GODSTUFF: Giving thanks for abundance in a time of scarcity

Calling it a “beloved American tradition” in his official proclamation this week, President Obama reminded us that Thanksgiving is an opportunity “to focus our thoughts on the grace that has been extended to our people and our country.”

Thank you, Mr. President. I needed to hear that.

Surely 2010 has been a year of great blessings and much grace, but as we head into the holidays, many of us, myself included, are feeling a bit lean (and not necessarily around the waistband.)

Money is tight. Our options seem limited. We want to give to charity, to our friends and family, to celebrate our abundance, but … it’s hard. This year, I’ve made less money than I did when, just out of college, I made cappuccinos for a living. If my bank account balance were the sole indication of the blessings I’ve received of late, things would be looking rather glum.

It’s easy to drown into a choppy sea of self-pity and malaise, but we must not. We are bigger, stronger and much better than that. We have so much more than the tally of an accounting ledger

“In confronting the challenges of our day, we must draw strength from the resolve of previous generations who faced their own struggles and take comfort in knowing a brighter day has always dawned on our great land,” Obama said in his Thanksgiving proclamation. “As we stand at the close of one year and look to the promise of the next, we lift up our hearts in gratitude to God for our many blessings, for one another, and for our Nation.

“This harvest season, we are also reminded of those experiencing the pangs of hunger or the hardship of economic insecurity. Let us return the kindness and generosity we have seen throughout the year by helping our fellow citizens weather the storms of our day,” the president said. “I encourage all the people of the United States to come together … to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others.”

Thanksgiving is the high holy day of American civil religion. It calls us to remember all that we’ve been given and to give thanks. Gratitude is a habit of the heart we’d all do well to practice at Thanksgiving and every day of our lives, especially when material blessings appear scarce.

Thanksgiving calls us to cling to faith — the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen. G.K. Chesterton said the United States is a “nation with a soul of a church.” It wasn’t a description of a religious creed. Rather, Chesterton described a particular posture, one that recognizes that blessings come from outside of ourselves, whether from a higher power or from fellow travelers on the journey of life.

As a person raised and grounded in the Christian tradition, gratitude invokes the powerful idea that every good thing — whether it’s family, health, wealth, or just enough coffee left in the bottom of the can to make two strong cups of coffee on a morning when they’re sorely needed — comes from Above.

When I sat down to write my annual Thanksgiving column, the well felt dry. What in the world could I say about our annual holiday of gratitude that would be fresh, new or helpful?

When I wondered just that aloud to my editor, he had an answer: “Giving thanks when your mouth and heart are tired — sounds like a column to me.”

Thanksgiving is about community. When the pilgrims sat down for a meal of gratitude with their Wampanog neighbors in Plymouth, Mass., all those years ago, it was a gesture of thanks for community that said, “We couldn’t do this without you.”

For those of us with tired hearts this Thanksgiving, there is power — healing, restorative power, perhaps — in hearing words of encouragement from the community. It helps to hear that things will get better, that a new year and a new day hold new promise for all of us, that we’re all in this together and that the community will hold (grace) space for us until we’re strong enough to move into it.

In his memoir, Eight Habits of the Heart: Embracing the Values That Build Strong Communities, Clifton Tabuert defines a “habit of the heart” as, “a caring deed of words or acts that is directed toward another person on a routine basis without provocation from the affected.”

This Thanksgiving, when our hearts are tired and our spiritual cupboards feel bare, may we practice the habit of gratitude. May we remember that it will get better, that there are second (and third, and fourth, and 2,000^th) chances, that abundance isn’t a number and blessings, even when listed aloud, are too abundant even to count.

And may we all give thanks.