By Fr Jim Cogley
The devotional book Springs in the Valley tells the story of a man who found a barn where Satan kept his seeds ready for sowing in the human heart. He found that the seeds of discouragement were more numerous than all the others put together, and he also learned that those seeds could be made to grow almost anywhere. But, when Satan was questioned he had to reluctantly admit that there was one place that he could never get them to thrive. ‘And where is that?’ asked the man. Satan replied sadly, in the heart of a person who is grateful. Gratitude is truly the greatest antidote for feelings of discouragement. Waking up each morning before we adjust our hair (if we had any!) it is far more important to adjust our attitude because gratitude is the attitude that sets the altitude for truly living.
So important is the subject of thanksgiving in the Bible that it features in 138 passages. The word, thank and think come from the same root, reminding us that thanksgiving comes from thinking about our blessings. All too often we only appreciate having something when we have either lost it or are in danger of losing it. Helen Keller who was born blind and deaf once said that she had often thought that it would be a great blessing if every human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days, some time during early adult life. Such a temporary affliction would make that person more appreciative of having sight and experiencing the joys of sound. Sigmund Freud suffered cancer of the mouth, and in 1926 developed heart trouble and spent time in a sanatorium. Upon returning to his native city he said he experienced the glories of springtime in Vienna for the very first time. ‘What a pity’ he wrote ‘that one has to grow old and ill before making this discovery.’
One of St Paul’s words of advice was ‘in all situations to give thanks’. At first sight this seems a tall order and not very realistic but it does contain a piece of profound wisdom. My mother probably never read the Bible but this was a principle that she practiced in her daily life. We were small farmers on a farm that failed to prosper and was subject to lots of animal fatalities. Each one represented a serious financial loss. As a youngster I was deeply puzzled by her usual remark upon hearing yet another piece of bad news. She would say ‘blessed be the will of God’ which left me wondering what kind of God she was talking about! Now so many years later I can see that it was a foolproof means of getting on with life and not becoming bogged down in self-pity. It represented an attitude of resilience and faith that no loss was the end of the story and that ultimately all would be well.
One of the Gospels contains the story of the ten lepers that Jesus met up with. He healed all ten of them but only one came back to say thanks, and the narrative includes a note of surprise that this man was a Samaritan. As such he would have been regarded as a total outsider by the Jews, and someone who had no rights to any entitlements. His coming back prompted Jesus to say, ‘Were not all ten made clean so where are the other nine’? Here I may be reading too much into the story but my sense that this one individual who came to say thanks had found freedom and wholeness. The other nine who went away, perhaps felt a sense of entitlement and we know they were healed but to what extent they had become whole is questionable. It seems very likely that after a short time of being free of their complaint the years of their misfortune may still have been a heavy burden that was borne with a big degree of resentment.
Comments