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What a good idea the Pilgrims had when they put aside one day a year
to give thanks. To my knowledge, no one before, or since, has done this.
Could that really be true?
They do not celebrate Thanksgiving in England or France. Why, they don’t
even have Victoria Day in England, for goodness sakes! The heathen. Maybe
Passover is Thanksgiving for Jews, but I think it more specifically celebrates
deliverance. The custom of Thanksgiving must have been brought to Canada
by the Tories (here called United Empire Loyalists, of course). Escaping
American radicalism to continue a proper life under King George, they
would have brought with them many pieces of the American culture they
left behind. I’m glad they did.
Usually, we give thanks for things and sometimes we produce long lists
of things for which we are thankful: new car, a new job, a new baby, good
health, a prosperous career, a happy marriage, a long life, love. But
I have come to think the thing for which we should be most thankful is
being thankful, and I have come to think we cannot be thankful unless
we have suffered like Job: truly suffered through no fault of our own,
or anyone else. Only then can we be thankful, not only for the good things
we have, but more importantly, for the suffering we have endured. Only
then can we love life and everything it brings to us, both good and bad--thankful
for it all.
On Thanksgiving we feast to give thanks.
Feasting is certainly a good idea, yet to be truly thankful one must have
lived through famine. No doubt this explains the widespread custom of
fasting: from Ash Wednesday to Easter Eve, Christians fast for forty weekdays
observing Lent; every week, sabbath for both Christians and Jews requires
abstinence; during Ramadan, the ninth month of their year, Muslims rigidly
fast through all hours of daylight.
Suffering.
At Antaiji, zazen seemed to me a necessary price to buy a happy day; Malcolm
Muggeridge said he never met a survivor of the gulag who wasn’t thankful
for the experience; Pope John Paul II is good because he suffered under
Nazi and Communist regimes; the Buddha suffered to find release for all,
from suffering; the Passion of Christ is the focus of the faith.
We try to arrange our affairs to avoid suffering, and consider our inability
always to do so a failure. The virtue of self-reliance can lead us to
think we control much more than we can: thankfulness to God becomes inversely
proportional to how much we have -- the more we get, the more we believe
we are responsible. The virtue of love can lead us to shield those
we love from all pain and suffering, yet we cannot: they will suffer whatever
we do.
We should strive instead to cultivate thankfulness. Without thankfulness,
whatever we get will always seem somehow short of our due. Without thankfulness,
we will even depreciate our own worthy achievements. Thankfulness may
be the best sign that we are actually on the right track. It may be the
only sign.
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