The news is that a radio station has already started playing Christmas music, the idea being that people need a lift from all the woeful tidings of the season.  Excuse me, but what happened to Thanksgiving? 

I get a lift from giving thanks, especially when times are hard and the distance from where I am to "being lifted" is greater.  Gratitude is, in fact, one of the big spiritual practices of the world's religions.  Give thanks, they say.  Giving thanks is important, they say.  It's important because it is uplifting.  People need a lift from all the woeful tidings of the season, so let us undertake the spiritual practice of giving thanks.

Imagine all the years when harvests were thin, and survival through the winter was a dicey prospect.  What did our foreparents do?  They worried, of course, but also they gave thanks.  And why not?  The world is full of many wonders.  Life is amazing.  Every day I wake up, it's time to give thanks.  And throughout the day there are many moments to be grateful.  Grateful for the smile of the waitress at the coffee shop.  Grateful for the greeting of my co-worker.  Grateful for the opportunity to make what I can of another day.  Letting gratitude run through my day, pretty soon I realize I am in love with life, indeed, that I am happy, that I am in awe of nature and human invention, and so much more.  And yes, my 401(k) is toast.

There are so many bad things that happen, things for which gratitude is really not the appropriate response.  But then, through the rage and disappointment, beyond the tears, it turns out there is something, not the central event, but something around the edges, there is something for which to be thankful.  Those little crumbs of gratitude from around big awful events are important.  They make a trail that can lead us from bitterness to forgiveness, from despair to renewed hope, a trail of crumbs through the dark places that can take us back out again.

So let us not go quite yet to the forgettable and commercial uplift of Christmas songs on the radio.  Let's take time for Thanksgiving first, and tune up our spiritual practice of gratitude.  It's something within and beyond ourselves that will deliver the goods as we face these hard times. It's good to start with giving thanks.