Thanksgiving is here again. It’s a new experience for me, being that Australians don’t ritualize gratitude in the same manner. We generally prefer grumpiness over gratitude. Never quite got over the whole convict thing. I’m kidding of course. Aussies are well and truly over the convict mentality and appreciate our prosperous country.

I have also become aware that some Americans approach Thanksgiving with fear and loathing, with the inevitable simmering family tensions.

Homer Simpson began a thanksgiving prayer for his family, “I give thanks for the occasional moments of peace and love our family’s experienced…well, not today. You saw what happened. O, Lord, be honest! Are we the most pathetic family in the world or what?”

Maybe it’s a day when you will avoid arguments, or if you end up in an argument, you might consider Loudon Wainwright's Thanksgiving prayer: "If I argue with a loved one, Lord, please make me the winner."

Thanksgiving may be a trial for you, or else you may be apprehensive about what this Thanksgiving will bring you. What might I say that would fill you with patience and optimism this Thanksgiving. Let me begin with a story.

Once upon a time, there was an old man who was respected for his patience and optimism. Whenever anyone asked him how he had become so positive, he always answered, "I know what is in the Bible."
Once he was discovered sick and near death but completely without complaint. "How did you manage to stay so calm in such a situation?" his friends asked him.
"I know what is in the Bible," the old man said.
Later, the old man was robbed of everything he owned. "How did you keep your temper?" they asked him.
"I know what is in the Bible," the old man answered them.
One season crops were poor, and the old man almost starved to death.
"How could you possibly have managed to survive?" the friends asked in awe.
"Because I know what is in the Bible,"' the old man said.
So when the old man died, they went to his home to sort through his things. They found his Bible next to his bed. One of his friends opened up the Bible and began weeping. He said to the others, “I now know what is in the Bible. “
“What?” They all asked.
“A photograph of his wife, two pressed flowers and a bunch of letters from friends.”

How do you stay optimistic in the face of life’s challenges? How do you remain grateful amidst the uncertainty of living in the “ground zero” of the struggling American economy?

Thanksgiving is always a challenging day as we recall the European conquest of Indigenous peoples. What does gratitude mean in the context of the loss of life, land and language for millions of Native Americans? How do you give thanks for a lifestyle and prosperity that thrived in the face of the devastation of others?

How does your religion resource you to remain optimistic and grateful in the face of uncertainty, suffering and injustice? What’s in your Bible?

I want to suggest that the current economic crisis, as tough as it is, is a priceless opportunity to regain a true sense of gratitude; one that is not dependent on circumstance, pleasure or entitlement.

The first lesson of the economic crisis is the realization of the cycles of life. In order to appreciate cycles, it’s necessary to see beneath surface things such as crisis or prosperity to the flow that lies behind all change. Nothing lasts forever, even crises.

Recognizing Cycles

Thanksgiving has traditionally been a time to give thanks for the harvest. Harvest is all about cycles, and each cycle carries a large degree of uncertainty. A bumper crop would mean long and luscious lunches. A lean harvest would mean winter diets of turnips and cabbage soup; dried beans if you were lucky. For some it would mean starvation, or dependence on charity just to survive.

For a long time, we haven’t had this challenge. We just truck over and tuck in, fly down and fry up. We buy bananas from the local store, oblivious to their long flight from Ecuador.  We fly in whatever takes our fancy from anywhere in the world, no matter what the season. It doesn’t even cost more. Why should we be grateful for our food, when it all seems so easy? As Bart Simpson prayed before one meal- “Dear God, we paid for this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing,"

Of course there is a cost and there is a cycle, even if we are oblivious to it. The journey of the banana from Ecuador leaves a trail of ecological disaster behind it; a reminder of our lack of gratitude, a massive carbon footprint that stamps “thanks for nothing” all over the sky.
If we really understood the cycle; where our food came from, and its seasonal sojourn, we would never eat a thing without enormous gratitude for the web of nature/ human collaboration that brought it to us; the earth that prepared it for us, and the future life of the planet that depends on our choices.

This is the Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh’s, grace.
My plate, now empty, will soon be filled with precious food. In this food, I see the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence. Many beings are struggling for food today. I pray that they
all may have enough to eat.

Now that’s a grace, full of awareness and gratitude for the cycles of life.

Consider the parallel between the rural harvest and the economic downturn. Maybe you are delaying retirement, or postponing a vacation. Maybe the situation is more dire for you, and you are contemplating home foreclosure or being laid off. Maybe the recollection of a booming economy is only a faint memory, but it is a memory. This is a cycle. It’s like gravity that goes both ways. What goes up will come down, and what comes down will go up again. It may never match your expectation, but it will keep changing. Learn gratitude for the cycles of change.

