Deadwood<\/em>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2020\/11\/Sam.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m going to figure this out because I think this is important. Very important. Because a big chunk of what\u2019s ailing and broken here in America is the very thing expressed in that old-timey expression \u201cMuch obliged\u201d \u2014 the failure to see the necessary connection between gratitude and obligation.<\/p>\n
The break in that link is what allows the politics of resentment to flourish. And it\u2019s what has allowed the politics of resentment to replace religion in so many of our churches. Ingratitude is the American disease.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a day marked by language so abstract it says almost nothing. Worse<\/em> than nothing, really, because these airy abstractions lull us into thinking we have said or done something meaningful when we haven\u2019t.<\/p>\nWhat are these \u201cthanks\u201d that we give? To whom do we give them? Ask anyone, even yourself, to define \u201cthanks\u201d and you\u2019ll likely wind up on a merry-go-round of circling generalities. \u201cThanks if an expression of gratitude.\u201d And what is gratitude? \u201cGratitude is thankfulness.\u201d And how is this thankfulness expressed? \u201cBy saying \u2018thank you.'\u201d<\/p>\n
Linguists and grammarians have more precise ways of describing the fluffy essence of \u201cthank you\u201d and \u201cthanksgiving,\u201d and it\u2019s fascinating to read their sharp discussions of \u201cperformative utterances\u201d and the like. But none of that cuts to the heart of the matter which is that I can \u201cgive\u201d you my \u201cthanks\u201d and, well, what have you got? That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.<\/p>\n
So \u201cMuch obliged\u201d isn\u2019t really just another way of saying \u201cthank you,\u201d it\u2019s a way of saying more<\/em> than \u201cthank you.\u201d Or of making the abstraction of \u201cthank you\u201d closer to something concrete by reminding both of us that gratitude is meaningless unless it entails obligation.<\/p>\nThat still doesn\u2019t help with the Sam Elliott problem and my inability to casually incorporate \u201cmuch obliged\u201d into my daily language without feeling like I should also be wearing a ten-gallon hat.<\/p>\n
Someone suggested \u201cI owe you one\u201d as a less old-timey alternative, and I think that\u2019s also better than the ethereal fuzziness of \u201cthanks.\u201d But it\u2019s not quite as expansive as \u201cmuch obliged.\u201d It recognizes the obligation implicit in any meaningful expression of gratitude, but also injects a transactional note that misleadingly limits that obligation. Gratitude doesn\u2019t just mean I owe you one \u2014 it means I owe more than one<\/em> and more than just to you<\/em>. It means I am forced to admit, in the biblical phrase, to being a part of \u201can inescapable network of mutuality.\u201d I am indebted \u2014 not just to you, but to anyone and everyone I may encounter who finds themselves in need of assistance as I just was. You have shown me favor or done me a favor, and gratitude requires that, when the opportunity arises, I do the same for you or for anyone else who might require it. Freely I have received and, therefore, freely I must give. The debt is perpetual and mutual and boundless. Anything less is ingratitude.<\/p>\nGratitude is not a ledger keeping a balance of transactions. We are all much obliged, but the obligation entails more than reciprocity. Gratitude is magnanimous, not just thank-full, but overflowing.<\/p>\n
If you think all this obligation sounds burdensome, you\u2019re not wrong, exactly. It is<\/em>, in a sense. It\u2019s also infinitely less burdensome than ingratitude \u2014 which is the only alternative.<\/p>\nIngratitude is misery. It renders one incapable of anything other than misery and the kind of inconsolable self-pity that one is forced to resort to when one refuses to allow that pity its proper outlets to others. To choose ingratitude, Jesus said \u2014 to refuse to be \u201cmuch obliged\u201d \u2014 is to consign oneself to be \u201cdelivered to the tormentors.\u201d (Ingratitude is a major theme throughout the Bible \u2014 in the parables of Jesus, the prophets, even the Psalms and Proverbs. And the recurring emphasis, throughout, is that the consequences of ingratitude are terrifying<\/em>.)<\/p>\nAs I\u2019ve said before, this is not the worst or most urgent problem created by ingratitude. The harm that it does to the ungrateful is not as much of a priority as the harm it causes them to do to others. But it may be easier to get those trapped in the bondage of ingratitude to see the harm they\u2019re doing to themselves than it will be, at first, to get them to see the harm they are doing to others. Like Ebenezer Scrooge or Zacchaeus, they\u2019re perhaps more likely to recognize their need for repentance and the obligations of gratitude when the focus is on the consequences for them<\/em>.<\/p>\nThis is why I\u2019ve taken to avoiding the term \u201cwhite privilege\u201d and speak, instead, of white ingratitude.<\/p>\n
Anyway, tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and I work in retail, so for us, it\u2019s showtime and I\u2019ve got to run. But if you\u2019ve read this far, and if you\u2019re still reading this blog even now, long after the Barons of Social Media have decreed blogs dead, I want to express my gratitude to you. Thank you. I am very much obliged.<\/p>\n
Happy Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
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“Much obliged” isn’t really just another way of saying “thank you,” it’s a way of saying more — of making the abstraction of “thank you” concrete by reminding us that gratitude is meaningless unless it entails obligation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. 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