none so grateful as I

Dear HAT,

You've heard this before, many times in fact. Sitting in the pews as a parishioner, as a choir member, and as a PK, you've heard it repeated often, with varying story lines that emphasize why, exactly, you should be grateful to God.

The stories aren't new. You can recognize them from the first lines, or maybe after the first two or three pages, if the storyteller is really good. You have them memorized. You identify with many of the characters who pop in and out of these life-tales. You can write your own narratives, with illustrations, that speak to the same topic. They tell you the same:

Well, this is the theme you've known since birth, even before you were born, when you were still in the womb and MumDad brought you to church on Tran Hung Dao, so you know them already. Gentle reminders that you focus too much on your self, and that it is this self-centeredness which blinds you and binds you to ingratitude. You don't choose gratitude because you focus too much on the little black dot and never the blank, pristine white piece of paper. You focus too much on the negative in your unending analysis of life and you don't see the big picture, the grand scheme designed by the Creator God. You don't count your blessings, one by one. You just don't understand how easy it is to give thanks with a grateful heart.

This is the simple part, the part where you are reminded every Sunday morning to be grateful, to acknowledge how wonderfully you are made and how special you are to be chosen by God. You are reassured that it is very, very difficult to apply this to life, and that it is your Xn duty to ponder it every day, that is, you should choose gratitude when you eat, drink, and play.

It's no challenge (alright, you do admit, though, that choosing a posture of gratefulness is difficult), but in reality, it's not a challenge to hear because it's a variation on a theme.

But, now, at 4:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, you realize that what's been bugging you is that the stories should not be that simple. Or, they should not be that simple. You realize what's been itching in the back of your throat, crawling to get out, is that your social position and economic status as a young, educated woman in America places you in a certain position of privilege, and as such, you have the right, no, the responsibility, the expectation, to speak out and speak loudly.

Consider these life applications. How would you express gratitude if you were not a young, educated, middle-class naturalized citizen living in northern California, but a 9-year-old boy living in west Oakland whose parents have been deported back to Mexico or somewhere in South America? What if you were a 16-year-old girl in Uganda, living with HIV and having to bake bricks to build your own school house? What if you were somewhere in Darfur or Myanmar struggling to stay alive?

You give thanks for good health, not thinking that there are millions who don't have money for proper medication or even non-bacteria infested water to drink. You give thanks for warm clothing, not thinking that there are millions who work in subpar sweat shops sewing your clothes for unfair wages. You give thanks for good food, not thinking about the local farmers in countries like Vietnam and Kenya who are suffering because their businesses are being outcropped by large American agribusinesses.

Outside of your privileged socio-economic status, beyond the edges of your "me"-mirror, you might find it a bit harder to give thanks, and perhaps that's what's bugging you all this time. While you were hearing just "give thanks", you know, deep down, that the difficulty is not because you have less faith or are forgetful, but because there's so much more to life beyond your own that you have not even considered.

You can coast through life hearing the same variations on a theme, but you have the duty to listen beyond those themes to know your role in life as determined by your Creator. Giving thanks is easy to do if you focus on the white, pristine page with the single black dot. Until you see the page filled with black dots galore, and see your role in creating change, your gratefulness would mean nil.

That, my dear HAT, is worth applying to life.