We know we are supposed to be grateful. After all, we will celebrate a whole holiday tomorrow around it! Psychologists tell us that grateful people are happy people: gratitude reduces stress, re-wires our brains toward hope, increasing our sense of well-being, and even boosts our physical health, especially our immune systems. Gratitude is so good for us—we must be grateful! I feel in the Napa Valley we have our own brand of obligatory gratitude—we realize how fortunate we are to live in this incredibly beautiful place, in a loving, supportive, and safe community—and so only grateful, happy feelings are allowed. But here’s the thing: forced gratitude is not gratitude at all. It is at best an “A” for effort and at worst massive denial of the difficult parts of life. Gratitude is an essential component of a fulfilled life, and a life of faith. So how can we move toward a deeper gratitude?
A few weeks ago, during a sermon on gratitude I asked the congregation to name barriers to gratitude. There were a lot! Comparison and the jealousy it can spark, negativity bias—our brain’s survival instinct to put more emphasis on the negative, consumer culture always encouraging us to want more, life moving too fast to stop and take stock, our knowledge of how much suffering there is in the world, even when things are good for us, to name just a few. Take a moment to answer that question yourself: what is your biggest barrier to gratitude? Mine is exhaustion. When I am doing too much, overextended, I begin to feel “put upon”—like the whole world is resting on my shoulders. It is hard to feel grateful from this position, but it’s a warning sign from the Spirit I’ve learned to heed: time to slow down and recharge, until I can feel natural and authentic gratitude again.
A second step toward deeper gratitude is to consider not just what you are grateful for, but to whom you are grateful. Gratitude is the stuff of relationships (that is why our parents made us write thank-you notes to Grandma for those birthday gifts). Rather than a vague sense of feeling fortunate, taking time to thank and praise God connects us more deeply to the source of our good gifts, just as expressing gratitude to those who have made our lives possible and those with whom we share them deepens those relationships. CS Lewis said, “I noticed how the humblest and at the same time the most balanced minds praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least. Praise almost seems to be inner health made audible.” Gratitude is deeper and more natural when we know not just what but to whom we are grateful and express that gratitude.
I recently had an unpleasant routine exam at our wonderful local hospital. I had to lie still in a machine for nearly half an hour. I was uncomfortable and slightly anxious, and the machine was too erratically loud for me to hear the music on the headphones they had thoughtfully provided. Since I had been preaching gratitude, I decided to try it out. I challenged myself to think of ten things I was grateful for in that moment. I had to count each person who had been kind to me separately, and the fact that it would soon be over, but I got more than ten. It passed the time, and I felt notably better than when I started. What’s more, it got me on a roll, and by the time I left the hospital I was up to nearly twenty things I was grateful for about that visit.
Practicing deep, authentic gratitude is perhaps the most counter-cultural thing we can do. Gratitude will not boost the economy like consumer spending, it will not drive us to endlessly improve ourselves in the hope of measuring up, it disproves the theory that we got where we are all on our own, and it allows for the frightening possibility that we may not always have what we have right now. But deep, authentic gratitude connects us to our God, the source of all good gifts. It opens in us the freedom and courage to live generously, so that those good gifts can keep flowing to others. It enables us to live in a joy that is not dependent on external circumstances. And it has the potential to create human communities where there is room for everyone.
I am so grateful to God for my renewed place in this community. We are coming to the end of our stewardship season—this Sunday we ask that you bring your pledge card to church for the in-gathering, or if you are not able to come in person, that you mail it or complete a pledge online. I ask that you join me in this act of gratitude for all that Grace is for us, all who have come before and all who will come after. By making what for us is a meaningful pledge, we return to God a symbolic portion of all God has given us, keeping our hands open in faith rather than closed in fear.
Thank you, for being an irreplaceable part in this body of Christ, this branch of the vine here in St. Helena. I thank God for you!
In Christ’s deep peace,
-Rev. Amy
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