THOUGHTS OF A MONK

Thanksgiving Day

November 2004

Today is a day that Americans have set aside to remember our blessings. America has indeed been blessed. It is like the description given in the passage we just heard from Deuteronomy, a land of milk and honey, a land of flowing streams and fertile plains, a land rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources, where we should all lack for nothing. But this is not the whole picture. In the midst of all this great abundance there exists another reality, a reality in which children and the elderly don’t have enough food and go to bed hungry, where people have to choose between paying for heating oil and food or medicine and food. Homelessness, joblessness and despair exist. There is a growing gap between the very rich and the very poor with more and more Americans slipping from the middle class into poverty as good paying jobs are lost and the minimum wage cannot feed, house and clothe a family decently. There are a growing number of the working poor.  Those of us who have a roof over our heads and who rarely know what it feels like to go hungry have a great deal to be thankful for.

I have only once in my life come close to knowing real hunger. I was still in college at Lehigh University, and there was no prepaid meal plan. You paid for each meal at the cafeteria. My folks would send me a check each month to pay for my meals. By some accident, one month the check was delayed and I found myself with only a dollar left to feed myself for the day. I expected a check momentarily but I was wary of splurging the whole dollar so for that day, I only bought a bag of peanuts for a nickel and a coke for a dime. I was a little hungry that night but I expected the check in the next day’s mail so I wasn’t worried. The next day, I checked my mailbox and still no check, so I ate another bag of peanuts and a coke for a second day. The third day, I began to feel a little anxious as well as exceedingly hungry and ran to the campus post office to get my check, but alas there was no check. I was starting to feel a little woozy so I decided to splurge and bought a hotdog. The next day, some of the guys in my dorm, Jewish fellows from New York with whom I used to play bridge asked me to go over and eat with them. I kept making excuses, I had to study, I had eaten earlier and so forth. I was too proud to ask for help. But between them they must have figured out that I was in fact broke. They confronted me and when I admitted my situation, they took me out to a local Pennsylvania Dutch restaurant for a great meal. In some respects, it is a bit unfortunate that I haven’t been hungrier more often as you can well see.

These dorm mates of mine, perhaps recognizing their own blessings, were prepared to share from their abundance with me, a gentile they had only known for a few months. Does it remind you a little of the story of the Good Samaritan?

When we take the time to examine our lives there is much to be thankful for. This beautiful country we live in where we can worship freely, raise a family, educate them and, in spite of the odds, make a better life for our children then most of our immigrant grandparents had been able to make. Our health may not be the best but compared to many others, it might be superb. We might have to watch our pennies but none of us here, I hope, have to make some of the impossible choices I mentioned earlier. It’s the old story of the glass of water. Is it half empty, or half full? Perhaps this question can give us an insight into one of the hard saying in the Gospels, “Those who have will be given more and those who have not, even the little they have will be taken away.”  It is not God doing this to us, but our way of looking at reality that deprives us even of the little we think we have, or enables us through gratitude to enjoy what we have even more. I suspect that for most of us, if we take the time to look at our lives, the glass is in reality more than half full.

When we count our blessings on a regular basis, check in each night or morning for just a few minutes, the things we have to be thankful for will lead to a state of gratitude. And this state of gratitude will lead to a fuller spiritual life. St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits identifies the secret of spirituality as a twofold movement: receiving life with gratitude and giving life to others with generous love.

A loving God has provided us with the means to care for all of our brothers and sisters on the earth. It is up to us to see that everyone has at least an equal opportunity to share in God’s bounty and to provide for those who, through no fault of their own do not have access to the goods of this earth.

Out Pilgrim forbears were recipients of a free gift from the Native Americans who helped them to survive in this new land. Their response was to gather together and share a meal to render thanks to God for the gift of life. All of us have been given gifts for which we ought to be grateful. Let us take time on this feast day dedicated to giving thanks to take stock of all the gifts we might be grateful for and this gratitude will overflow in gifting others who are less fortunate.