A day in October, we had a nice start to harvest. Weather was decent and yields not half bad. Nephew Jay was combining, and I was unloading. We were ready to chew up some acres.
An hour of work and I got another call from the combine cab. Diagnosis was easy this time. A tie rod had snapped, meaning no way to steer. Back to town, we got the needed parts and began repairs in the field. By now it was dark. We decided to throw in the towel on a bad day and resume work on the tie rod in morning light.
I was grumbly when I went into the house. We’d spent most of 12 hours not harvesting. I poured out my frustration to Pam, a way to decompress. My wise wife listened patiently, and then reminded me I have lots to be thankful for. With pursed lips, I had to admit she was right.
Of course, there is so much to be thankful for. My wife, my children, a grandchild, a home, work I enjoy. I’m healthy at an age when that’s not to be taken for granted. I have extended family I enjoy. There are friends I can call to move a couch or have a beer. I could fill the editorial page with blessings I’ve been given.
Many of you could fill your own page. Some of you, maybe not. I would have to be oblivious to the world around to not know that. People close to us have ailments and demons and just plain bad luck. Go to any hospital, talk to any social worker, stop at any food shelf. You will find people in our community who can’t fill a page with blessings.
That’s here in the middle of a wealthy country. Look further. Moms of my generation told us to eat all our food because there were starving children in China, a small effort by Mom to make us aware of our good fortune. I’m not sure about China, but there are starving children in the world. And adults. And people without decent shelter, people without medical care, people living in servitude.
We are in the thankful season, the time from Thanksgiving going through Christmas. In these busy days, gathered with family at table or in silent prayer, we give thanks. It is good and right.
Beyond a spiritual sense, it is healthy mentally and emotionally to be appreciative. People are encouraged to write down things they are thankful for as therapy. It is one of those things we teach our children from youth on.
In the fall, I have time on a tractor. Time to think. I found myself thinking on thanking. I don’t want to be the Grinch of thankfulness, but like many things, it’s complicated.
We are thankful to God, giver of all good things. But if God gave this to me, why does someone else have so little? You can point out that I don’t deserve these gifts, and that is true. But what of the poor child born into poverty who is likely to starve or succumb to disease long before they see anything like my comfortable 65 years? That child really doesn’t deserve that.
If God willed me to have a home, does God will someone to have a house burn down? Of course not. But how are we to understand these things? Why would God give much to some and little to others?
I have written about an imaginary farmer in Guatemala where my daughter works. This farmer is like me in many ways. He loves his family, loves working the land, loves the Lord. He is like me, except for none of the advantages I’ve been handed. He could be every bit the worker I am, but he struggles to feed his family. He is at the bottom of the world’s economy, and I am somewhere near the top. Why?
God is perfect. We live imperfect lives in an imperfect world. People a lot smarter than me have thought on this. I feel like Winnie the Pooh, “a bear of very little brain.” With my little brain, I can’t pretend to understand the Mind of God.
There are two things that struck me as I bounced across the field doing tillage. The first is that true thankfulness requires an awareness of others. We can’t wallow in our thankfulness. “Oh boy, I’ve got all this. God sure loves me.” Don’t think you hit a triple when you were born on third base.
No. Look around and see those who aren’t so blessed. That’s called empathy. I’m not sure you should call yourself a Christian without it.
Phil Ochs was a songwriter in the Sixties who wrote beautiful, sometimes haunting lyrics. This is from “There But For Fortune:”
Show me a prison, show me a jail,
Show me a prison man whose face is growing pale,
And I’ll show you a young man with many reasons why,
And there but for fortune may go you or I.
Show me an alley, show me a train,
Show me a hobo who sleeps out in the rain,
And I’ll show you a young man with many reasons why,
And there but for fortune may go you or I.
My other thought on the tractor was that thankful should rightfully be an action verb. If I have all this and someone else has so little, maybe God would like me to work on evening things up a little? Whether that means sharing time, money, or something else, thankful needs to be a starting point, not an end.
Be thankful. Now do something.