Gratitude: What is it?
The word gratitude doesn’t resemble what it signifies. Both the noun gratitude and its adverb grateful seem passive, inert, and easily overlooked. In a world where so many billions live in conditions that would be considered unacceptable in the US, our excesses seem almost immoral. But many Americans seem incapable of expressing gratitude for living in this blessed country. Furthermore, Saint Ignatius of Loyola considers the lack of gratitude our greatest sin.
“Ingratitude is the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins.”
A Gratitude Deficit
Gratitude, its curious presence or absence in us, has intrigued me since childhood.. Although my father worked six days a week at his business, which covered his clothes and hands with grime, he seemed grateful… for the work, for being able to work, and for being able to care for his family in a home in a small town outside of Boston where he grew up. But my mom seemed too unhappy to be grateful.
So I wonder, what is it?
What is gratitude?
- Is it a feeling?
- Or is it an emotion?
- And decide both are inadequate; gratitude is more than these, much more.
In the past, I agreed with whoever coined the phrase, “the creeping sense of entitlement” is overtaking this country. But now I realize that the phrase is meaningless. It doesn’t explain anything; on the contrary, it subtly condemns, separates, and isolates those who have nothing, those who live on the margins. Therefore creating an us vs. them dichotomy that is not just false but can be hateful.
Still though, I notice a distinct lack of gratitude among so many of us, whether we are entitled or not…so few of us express their thankfulness to be living here…Appearing to focus on lack, in the midst of abundance, choose to concentrate on scarcity.
The word gratitude belies the power of what it signifies.
Dogs know gratitude with each breath. Whether racing, jumping, or simply being with us, their essence of gratitude is more a state of being than a feeling which dissipates and is gone. Their very cells seem to breathe it.
But I’m less pure than they so I have to ask questions like this one: gratitude: what is it?
I think gratitude is neither feeling nor emotion but rather an entity into which I enter during those times of pure joy at the beauty of the aria, the sunset, the rain, the purity of prayer: those rare times when the I disappears into Something Else.
So, if it is not an emotion, could gratitude be a virtue?
Gratitude is not listed among the virtues of faith. We know the Cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. And we understand the theological virtues of hope, faith, and charity. Gratitude is unlisted among them.
But here is how the Catholic Catechism defines human virtue:
Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good.
Make it a habit
Years ago, I read about a woman who realized the power of gratitude. She and a few friends began to do a daily list of the small joys of each day. The woman believed that doing this would form a habit. One that would persist during the inevitable crises of our lives: loss of health, of independence, the onset of illness, even the loss of a beloved spouse or pet. In other words, to make a habit of gratitude.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola’s conscious examen (examination of conscience at the end of each day) begins by recalling the good things that happened during the day, and thanking God for them. For the saint, the conscious examen isn’t a list or a time to focus on our weaknesses; rather, it’s prayer, being with God, and gratitude for the prodigious blessings of the day that is now spent. Maybe a conversation with a dear friend, watching deer on a daily walk, the beauty of the sunset, or a full moon., savoring them.
Savoring is an antidote to our increasingly rushed lives. We live in a busy world, with an emphasis on speed, efficiency and productivity, and we often find ourselves always moving on to the next task at hand. Life becomes an endless series of tasks, and our day becomes a compendium of to-do lists. We become “human doings” instead of “human beings.”
Savoring slows us down. In the examen we don’t recall an important experience simply to add it to a list of things that we’ve seen or done; rather, we savor as if we were a wonderful meal. We pause to enjoy what has happened. It’s a deepening of our gratitude to God, and reveals the hidden joys of our days. As Anthony de Mello, SJ, notes, “You sanctify whatever you are grateful for.”
We should kneel down in gratitude!
It isn’t my statement, but rather David McCoullough’s, a biographer whom I hold in the greatest esteem. True because McCoullogh’s statement about his biography of Harry Truman [and all historical figures] makes me want to shout this truth throughout this country of ours:
“… always you have to keep in mind at every step along the way: What didn’t they know? To look at it from the mountaintop, so to speak, as many historians do, and to take the grand view is to have a huge advantage of hindsight, which they never had, which we don’t have right now. So to fault a figure in public life or to condemn a whole generation because they failed to know what we know is really, to me, it’s dishonest and unfair.”
Amen.
Amen.
The statement about kneeling in gratitude applies to another book of his, 1776, which I’ve read twice. I’ve done so because it is an impossible story, the beginning of this great country. The odds against an ‘army’ of ragtag, barefoot, and starving farmers prevailing over the greatest army and navy of the world were incalculable.
And yet, they did.
- When Washington took over the command of the ragtag collection of farmers, merchants and itinerants, the men had only enough gunpowder for nine rounds each.
- The “soldiers” were farmers, merchants, a far cry from the professionally trained British soldiers on warships surrounding Boston.
- A twenty-five year old bookseller named John Knox led a force to steal badly needed munitions and a cannon from New York. Along with the cannon, 58 mortars—120,000 pounds—of muntions from Fort Ticonderoga made the three-hundred mile trip in the dead of winter. It took two months. An incredible, impossible feat.
- The jubilance of the British retreat from Boston was followed closely by the calamitous losses in New York.
- We lost 25,000 men in the battle-one percent of the population at the time, a loss of more Americans than in any other war excepting the Civil War.
