Originally printed in the Custer County Chronicle on November 8, 2023

What a month is November! Not as spectacular as October, not as festively-inclined as December, but with its own spice and savor. We’ve been dazzled by the first of many frosts sparkling in amber-rose sunrises; we’ve seen the first winterish stars appear in the pale blue of a clear-cold sky, with the slivered moon hanging just above the horizon. Winter is approaching.

Fall cow work is wrapping up, calves are being weaned, and cows are being pregnancy tested, giving the first indication of how the next year might go. It is a month of completion, evidenced by the cattle pots thick on the highways, heavy with the fall calf crop. Year by year, it can be a month of joyous excitement, or a month of the doldrums, and we in our own heads and hearts have a lot to say about which of those it is. Will we let the time blur past in a meaningless whirlwind, or will it be a poignant time of reflection and joy?

Have you ever sat around after a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, with plenty of turkey and stuffing and corn casserole, and the host instructs his captive guests into a participatory activity, with the dreaded words, “So now we will go around the table and everyone will say something he or she is thankful for!” It is deliciously uncomfortable and the host is always gleefullychipper, but a covert glance reveals a herd of deer-in-the-headlights expressions. Everyone follows the instructions like they’re taking a spoonful of something that won’t kill them but will make them stronger, and the first individual to walk the plank usually meekly murmurs something like, “I’m thankful for my family,” to which wholly expected but somehow flat answer everyone smiles and nods obligingly. Another quick glance around the room, and more deer in the headlights as everyone desperately hunts for a new answer. The most obvious (and weightiest) choice taken, suddenly there seems to be nothing left. Finally, mercifully, the exercise is over and everyone eats pie.

Is this scenario even remotely familiar? 

Goodness.

Why in the world is this? Why, for people who have so much, is our thanks and gratitude so flat and lifeless? We can conjure up expressions of gratitude for the most obvious things, but struggle to express gratitude outside of that. We of all people should be simply bursting with gratitude, so aware of our blessings, that expression of it just pours out of us!

Could it be that we fail to prime our hearts to be thankful, failingto cultivate a day-to-day gratitude for the many mundane things we truly cherish but often overlook?

Could it be that our thankful-meters are poorly calibrated? We wrack our pitiful, gratitude-starved minds for something obvious, like a raise or a promotion or a new baby or a new house or a life-saving medical procedure, and we come up empty. If those are the sorts of things I’m looking for, I’ll come up empty a lot. Because in general for many of us life actually stays more or less the same from year to year. We kind of count on it. So, if we don’t have a heart of gratitude in and for the little things, we will feel empty.

Daily graces. Those things we take for granted and would profoundly miss. Evidences of God’s kindness.

Like waking up next to your spouse in the morning. Or like waking up at all. 

Like a glorious sunrise – Isn’t it amazing that we have a sunrise every single day? Or the sunset—We have those every day, too! 

Like the first cup of coffee, steaming in the early morning light.

Like fresh, cold air in the lungs, and sunlight on the face, even as we bundle up against the chill. 

Like the amazing transformation rendered by frost thick in the grass and on the trees. 

Like work to do, whatever one’s occupation, and the shape and purpose good work gives to our lives.

Hands that are able to be busy at a task. 

Newly-weaned calves, healthy and fat. 

Baskets of fresh eggs. 

The aroma of oven-hot bread. 

A book to read and a mug of tea, and warmth flowing through fingers cold from being outside. 

Those pesky piles of laundry to do—it means we are well-clothed!

Stacks of dishes in the sink—it means we are well-fed! 

Muddy footprints on the floor—someone or something loved made those prints. 

A friendly smile from a stranger. 

Laughter and humor to lighten life. 

The joy of bringing happiness into someone else’s sorrow or loneliness or weariness. 

Like voice in song. Anyone’s voice. Your own voice. 

Like warm socks and long underwear. 

Like companionship in family, friends, neighbors. 

Like joy after tears—because there is. There always is. 

Like those million little graces that are present even in the hardest of times. Even when life is at its bleakest or boringest. Even when it seems like this year wasn’t any different than last year. Even when things went wrong, dreadfully wrong, or what we hoped would happen didn’t come to pass. Even when life feels like a grind, when relationships are tough, and the roads are bad. 

So, find something. Something tiny. It doesn’t have to be profound. One of those daily graces that we experience and don’t think twice about. And put it in your gratitude cup. And then find something else. And something else. And before long, that cup of gratitude will overflow.