On Thanksgiving
There’s a little art museum at the end of our street that offers community classes. In one such class I learned about an oil painting technique called blocking. Blocking is what you do when you begin a painting. It’s the process by which you rough in the main shapes and colors of a composition. The way you do it is by standing back and squinting as you look at the subject you’re painting. This allows you to see the bright spots most clearly and from there you can lay down the light and dark and colors and begin your painting. As Thanksgiving approaches, I’ve been thinking about blocking.
The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving often contain some sort of concerted effort at gratitude. You know, writing down a few things I'm grateful for each day. Gratitude practices are great, but what I'm recognizing is that it's not just about stopping and scanning the lifescape for the good things. I've had some tough Thanksgivings where I averted my eyes from the painful stuff and consciously chosen to identify the good. There's value in that. Perspective emerges from our ability to look at the relationships and circumstances of our lives and allow them to find their place in what it means to be human. Perspective bears gratitude. But this year, I'm recognizing that this isn't the whole story -- that this isn't the fullness of gratitude. Thanksgiving isn't about standing back and squinting to find the bright spots. Thanksgiving isn’t about blocking.
Instead, the invitation of this Thanksgiving season feels much more about acceptance than anything else. Our family has just received the sort of news that causes time to be split into “before” and “after.” You know, the unexpected, never saw that coming, oh no what we do next circumstances that life delivers to us all at one point or another? The reality is that every now and then we get hit with full stop moments that cause us to look up and recognize just how little control we have over any of the big pieces -- the pieces about which we care the most. The health of our loved ones, the arrival of new life, the timing and tempo and cadence of the experiences that bring joy and meaning to the human experience. We cannot control it.
Today, I'm wondering if acceptance is the gateway to gratitude. Wondering if the painful truth is that acceptance of the fact that we have so little control is the force that sends us running most urgently and wholeheartedly towards the ones we love and the things we enjoy. We come to deeply savor connection and loved ones and good things precisely because of our recognition of exactly how temporary and glimmering it all is.
The temptation of Thanksgiving is to scan for the good. The opportunity is to see this moment exactly as it is, to find acceptance, and to drink deeply from the fountain of right now. The invitation is to move past squinting to seeing clearly, for this is the wellspring of gratitude.
