This is our last week before Thanksgiving Break, and so it is a good time for us to reflect on what it means to give thanks, to have gratitude.

Cicero said that “[g]ratitude is not only a virtue but the parent of all others.”  I think he said that, because a posture of thanksgiving requires us to look outside of ourselves, which is the foundation of all virtue.  To be grateful means recognizing that someone else has done us good; someone else has added blessing to our lives.  It is why we say that we “give thanks” or that we “owe a debt of gratitude.”  Fundamentally, thanks is not about us.  After all, have you ever sent yourself a thank-you card?

But Joseph Stalin famously declared that, “[g]ratitude is an illness suffered by dogs.”  He thought that thanksgiving was pathetic—that it reflected a weakness, a dependence upon others, and a silly belief in God’s provision, when all he believed in was the power of the human will.

Thanksgiving cannot be just a general gladness for the things we like about our lives.  It must be much higher than that, looking outward and upward in acknowledgment of our blessings.  It must be the parent of all virtue.  If we look only at ourselves, we will quickly come to regard gratitude as a sickness suffered by dogs.  And that is a low place indeed.

Be filled with gratitude today…

And have a wonderful day.