Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
This Thanksgiving, I offer three resources for you that I hope will help you experience a deeper, more reflective, and theologically rich time of gratitude. Reading one or both of the writings below might be a great addition to include during your dinner. And I hope this video featuring scholar and writer Diana Butler Bass will help you rethink what gratitude is really all about for you this season. Or, if you’re coming unglued, maybe this video will help. – Pete
A Brief Theology of Thanksgiving
The SALTProject.org Team
I. Origins
With apologies to the Pilgrims, the origins of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States are more complicated than most people think. Was the first Thanksgiving meal in present-day Massachusetts, complete with buckled, wide-brimmed hats, in 1621? Or was it an English celebration (different hats!) on the shores of Virginia, in 1619? Or how about a Spanish gathering in what became Texas, in 1598 — or Florida, in 1565?
The reasons for those celebrations varied, of course. The English colonists in Virginia, for example, declared the day a commemoration of their arrival, thanking God for safe passage across a forbidding ocean; likewise, the Spanish explorers thanked God for survival. On the other hand, after a 1637 massacre of Native Americans, the governor of Plymouth wrote that Thanksgiving Days would be “in honor of the bloody victory.” In 1789, President George Washington declared a national Day of Thanksgiving to thank God for the birth of a new nation. And the current annual date in late November — which is far too late, after all, for a “harvest festival” in New England! — wasn’t established until Abraham Lincoln’s declaration in 1863, explicitly giving thanks for the Union’s military efforts in the Civil War.
II. Thanksgiving Today.
So the holiday we inherit is a complex, morally ambivalent amalgam of different kinds of gratitude: for good harvest, for safe passage, for colonial conquest, for military victory. All of which only sharpens the question, How will we celebrate Thanksgiving today?
Remembering this history of immigration and cross-cultural connection and conflict, we may give thanks for the dazzling diversity of this land, including and especially Native American communities. Giving thanks in this way, our gratitude can spur us to reach out and work together to create a more just and equitable world.
Likewise, remembering the holiday’s links to war, we may give thanks for times of peace: in our hearts, homes, neighborhoods, and between nations. Remembering the holiday’s links to creation, we may give thanks for that nourishing abundance. Here, too, our gratitude can serve as inspiration to redouble our efforts to be genuine peacemakers, serve the hungry in our neighborhoods, and care for God’s good Earth, all creatures great and small.
III. The Difference Gratitude Makes
But there’s perhaps no better day than Thanksgiving to reflect on the astounding power of gratitude itself — and accordingly, to commit ourselves to cultivating it more intentionally in the coming year.
If we think of “gratitude” primarily as a kind of duty to discharge (Now remember to write that thank-you note!), we’re missing the boat entirely, effectively reducing one of life’s wonders to mere good manners. On the contrary, gratitude is vital force in the world, a profoundly dignifying act that builds relationships, communities, and healthy human hearts.
The science on this subject is overwhelming: in study after study, gratitude has been shown to lead to stronger relationships, better sleep, lower blood pressure, fewer trips to the doctor, fewer depressive symptoms, more patience, and more perseverance, among other benefits (check out these study summaries here and here). In one particularly intriguing study, gratitude turns out to be a powerful antidote to the “Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry,” our all-too-common tendency to focus on the obstacles in our lives (headwinds) and overlook blessings (tailwinds), an imbalance that over time leads to feeling aggrieved and resentful. In short, focusing on headwinds breeds bitterness; focusing on tailwinds breeds appreciation — and the act of thanksgiving helps call our attention to the winds at our backs.
IV. Becoming More Grateful
OK, so gratitude is powerful — but how to make more of it in our lives? It turns out that some of the most effective tools for increasing gratitude are also some of the simplest and most familiar. First, the basic act of not just counting our blessings but also recording them in a form we can revisit later — say, in a journal or notebook — has been shown to significantly enhance feelings of thankfulness over time.
Second, another simple action has been shown to be even more effective: writing a letter of thanks to a friend, family member, acquaintance, or even a stranger. That’s right — thank-you notes can change your life! Indeed, we should reconceive the humble thank-you note not merely as a way to inform others about how grateful we are, but also as a way to help strengthen how grateful we are in the first place.
And a third practice isn’t only effective, it’s downright fun, even and especially in a time of pandemic: connecting with a friend once a week for coffee (or tea, or lunch - by phone, online, or on a physically-distanced walk), and intentionally devoting at least part of the conversation to sharing what we’re thankful for these days. When it comes to gratitude, just “saying it out loud” to someone we like and respect, not to mention hearing what they’re thankful for, is a powerful step toward noticing — and more deeply experiencing — the blessings in our lives.
V. A Graceful Life
The power of these practices makes sense: one of our most precious treasures is our time-and-attention, and how we spend that treasure will directly determine the health of our hearts (“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21)). Will we spend it all focusing on “headwinds,” thereby creating the perfect petri dish for growing resentments and narratives of grievance? Or will we spend it focusing on “tailwinds,” thereby nourishing the soil for growing joy and narratives of appreciation? Gratitude journals, thank-you notes, and thankful conversations are simple, powerful, effective tools for investing our time-and-attention wisely.
