Try a full immersion into gratitude this Thanksgiving

I’d like to offer a small exhortation for this Thanksgiving weekend. That is, to saturate it with gratitude. I mean, let everything fall under the category of grace and allow yourself a syrupy gladness to cover everything you set eyes on. Don’t just try to find one or two things, but, even for one day, see it all with thanks.

I tried this last night. I was in traffic for an hour and a half, for what should have been a 40-minute drive. I thought I was going to LOSE IT. Then I remembered that giving thanks is a portal to recognizing and receiving God’s goodness. So I took a deep breath and started looking at my present moment through a lens of utmost gratitude to God, starting with my very life and breath, and then turned outward to what I could see.

I first noticed the spectacular fall colours of the Don Valley Parkway. I thought, people literally take “scenic drives” to see such things and there I was being gifted one of the most gorgeous views in the city and all the time in the world to enjoy a fleeting beauty.

I overappreciated the man who let me merge when needed. I was struck by the general good nature and civility of commuters who just want to get home and I was amused by the creativity of those who make great efforts to get nowhere a little faster than the rest of us.

I was thankful for my rearview mirror, the makers of the 1998 Nissan Quashqui, the ability to adjust my seat for comfort, for Bluetooth, for my one good speaker. I blessed the young man who was grooving to his music, the owner of the audaciously orange SUV in front of me, and the assertive tow truck driver. If one can be grateful in traffic, one can be grateful anywhere.

This weekend, we may be entering into family dynamics that can sometimes bring out the worst of us (not me or my family of course…). Thank God for your overbearing parents, for squawking nieces and nephews, for the delays in plans, and yes, for the traffic you endure to get there.

May there be gifts of solitude too, to appreciate the outdoors, or the book, the movie, the way the pen writes on your journal pages, the rays of sun leaking in through the window that beckon you to contentedness.

Do not moderate your gratitude with foreboding or fear, but stay with the possibility of joy. You are not neglecting nor dishonouring your hardship by entering in – that will remain to see another day, though your perspective may change.

I’ll reiterate that these are instructions coming from someone who struggles to be grateful (I’m prone to bouts of envy, fits of despair, and low-grade, perpetual, humming dissatisfaction). But I have come to believe in and experience the grace of God that is accessible even to those who find gratitude difficult – whether by temperament or season – simply by giving thanks.

Is it worth it, for even a day, to immerse wholeheartedly in thanksgiving and see what comes of it?