How we begin all things

Harry Scherer
Class of 2022

(11/2019) "Kids aren’t like that these days. It’s all different now." These words come from the mouth and heart of my great-aunt, wise in her simplicity and caring in her femininity. As she thinks about the state of things primarily through the lens of observation, she considers the apparent lack of gratitude which permeates our society. Her observation does not come from a place of resentment or with the intention to deride those in our generation, but from a place of sorrow as she observes a people who might be missing the very essential aspects of life which make it good and beautiful and elevate it to a participation in the divine action of God. She implicitly knows that this societal dismissal is indicative of dismissal in our homes and dismissal in our own hearts.

What have we forgotten, then? From an historical perspective, Americans live in one of the most, if not the most, materially prosperous societies in the history of mankind. With rapidly developing technology and the ability to communicate ideas with persons all around the world, it should be the case that this prosperity is recognized and appreciated. But, if my great-aunt is correct, we do not properly take advantage of the gifts which we have been given and use them for the material and spiritual betterment of our neighbor. Perhaps it is because we have forgotten who our neighbor is.

The nature of genuine gratitude necessitates that it be directed to another person. We can be grateful for the benefits of our education or career, housing or food. However, the tangible virtue of gratitude is not reached with this form of gratitude. This is evident merely from a natural perspective: the people who provide that for which we are grateful are the true gift. The gift of one’s time, energy and talents for another, without the promise of material reward or compensation, seems to be the place from which our gratitude flows.

My loving parents who have placed and continue to place all of their comforts and desires to the wayside for me are a gift of which I do not think I will ever recognize the fullness. The selfless teachers who encouraged me to recognize the gifts which God has given me and try my best to help others find those which He has given them are a gift which I can never repay. With both of these examples, it is the thinking and feeling persons who initiated action and participated in love in order to perpetuate the love which they have received and share it.

I am far from understanding or living the virtue of gratitude to the extent to which we are all called, but it seems that the virtue of gratitude inevitably leads to selfless action on the part of the grateful person. Virtue impels and vice hinders. The virtue of gratitude, in particular, impels us to right action and the vice of ingratitude, conversely, hinders this right action and degrades our bodies and mind into complaint.

What is the alternative to this unmerciful and ungrateful scourge of complaint? Perhaps a reordering of our thinking from that of ourselves as the protagonist to that of ourselves as minor characters in a mysterious drama about which we are ignorant of the plot. I am not saying that I successfully live within this paradigm, but it is certainly an ideal which seems to be most like that of our human experience. Within this way of thinking, there lies an inherent sense of gratitude to all those who have come before and all those currently on the stage.

In my eyes, the center of this gratitude should be on those who have come before. Another perplexing attribute of gratitude is that he who is grateful views thanksgiving as a necessity, whereas he who is gracious views it as superfluous. Because gratitude usually is appropriate for persons who have given of themselves in the past, gratitude is a natural result of the labor of men and women who have prepared the world which we have inherited. Of course, the evil that goes on in the world should not be discounted. We know that this evil is a result of the Fall and modern man should not blame persons who have committed evil in the past because these relics of history are cases, in varying degrees of severity, of man’s participation in evil. What makes gratitude distinct from this stark reality is the truth that man has recognized the evil which he is able to accomplish and is also aware of the earthly lures which motivate this participation but elevates himself through a recognition of himself as greater than the beasts in the wild. Living with an awareness for that which is greater is certainly a vocation which we all have received by nature of our humanity. A grateful person seems to be one who embraces this higher calling.

It is certainly for the benefit of our society that we continue to have a month and a special day during which gratitude is emphasized. Like all the other virtues, it is not a habit which we naturally inherit by birth or come to recognize its merits through personal experience. Rather, it is a habit which must be taught to us and discussed so that we may know how and why to be grateful, especially in this era. Ultimately, as we climb up the ladder to see from where this heavenly virtue originates, we arrive at the Word made flesh. Because Christ, as a divine person, came to this earth so that we may learn how to act in a manner which brings us closer to His likeness, He taught us how to be grateful: "And taking bread, he gave thanks" (Luke 22:19). Just as He was about to initiate a Sacrament which brings His Body on earth, he gave thanks. And thus we learn how to begin all things.

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