appreciate the value of my time! And, this is also somewhat true. People my age and older routinely call meetings to settle matters that could be handled by e-mail. We often try to handle things by e-mail that would be more easily managed by phone or face-to-face. Most of us were not hurried from early childhood on, and so we don't appreciate the value of time as our younger friends do.

My daughter recently, and casually, dropped the phrase "feast and fast" into a conversation we were having. I've been chewing on that for a couple of weeks - you can't enjoy the feast without the fast. And what is fast but wanting and waiting. Fasting is practice from days gone by that has never, truly, been part of many people's lives beyond observation of other cultures. In many places around the world, people only eat meat on special occasions. A feast day is truly a feast day! Here in the U.S., we have been so richly blessed that we feast all the time. The media is full of reports about American obesity but I think this continual feasting has also impacted our character. Living life without want or wait affects us in interesting ways.

Living without want can make us, ironically, insatiable, or "unsatisfiable". Without a true hunger there is no true satisfaction. This creates an opportunity for other people to tell us what we want – advertisers and the media regularly tell us we would be happier "if only". Yet when we get what they suggest, we remain unsatisfied.

Living without wait makes us impatient, demanding and thoughtless. We medicate ourselves with text messages, phone calls or i-pods, just to make it through the wait in line at the post office or the bank.

Young friends, perhaps it would bless you and your children to fast from something (TV, sugar, technology?) occasionally. They, and you, will learn a little more appreciation. My dear older friends, perhaps it would bless you and your families if you could see time together a little more as a feast to be savored. You might learn to appreciate the gift of time a little more.

Nature fasts and feasts - there are times of drought and times of rain; times of abundance and times of scarcity. Maybe it's helpful to assume that this is part of God's plan for creation and join in the feast-fast cycle of creation. It might help us understand one another better!