And so is prayer. Viewed from this angle, prayer is a kind of spoken gratitude journal, an intimate thank-you note or thankful conversation with God. And so is worship. Properly practiced, worship is an elaborate exercise — a whole gymnasium! — for cultivating thanks and praise, and at its best, the result is a swirl of palpable tailwinds, amazement, and joy. And so is the Eucharist (from the Greek for “thanksgiving”), the Lord’s Supper, the Communion meal. Gathered around a table of bounty, remembering an old story, giving thanks to God for safe passage, for life, for peace, and for the strength to continue the pilgrimage anew.
In the end, then, we’re “pilgrims” after all. So start (or revisit) a gratitude journal. Try writing a simple thank-you note once a week. Connect with a friend for coffee and (thankful) conversation. Recommit to a practice of prayer. And let this year’s Thanksgiving be not just a day of gratitude, but a springboard into a new life of gratitude, that most human and humanizing of gestures, the most graceful of all social graces.
Thanksgiving from an Open and Relational Theological Perspective
By Tom Oord
The uncontrolling love view has positive implications for prayer at Thanksgiving. Thanking an uncontrolling God makes a lot of sense. Thanking a controlling God doesn’t.
Each November, Americans gather to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. Words of thanks sometimes enter the public news or get expressed at civic gatherings too.
It’s natural to wonder, “What do people mean when they say, ‘Thank you, God?’”
No God
Some people don’t believe in God. Many of them feel thankful, but their Thanksgiving language has no ultimate Referent. In their view, no Divine Being exists to which their gratitude ultimately points. Giving thanks may be their way to admit they’ve enjoyed goodness the past year.
Sometimes, these people say, “Thank you, God.” But their disbelief in a Being to whom they should be grateful makes this confusing.
All God
Those who say God controls everything — let’s call their view, “All God” — express gratitude at Thanksgiving. They believe God directly or indirectly controls everything.
In their prayers, All God advocates say, “Thank you, God, for ____.” They can insert any event whatsoever. Such events might be supremely joyful or utterly horrific. The God who controls everything is responsible for every act of respect and rape, for peace and pain, for havens or holocausts.
Most All God prayers focus on what’s good. Reminding All God advocates their God causes evil can dampen their holiday spirit!
The Allowing God
Others who pray reject the idea God causes evil. But they claim God allows it.
When these people give thanks, they try to sidestep the problems that come with saying God allows evil. They might blame free agents or natural forces. But they try to avoid asking why a God who can stop evil singlehandedly permits it. The God who can control others fails to prevent the dastardly deeds we endure.
The Allowing God permitted the pandemic, the holocaust, and your sister’s rape.
When those who say, “God allows evil” pray at Thanksgiving, they could insert any event into the “Thank you, God, for _____” sentence. The Allowing God gets ultimate credit and blame for causing or allowing all things.
The Uncontrolling God of Love
Thanksgiving prayers make better sense in the uncontrolling love perspective. Advocates of this view thank God for always giving freedom, agency, or existence to creatures and creation. And God presents a spectrum of possibilities to each creature in each moment. In giving and presenting, the uncontrolling God never controls.
The uncontrolling God is the gracious source for all that’s good. This God actively loves moment by moment by providing, inspiring, empowering, and interacting with creation.
Genuine evil comes when creatures fail to respond well to God’s call to love. Or evil comes from natural accidents and free processes of reality. In the uncontrolling love of God view, God does not cause nor allow evil.
A Thanksgiving Prayer that Makes Sense
In her Thanksgiving prayer, an advocate of the uncontrolling love view can say every good and perfect gift originates in God. An active but uncontrolling God is the source of goodness and blessing. And this God neither causes nor allows evil, as if God could singlehandedly produce or prevent it.
The good we enjoy involves creaturely responses to God’s gracious action too. The uncontrolling love view supports our urge to thank creatures at Thanksgiving. God is not the only factor, actor, or force for good. Creatures can cooperate with God’s good work. As I say in Open and Relational Theology, an amipotent — not omnipotent or impotent — God exerts the power of love.
Most believers thank other people at Thanksgiving. They know creatures can join with God to do good. It’s right to thank God as the source of goodness and those who cooperate with God.
At Thanksgiving, it’s right to thank the Creator and the cook!
Widely Indebted
The more we realize how interrelated the universe is and how much God loves in an uncontrolling way, the more we understand how widely we are indebted. A Thanksgiving meal is possible because of God’s action, a chef or chefs, farmers, those who transport food, those who make the plates, tables, and homes we use when celebrating, plants, animals, and so many more.
God inspires goodness throughout all creation. We have many reasons to be thankful… and many actors to thank!
Thanksgiving Prayer.
In light of this, here’s a thanksgiving prayer that aligns with the view that God always loves in uncontrolling ways…
“We thank you, our loving God, for being the source of all that’s good.
You also empower and inspire the good we receive from others.
We’re thankful to humans and nonhumans for cooperating with your love.
We’re grateful people because you’re a good and loving God!”