How great is gratefulness

There are missed opportunities in life. They happen every day. The compliment you didn’t give when it flicked past in your mind. The note of thanks for a kindness offered. A gesture, a smile. They don’t matter in the great picture, but they do matter to the people who missed out.

As a first year student at Massey University my lecturer in social anthropology was Professor (later Sir) Hugh Kawharu. He possessed an awesome intellect and my dream was to apply my learnings in some distant, faraway land. I didn’t expect that it would be Tasmania! Apart from my immediate family I have little to do with that portion my life. But quite extraordinarily, into dreams and into some wakening hours come recollections of friends, good times and bad, growing up, ever optimistic. Most of all, the missed opportunities are plainly before me. Not being there for the past 30 years has meant I have not been there to thank the people who contributed to me being the person I am. Having spent the last 20 plus years on the North West Coast, I see the advantage that so many of you have. Your lives have been spent nourished by family and friends, you are connected to each other, to your community and to the soil under your feet.

So. When you are a member of such a small community, do you let the opportunities pass you by?

Gratefulness and thankfulness are such rich qualities for successful living and yet we use them sparingly rather than lavishly. Our children today have so much and yet they find it hard to offer compliments and express gratitude that lasts more than an hour! Why is this so?

In the story of the healing of the ten (Luke 17:11-17), only one whom Jesus heals returns to give thanks to God. Jesus rewards this foreigner, this Samaritan saying, “Get up and go; your faith has made you well.” The other nine had also been healed. But they had been healed by the power of Jesus, whereas the Samaritan was made well by his own faith. Are we among those who wait to be provided for, or among those who use their own initiative and receive the blessings that come with it? Gratefulness and thankfulness need to be a part of our living, daily vocabulary. Let’s teach our children to be just so.