Give Thanks

Reprinted with permission from "Living Faith, Day by Day," by Debra K. Farrington, from Penguin Putnam, Inc.

"As soon as everything that is done at table is finished, all rise as the abbot does so, and the whole community says along with the servers and the cellerer, "Thanks be to God!"

I worked with an author once who taught me a great deal about being grateful. The whole time we worked together he was dying from a genetic disease that had already killed all his siblings. He had lived a good deal longer than many other people with his disease and I was fortunate to know him, even if it was only for the last nine months of his life. I don't believe Bill ever ended a conversation with me without thanking me for publishing his book.

About two weeks before he died, Bill called me and spent a whole hour telling me how blessed his life had been and how grateful he was for everything he had been given. I listened to him tell me about how much he valued his wife, the time he has spent in seminary, and all the people he had met there, how thankful he was for seeing his book in print before he died, and much more.

I have never forgotten the power of hearing someone, who had suffered with a fatal disease his entire short life, talk about how blessed he had been, and how grateful he was to God for all he had.

It was our last conversation and I knew it when we talked. Bill was calling to say good-bye and he needed someone to listen to him tell his story once again before dying. I think I was in tears the entire hour that he talked. I know I cried for some time after getting off the phone with him. But I have never forgotten the power of hearing someone who had suffered with a fatal disease his entire short life talk about how blessed he had been, and how grateful he was to God for all he had.

Perhaps you have childhood memories like mine, of grown-ups trying to get you to eat what was on your plate because there were starving children somewhere else in the world. The basic message was that we were to be grateful for what we had in comparison to others. While that is certainly true, Bill's farewell conversation taught me that comparing myself to others in order to feel gratitude is not terribly helpful. From my perspective, Bill had many reasons to be far less than pleased with the kind of life he had inherited, but he saw it differently. He had argued with God and finally made peace with his disease, and when he did so, he discovered a loving God, rather than a vengeful one, and Bill's response to that was gratitude.

Continued on page 2: Tips for noticing your blessings... »