My mother always says she can’t stand an ungrateful child. I’m pretty sure I’ve been one, and not just when I was a pouty kid whining about whatever was standing between me and happiness. I’m a bit of a complainer. Wendell Berry wrote, “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” I’m trying, but I need to talk about the facts a lot while I’m bringing myself around. It’s not that I don’t notice the things to be thankful for, it’s that I’m generally louder about the other stuff.
The older I get, the more I find myself longing to better communicate my gratitude. I’ve decided I’m ready for a reexamination of prayer. I’ve never been very good at it. For some reason, the God I was introduced to at church remains something of a stranger to me, even after more than 5 decades of acquaintance. I don’t know whether it’s the formal language that’s gotten in the way, or my own phrases I’ve relied on for so long, they slip through my thoughts like a string of tired prayer beads. But I do know I’m failing to communicate. I’ve decided to reach out and see if there isn’t someone different I could talk to.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing a prayer every day. Well, they may not look like prayers, but for me they are. A note to acknowledge when I’m not making much progress, or give thanks when I manage to catch the particular beauty of one pink cloud at sunset, a fleeting glimpse of undeserved grace sent to redirect my impatience at a traffic light.
Maybe it will change our relationship, maybe not. But I feel it’s time to at least give voice to my lifetime of gratitude for small gifts.
There’s been such a lack of real conversation in our years of previous communication, I hardly knew how or where to begin. So I just picked up where I am. Here’s one from last Friday:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
(still working on the salutation — I need more information)
I’ve got some issues going on in my life. Yes, same ones as yesterday, but I’ve been wondering — am I correct in assuming I don’t need to keep mentioning them to you? Because even I am bored to death of talking and thinking about them. Since I feel like you know me, I feel like you’re also quite aware of the stuff I could use help with.
I’d much rather talk about the sky today. You’ve done some spectacular work there. It makes me feel that whatever problems I may have, you’re perfectly capable of helping with them, should you choose to step in.
Or maybe a breathtaking sky is the help? Sometimes I wish I understood your ways as well as I think you understand mine.
I’m pleased to report I’m still good at pecan pie though. Fall has arrived as promised, and to celebrate I baked a beauty this morning. What I’m hoping is that my ability to bake a good pecan pie somehow makes up for some of my (admittedly larger) shortcomings in other areas. Am I thinking about that right?
Thank you for providing me with the ingredients, and the means to buy them. Thank you for the opportunity to sit on the counter and watch my grandmother roll pie crust enough times to know the tricks, and learn to do it myself. Thank you for my grandmother. She gave me not only pie, but so much of who I am — I believe mostly the good things, but I suspect the difficulty making small talk originates with her too. That’s okay.
Thank you for my ability to appreciate pecan pie, the way it becomes so much better than what it’s made of. The way it makes me think of my grandmother, as pies always do. The way it feeds the people I love in more than one way, just as it feeds me. Please accept my pie as an apology for the other things I left undone today, and know that I’m aware of those things and will continue to work on them.
While I’m thinking of it, thank you for the perfect simplicity of vanilla ice cream, which I somehow already had in my freezer. Amen.
I’m not sure these prayers are getting off the page, but then I wasn’t ever sure the ones I kept in my head were going anywhere either. At least with these I can officially go on record — I never meant to be an ungrateful child. In a group of ten children, I’d like to think I might be the one who noticed what someone did for me and came back to say so.
I hope my prayers can become a tool to help me see more, learn more, understand more, and love more. Of the world, of God, and of myself. But most of all, to finally speak my thanks for all of it in my own words.