PeaceBang

Saying Thank You As a Spiritual Practice

Like most pastors (I hope!), I spend a goodly portion of my time reaching out to people, making check-in calls, and sending “thinking of you” and thank you notes. As a result of this activity, I also spend a goodly portion of my time making and losing lists of who needs to be thanked, forgetting a few people now and then, and feeling truly lousy about it. It goes with the territory.

:::breast-beating interlude for failing to thank someone who totally deserves it in church this week:::

My parents raised me to write thank you notes for everything, and to basically understand that without people’s help there is no life and you’ve got to thank folks. You bring little gifts. You tell them verbally. You never leave a party without thanking the hostess. When my Dad took us out to dinner, we were expected to thank him, not to take it for granted. All of that emphasis on thanking people really influenced the person that I am today: a person who is attentive to blessings and really, truly grateful. I may be a cranky, nasty wench, but boy, I’m sure not an ingrate. My CAT is an ingrate, but that’s another story, and a species issues.

So it always shocks me how often in my life I have made a pretty monumental effort on someone’s behalf and have been utterly ignored for it. I could never, for instance, spend a weekend at someone’s house and then not write a hand-written thank you note afterwards, or at least send an e-mail. I couldn’t imagine asking the minister of a church I’ve barely attended to come speak for an hour at two college classes I teach and then never thank her. (Hell, I’d PAY her!) I can’t imagine stiffing the minister who officiates at my own wedding — let alone not thanking them — although I absolutely can imagine how one would fail to thank a clergyperson for doing a funeral — trauma has a way of obliterating manners, and I understand that. But mostly, I just don’t get it when people accept generosity and don’t express thanks. It just seems to me that their lives must be kind of impoverished for that, because I know that when I express thanks, it has the pleasant effect of prolonging the goodness of whatever I am thanking someone for.

Again, I’m not perfect in this but I do make a concerted effort.

A young Southern woman has written to me a few times to ask for my help with her spiritual malaise as she struggles to maintain a fairly liberal theology while living in the Bible Belt. She listens to my sermons on the internet and calls herself my “uncommon parishioner.” I think it’s a wonderful connection. But I noticed something strange the other day: she initiated the conversation last fall, and while I have written her at least three heartfelt and caring respones, she has never in any way thanked me for them. When she first asked for my spiritual support, I was instant in my reply of many pages. I never heard from her to even acknowledge that she received my e-mail.

Then she popped up again the other day to share her grief about a friend’s passing. I’ve written her two long letters and she has replied. She includes no salutation, just launches into her statement of need, and says nothing that would acknowledge appreciation for my being there.

I begin to wonder if her sense of spiritual torpor and arid, dwindling faith is connected to her inability to express gratitude where it is appropriate. I say this truly without malice, but with genuine curiosity. If one can reach out to a busy clergywoman one has never met and receive a very compassionate response that obviously took a long time to compose, and absolutely fail to express even a shred of appreciation for it, perhaps one is taking a similar stance toward God? By which I mean, sending out the call for help and support, receiving it in abundance, and then soldiering right on with one’s further sharing of pain without stopping to say, “Hey, I may not perfectly love the response I’m getting here, but I love that I’m getting a response, and thank you.”

As you all know, I have an anxious, irritable and melancholy temperament and spend a lot of time grousing in my head about the state of the world. It hadn’t occurred to me until now — and for that I am grateful to my Southern Correspondent — but I spend at least as much time thanking God for my blessings as I do bitching about the brokenness of the human species. If I did not, I couldn’t bear to stay here. My inner voice of criticism, skepticism, anger and disappointment with myself and other humans would drown out the music of what’s really going on, and although I’d probably survive in body, my soul and spirit would be numb and dead.

Just the other day I was crabbing in my mind about my stupid paper, my stupid aching lower back, the stupid person tailgating me down Route 123, stupid Jerry Falwell and stupid Paul Wolfowitz, and the stupid rain, even getting in some good glowering about the fact that I’ve had two movies out from Netflix since early April that I haven’t watched, and doing an excellent Crank Pile-On. Then I stopped at a stop sign and was practically attacked by a huge, dripping wet lilac bush that is my favoritest flower.

And right away, it was like I was at the swankiest divine cocktail party ever with the most elegant, gracious guests who were welcoming me with gorgeously fragrant hugs and kisses and saying, “It is SO good to see you. We are SO glad you’re here, honey!” I had to stop grousing right away and say, “Well, thank you, because I’m SO GLAD to be here! And I LOVE what you’re wearing!”

I really do feel that God is like a love-sick suitor constantly trying to win our hearts and our loyalty. As a privileged woman living in the wealthiest nation on earth, I feel like God is showing up every morning with a magnum of champagne and a huge bouquet of roses going, “Darling! Shall we dance?” I mean, even in my times of deepest depression when I couldn’t feel connected to that extravagance of love and generosity, I knew that it was there. I knew that there were lilacs, and music, and friends. I knew that it wasn’t God’s job to do some miracle on my behalf, but to just keep being God, which was miracle enough.

As I get older I am less and less interested in fussing over doctrine and more and more interested in finding ways that make being human a less painful experience. I don’t know what beliefs or prayers work, but I do know that gratitude does, and I’m pretty sure it’s pleasing to God, too.