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Gratitude and Responsibility
I went to church yesterday.
We say that so casually in America. We met to worship God according to the dictates of conscience, to learn from His Word, and to fellowship. We did so quite publicly — there’s even a sign out front — not in a back room in hushed voices. We had no fear of armed men breaking up the meeting. We heard a sermon that was neither censored nor written to avoid the displeasure of any public official. In America, we can still worship as we believe.
Today errands took me a little further afield than usual, and I felt the call of the road again. Something deep within still pulls me westward. I could fill up the car and keep going, as I sometimes think. If I didn’t have responsibilities, why not? I could go anywhere at a speed that would amaze those who once traveled this continent so slowly and painfully. Nothing stops me going anywhere in this country save commitments I myself have freely made.
Shopping, I walked through aisles upon aisles and briefly marveled, again, at the choices. If you want bargain prices without frills, there’s a store for you. If you want a shopping “experience” and the very highest quality, there’s a store for you. If convenience is your top priority, there’s a store for you, too. We still have, I believe, a far greater variety of virtually everything available here than anywhere in the world. Did you ever stop to marvel at how many different kinds of pickles there are? Or cheeses? Or towel colors? We don’t invent every life-changing gadget — but we have more gadgets available to us than anyone else.
I am not rich by any American measure. In historical and global terms, I live in luxury few could imagine.
I recently contacted my political representatives and asked them to vote in opposition to the President of the United States on an important national security issue. It’s actually possible that they will do so in defiance of the President, though he is their party’s leader. My guess is that ultimately they will not, that they will toe the party line. But I asked them — without fear of retaliation. How many people in history could even consider doing what I just did?
We see our nation’s flaws in stark relief these days, and many of us realize more acutely how fragile our liberties truly are. We should also realize again how rare and precious they are, and how privileged we have been. I consider once more how few people throughout history have tasted the opportunities we still have here; how many have lived their whole lives under oppression we’ve yet to imagine. Nothing in the future can take away what has been. I am thankful — and I am challenged, because God does not give such a gift so that it may be squandered lightly. May I use well all He has given me.
Published in Culture, Domestic Policy, General, Religion & Philosophy
Thanks, Leigh. That was awesome. <cough> Not crying, I just have allergies.
We are so very lucky, so very blessed. It’s our duty to recognize that.
Leigh, your third paragraph reminded me of a section of Dinesh D’Souza’s “What so Great About America?” Here it is:
We are so blessed. That’s why I don’t want us to squander our inheritance.
Thank you for giving voice to what I have been thinking for many months. Very well written.
Thanks. You are correct in reminding us there are things to rejoice in as well as things to fight for.
Thanks, Leigh :-)
I’m glad you posted this. I saw this editorial today titled “The West’s Failure of Imagination.” Read it in full, although it’s vague, and says nothing you won’t know, but still, read it, because he’s vague but entirely correct:
I was thinking about this — “failure of imagination” is one of many ways you could describe something that he’s groping at, and that I’ve unsuccessfully groped to describe. But I suspect part of it, and it’s a complex thing, so only part of it, is that people who’ve grown up in America are so used to these things (material abundance, freedom of expression, freedom to worship as they please) that they literally have trouble imagining that these have not historically been, nor are they now, a normal and guaranteed state of affairs. Nor should we wish it otherwise. The point of so much struggle and sacrifice has been to create a country in which all of this seems entirely normal.
But when he refers to “the democratic world’s natural competitive advantage,” I think he may be missing something: No, it doesn’t seem that the democratic world has a “natural” competitive disadvantage. If that were so, we wouldn’t be seeing what we’ve seen since the end of the Cold War, which is — globally — a trend toward “managed” and “hybrid” illiberal democracy. One reason we took the Cold War so very seriously — and fought it, as a real war — is that our leaders did not feel confident the West would win it, and took very seriously the idea that the outcome might well be the extinction of liberal democracy. Were they able to see this because so many had grown up during the Second World War, I wonder?
When the Berlin Wall fell, so many of us — me included — felt, “Freedom won, as is natural.” It took me many years to realize, “No, it’s not natural. It’s just how I grew up. It can’t be taken for granted at all.”
Thanks. Great post. Christians in the U.S. of a certain age *cough* are used to the notion that there’s little daylight between our faith and our patriotism. Each year seems to challenge that assumption a little more, so that now we begin to wonder if our faith may demand our “last full measure of devotion” by forcing us to make some hard choices. This is immensely sad, but we need to be clear-eyed, avoiding the tempatation to let anger over what has been lost give way to despair or bitterness … lest we forget that true patriotism is to truly live out our faith as salt and light.
Am I alone in suspecting that SJWs are so angry all the time because no one ever taught them to express gratitude?
My husband and I always marvel at the discontent of many a westerner from time to time. We often wonder aloud if people have seen how the rest of the world lives..