Recognize Your Connections

The second less of the economic crisis is to know that you are not alone, no matter how lonely you feel. This is something we are all in together.

In his book “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, Bill Bryson quotes the physicist Richard Feynman who said that if you had to reduce scientific history to one important statement it would be this: “All things are made of atoms.” Bryson explains that a billion of the atoms in your body probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from the Buddha and Joan of Arc and Genghis Khan. Nevertheless, for now, trillions of these atoms have somehow assembled themselves into you.

Life only exists in relationship. The more aware you are of the web of relationships that make Life possible, the more gratitude you experience. The more aware you are of the frailty of human life, yet its evolutionary extinct for survival, the more gratitude you experience.

There is a beautiful story from the Zen tradition.

Behind a temple there was a field where there were many squashes growing on a vine. One day a fight broke out among them, and the squashes split up into two groups and made a big racket shouting at one another.

The Zen master heard the uproar and, going out to see what was going on, found the squashes quarreling. In his booming voice the he scolded them. "Hey squashes! What are you doing out there fighting? Everyone do zazen [sit in meditation]."

While the squashes were sitting zazen their anger subsided and they settled down.

Then the teacher quietly said, "Everyone put your hand on top of your head." When the squashes felt the top of their heads, they found some weird thing attached there. It turned out to be a vine that connected them all together. "This is really strange. Here we've been arguing when actually we're all tied together and living just one life. What a mistake!" After that, the squashes all got along with each other quite well.

Give thanks for community and interdependence, the God between, the God who goes by many names; Life, Creative Process, Gaia, Interrelatedness, Ground of Being or whatever other name has meaning for you.  It’s greater than you; but utterly dependent on you and your choices at the same time.

Give thanks also for the unity of life that transcends all difference and all circumstance. It even transcends life and death. Harvest requires death and rebirth, and as hard as it is to see life at some points, the new life of harvest is veiled and waiting for the right time to flourish. The only way we can make sense of the economic crisis, or the destruction of native people and culture, or loss of life in war, or the loss of a loved one, is to take a long view, see the signs of rebirth, and nurture these new seeds of growth.

Learning Humility

One of the barriers to gratitude is a sense of entitlement. Our culture has done a fine job of convincing us that we are special, that we deserve happiness and that more is always better. The antidote to entitlement is humility and responsibility. The older you get, the more the more you realize how little you know about so much. Life is what it is. All you can do is respond to what life offers you with a sense of humility and service.

Here is a three pronged approach to life that encompasses a humble sense of gratitude.

Say “yes” to Now, say “I don’t know” to Mystery and say “thank you” to Life.

Say “yes” to economic downturn. Say “I don’t know why or why now, or how long it will last, or even what life will look like after the crisis”. Say, “thank you” to the cycle of life that continues even in the midst of struggle.

When Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust, he had a renewed sense of gratitude- “No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.”
It’s not just because of the relief of survival. It’s the realization that darkness cannot overwhelm inner light, which rests in the knowledge that nothing lasts forever.

Gratitude for Surprise, Not Certainty

Be grateful for the surprise that is life. Molly Fumia put it this way:
“To be joyful in the universe is a brave and reckless act. The courage for joy springs not from the certainty of human experience, but the surprise. Our astonishment at being loved, our bold willingness to love in return--these wonders promise the possibility of joyfulness, no matter how often and how harshly love seems to be lost. Therefore, despite the world’s sorrows, we give thanks for our loves, for our joys and for the continued courage to be happily surprised. “

So, gratitude is the acceptance that life is playing out as it needs to for now, but not as it will play out for all time. The times of ease will eventually get complicated. The crisis will smooth out in time. Gratitude is attached to neither feeling; it simply ebbs and flows.

Once you discover gratitude for your utter dependence on relationships for survival, you flow naturally into an ethic of gratitude. An ethic of gratitude demands that you nurture the same world that nurtures you in return. Create the kind of environment that you want to be immersed in, and therefore be the change you wish to see in the world.

May gratitude, like unexpected budding of flowers in the winter, fill your heart with peace.  Every day is just as unexpected as an iris in March. Your work in this life is to carve the stone of this very moment with the chisel of your love, your reason, your passion and your struggle, and there to realize the blossom that has been hidden inside all the while. Don't confuse peace with stillness, or love with sentiment. Enjoy the peace of heart that is unrest, a longing for deeper things. Dare to be surprised by life and give thanks.