Giving Thanks
by Michael Ian Lomongo, December 2000
Incarnation — Love made flesh… Goodwill incarnated. All of us have, in one way or another, experienced the spontaneous generosity and kindness of people, even of strangers. A smile, a pat in the hand, a tap on the back, a kind word… all can go a long way in making this world a little more beautiful. Incarnation is not a one-shot event in history that we could only remember and look back at with nostalgia and envy. God is always being born… in our midst.The question is whether we take notice at all.
And when we do notice, what happens? Maybe we think of ways by which we can pay back the good deed, do our good turn. But then we realize that we can never truly repay the “love” that has been given us.
And so we give thanks.
Gratitude is a very nice thing. It would be wonderful if the world would be filled with grateful people. But to wrestle gratitude from people through guilt (as has been the strategy of some people and churches) goes against the very essence of gratitude. Gratitude (like the love for which it is a response) is freely given. Otherwise, it becomes a mere token of formality, and appears to be some kind of payment for some debt.
For one who is truly grateful realizes that he/she can never truly repay his/her benefactor. If one can completely pay back one’s benefactor, there would be no need for gratitude… it becomes superfluous.
But perhaps, payment or no payment, gratitude IS a superfluity.
My idol Friedrich Nietzsche once said that gratitude is revenge of the good kind. Genuine gratitude (NOT the sniveling kind from people eaten by resentment, and which, I guess, is born out of guilt) can only come from people who have a certain nobility of spirit (magnanimity). No matter how much we may blackmail (emotionally, or otherwise) people into becoming grateful, all that one can ever hope to get from that is the sniveling, resentful type from, naturally, people who (realize that they) have been blackmailed.
Consider the bible’s prodigal son, returning to his father after having spent everything. What did the father do? Walang kasumbat-sumbat, he gave a party for the returning son. Sabi nga nila, mas prodigal ‘yung father kaysa son.
And I think God is like that. He/She’s too magnanimous to want to force us to become grateful for his/her goodness. Whatever we may do, he/she just continues to love us, and lets us be. “The sun shines equally on the good and the bad…”
That’s why gratitude, real gratitude, can never be a payment. Because it is not demanded. Nor expected. Much less blackmailed.
Following my idol, one of my ambitions in life is to be able to say “thank you” for everything that has happened to me… good or bad… bitter or sweet… pretty or ugly… That, he says, is the ultimate expression of strength and power.
But is that humanly possible? Because insofar as I am human, all-too-human, I find myself reluctant to accept with gratitude everything that happens in my life. I find myself struggling, fighting, regretting… But perhaps the key lies, not in the passive acceptance of the vicissitudes of life, but in the very struggling which must somehow still be underpinned by gratitude. If there are things I don’t like about my life and this world, I don’t smile and say “Thank you.” I struggle… I fight… and with a prayer, hope that I do not become resentful and bitter should I lose… And then, perhaps if I wish so, I fight again… ultimately becoming grateful in the education which the struggle and fighting, and even losing and winning, provide me.
Have you ever felt a moment of intense happiness in your life? One in which you could honestly say that you can love every person in the world? One in which you felt so strong that you could accept whatever it is that life has to offer you (suffering, pain, loneliness, etc.)? And during that moment of intense happiness, did you not feel truly grateful for everything that has happened in your life because you precisely realized that you would not have experienced that moment were it not for all these experiences, good or bad?
Yes? Congratulations, then! That is genuine gratitude!
Gratitude is born more out of awe than guilt. If we cultivated a sense of wonder and awe rather than guilt perhaps we’d have a more grateful world. Enough with guilt! (Teka, teka… seryoso ba ako dito sa “down with guilt” sloganeering? Hmmmm…)
And, like the grace for which it is a response, gratitude is itself a gift.
May we be open enough to accept this beautiful gift.
O, paano? E’di salamat!
Tags: Gift, Gratitude, Guilt, Nietzsche, Revenge, spirituality