We must be cautious though. While material freedoms are wonderful to have, it is the freedom of the mind and gratitude that makes a person happy in the end. Some of the discontent – the desire to improve upon our lot as opposed to the resignation to “that’s just the way things are” is one of the reason the west has embarked upon the constant improvements that drive modernity. At the same time, some of the poorest people are happy because they live in gratitude of what they do have; while relatively wealthy youth in the west are ever increasingly medicated, in therapy, and unhappy.
A very thoughtful piece, thanks for writing.
So…anyone know a good deal on a big screen TV?
Gratitude and perspective are important. Thanks.
The reason it’s now or never is because we yet have enough freedom to preserve what we have and perhaps even to regain what was lost. Or so I hope.
The deeper, the more widespread, the graver the corruption becomes, then the less we have to work with and the more difficult the challenge of restoration. Cancers that are curable in the early stages can be incurable in later stages, long before the point of utter destruction. In culture and politics, there is momentum.
Some choices eliminate others. Toward the end, the addict is less free to recover what he has given up.
The greatest President in living memory, Ronald Reagan, stated that freedom is never more than one generation away from being lost. Along the lines of Claire’s comment, I don’t think many Americans understand how quickly despotism and an oppressive culture can rise to power.
Political correctness, regular demonizing by politicians and popular media (echoed in common culture), lawlessness and unlimited pursuits at every level of government, multiculturalism’s destruction of confidence in noble traditions and even truth itself — The board is set for terrors, if we allow them.
Speaking of gratitude:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/which-character-strengths-are-most-predictive-of-well-being/
I have this sort of notion about human beings and their view of life, that I think ultimately defines who they are. There was a time for Americans, and that time is now for a great many humans on the planet, that on the scale that measures prosperity, there was a very real bottom. That bottom was death from nature. Meaning, that you died of exposure, or hunger, or a wild animal. There was a real chance that this would happen to you. This is no longer the case for most Americans. Where as previous generations recognized that unless they got out there and did something, and took responsibility for their own well being, they simply wouldn’t make it, we do not understand that today. For us, the bottom is settling for a minimum wage job and a crappy apartment. Or having a small TV. Or having to buy a junker of a car.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong, per se, with prosperity. But that real bottom that I mentioned has gone out of sight for most of us. And I think that because it is out of sight, we don’t realize it is there. And that’s bad for us, as a society.
There are so many good points here. There is a Catholic Church just up the road – I’m not Catholic but I go in from time to time – the doors are unlocked. There is a fountain of holy water that you can fill up a container with. It’s quiet and you can light a candle for someone or something at one of many stations. There are free greeting cards to send to someone or a bookmark with scripture. It is a place to reflect. I have been in there when only a group of elderly women were on their knees praying for our country. I heard their prayers.
Ms. Herman makes a great point. Here in FL I know many Hispanics – some speak hardly any English – a housekeeper I know is 27 – her hands are sometimes raw from chemicals, she’s having knee trouble – her husband says she doesn’t have to work – they have a little son. She says “I want to earn my own money!”. The Hispanics that do construction work (we built 2 houses) sing on the job, they bring food and eat together, then take a siesta (nap), then back to work. They are frugal and work in all weather.
Yet I know Americans with abundance whose children can’t hold a job, live at home and are disrespectful. We need to be on our knees when the spirit taps us on the shoulder, not just on a special day. Thank you for sharing.
Great post, Leigh. Thank you.
I suspect that, collectively, we have very little appreciation for how much better we have it and why. My parents and 2 youngest siblings recently returned from Ghana where they lived for 8 months while helping my sister and brother-in-law run a private school. What they experienced and the stories they told really put in perspective how much we take for granted, like sleeping without mosquito nets, having a postal system you can trust, or being able to flip a switch to light up a room without fail.
-E
Agreed, our prosperity and freedom is unprecedented in human history. For much of America’s history our prosperity has been earned, bought and paid for. But no longer. Consider if my family and I were given practically unlimited credit at our bank, could buy anything we desired and only be required to pay the minimum interest on the loan. We could raise our own dept limit and continue to spend unwisely as we pleased. To the outside observer would we not appear to be extremely wealthy? Is this not what our government has done for the last fifty years? Have we not lavished eighteen trillion dollars on ourselves with no sustainable plan to pay it back?
Inevitably, as Greece is painfully finding out, all debts do eventually become due. There is no one in Washington willing to recognize this “elephant in the room” for to do so would signal the end of his/her political career. Democracies fail when the voter learns to vote himself the largesse of the public treasury. When you pray, pray for America to come to its senses. When you vote, vote for the candidate with the best plan to reform the economy.
What does Aragorn say — something like “if simple people live free from fear, simple they will be?”
I do think, though, we are less aware than we should be. Our schools don’t really teach world history, except WWII. We don’t teach literature in a way that really enables people to step outside their own time and place. We’re taught shallow truths and shallow grievances, with little sense of context.
Hadn’t read this before. But yes: when you have been out of the country, America is a revelation, in ways you wouldn’t even imagine.