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To Thank
Written By: Deena Bouknight | Issue: 2021/11 – November
A spirit of Thankfulness can’t help but enrich our lives and the lives of our loved ones.
Thank you. Those two words – or in the case of other tongues, one word (gracias/Spanish; merci/French; danke/German) – speak volumes to the receiver.
When omitted, countenances can change, relationships become affected, service diminished. But to thank, and to do it sincerely and with expressive appreciation in tone and demeanor, often bridges barriers that no tangible gifts or financial rewards assuage.
The original 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster delves into the word with a linguist’s magnifying glass. Webster published the first definition as “To express gratitude for a favor; to make acknowledgments to one for kindness bestowed.”
We teach our children to say “thank you” soon after they learn to identify guardians. We fuss, cajole, and sometimes punish when those children become mature enough to not forget to thank.
And despite attempts to expunge a rich past, the foundation of America began with thankfulness. Even before a shipload of pilgrims reached the shores of a land completely unknown to them, they listened in 1630 to John Winthrop’s reminder of what they might always be thankful for as they sought to establish a new life in a new land with newfound freedoms. He encouraged in preserved words now known as the City on a Hill document: “We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together …”
Pottery, in order to be utilitarian, must be fired. Likewise, our thankfulness is elevated, determined, and more meaningful, when we find ourselves on the other side of a trial. Certainly, all Americans in some way, shape, or form have found themselves during this past year or more in some dimension of a fiery furnace – be it health, employment, political, spiritual, or livelihood-related. Yet, there are always items to add to that gratitude list … always people to thank. Always reasons to have a glass-half-full mentality versus adopting a cynical view.
This Thanksgiving, may we remember the root word, and give of our thanks to the ones or one or One deserving of the weighty expression.
