Ask the Religion Experts: How can we keep a thankful spirit throughout the year?
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[i]"JACK MCLEAN is a Baha’i scholar, teacher, essayist and poet published in the fields of spirituality, Baha’i theology and poetry.
Thankfulness or gratitude, which is closely connected to praise, is largely a spiritual or religious commodity. We can be thankful to other humans and/or thankful to God. The secular humanists do not usually tout the virtues of thankfulness, but in the Abrahamic faiths, praise and thanksgiving are encouraged as expressions of spirituality. Why?
‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844-1921), the son and successor of the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), addressed today’s question as follows: “All that has been created is for man who is at the apex of creation and who must be thankful for the divine bestowals, so that through his gratitude he may learn to understand life as a divine benefit. If we hold enmity with life, we are ingrates, for our material and spiritual existence is the outward evidences of the divine mercy. Therefore we must be happy and pass our time in praises, appreciating all things.”
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Rev. RAY INNEN PARCHELO is a novice Tendai priest and founder of Red Maple Sangha, the first lay Buddhist community in Eastern Ontario.
Our Canadian tradition of Thanksgiving began as a re-enactment of European, not American tradition, one which centred on celebrations of the harvest, both Christian and pagan. As such, rather than a general reflection on gratitude this week, and with no mention of pilgrims, let’s start with that harvest season.
Literally, we are thankful that our interaction with the natural world, beef and berries, pork and peaches, has once more made it possible for us to feed ourselves. I’m always reminded of that bumper sticker that says: “If you ate today, thank a farmer.” I would add, we can also thank the rain, soil, insects, birds, animals, trees and plants.
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Rev. JOHN COUNSELL is host of Late Night Counsell weeknights on AM580/CFRA Ottawa and the lead pastor at Vanier Church.
Saying thank you feels good. We express appreciation. We want the people who have blessed us, been kind to us, served us and gone out of their way to make life easier for us, to know that their actions are meaningful and have not gone unacknowledged. To ignore their kindness would be rude and selfish.
Often we cannot pay back what has been given to us because it would be rude and maybe even soil the joy experienced by those who have blessed us. A thank you expresses our appreciation while strengthening the relationship.
You may wonder if someone can be obsessively thankful. I haven’t met anyone like that and the ones who are borderline in this regard seem to be the most pleasant people I know. No one of any moral coherence wants to be labelled as “unthankful,” so it seems that thankfulness is universally accepted as a good trait. However, I think we can get more out of this “thanksgiving” that we commemorate every year, if we think about who we’re thankful to.
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KEVIN SMITH is on the board of directors for the Centre for Inquiry, Canada’s premier venue for humanists, skeptics and freethinkers.
Christmas Day, the first year of the First World War, British and German troops left the stench and rot of their trenches to greet one another. They shared songs and plum puddings while some engaged in soccer matches. They were thankful, if for one day, to remove themselves from the rut of combat.
I think of this brief truce as we march towards those markers on the calendar, Christmas or Thanksgiving for instance; a respite from the demands of life. To this point of my existence, fortune has been mostly generous and I would never suggest my travails in life are as grave as those who fought for our freedom, but the pause from our forced reality, no matter what life battle we are engaged in, is a reasonable comparison.
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Rev. KEVIN FLYNN is an Anglican priest and director of the Anglican studies program at Saint Paul University.
Learning to be thankful takes effort. Parents of young children often find themselves reminding their children to say “thank you.” “What do you say?” With the prompt, the desired answer comes out — sooner or later. This may seem like a fairly routine matter, a question of learning one’s manners. In fact, it also points to a deeper reality about gratitude and many other virtues as well.
Both Jesus and St. Paul encourage us to “pray without ceasing” (Matthew 6:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17). This is not a matter of reciting prayers 24 hours a day. That would hardly be desirable even if it were possible.
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RADHIKA SEKAR has a PhD in religious studies and taught Hinduism at Carleton University. She is a disciple of the Sri Ramakrishna Mission.
Count your blessings? Look for silver linings? We all know these clichés. A recent twitter by a P.J Minter in the Huffington Post however, struck a chord.
Remembering his grandmother, who lived through two wars and economic depression in London’s east side, Minter recalls that through all the ups and downs she never lost her composure. She taught him the valuable lesson of greeting loss and gain with equal poise — equanimity!
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Rev. GEOFF KERSLAKE is a priest of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Ottawa.
The best way to keep a thankful spirit is by making time to prayerfully thank God everyday for the blessings He gives us.
As part of the prayer practice made famous by St. Ignatius of Loyola called the “daily examen,” we spend some time thanking God for the specific graces and blessings He has bestowed on us that day. It can be anything from gratitude for a bright, sunny day, to an unexpected welcome phone call or email from a friend, to a special felt sense of God’s nearness for a few moments that day.
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ABDUL RASHID is a member of the Ottawa Muslim community, the Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Capital Region Interfaith Council.
The Muslim scripture, the Holy Qur’an tells us: “And if you count the favours of God, never will you be able to number them” (14:34). The source of all blessings is our Merciful Creator. In my faith, to be thankful for past and current blessings and to pray for Divine blessing in the future is part of every day life.
The Muslims begin every task with the words, “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.” The purpose of this recitation is to remind ourselves that, without God’s grace and blessing, we cannot do anything. When they complete a task they express their gratitude “Thanks to Allah”; when they see something beautiful they proclaim “Glory be to Allah,” when they see nature’s grandeur, they declare “Allah is Great,” and so.
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Rabbi REUVEN BULKA, head of Congregation Machzekei Hadas in Ottawa, hosts Sunday Night with Rabbi Bulka on 580 CFRA.
The way you phrase the question suggests that you are concerned with the ups and downs that we face during the year, and how we soldier through the difficult times. The best way is to have a solid base, to head off the potential challenges.
There are so many reasons to be grateful, reasons which are so much a part of our regular activity that we tend to take these reasons for granted. Even someone who is full of complaints should be grateful for being able to complain.
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