YOUR VIEWS
By Charles J. Sykes
A note to young people: This Thanksgiving, it wouldn’t hurt to say “thank you.”
As often as you say “It’s my life,” the fact is that it’s not, at least not yet and not exclusively. You hold the lives of others in your own as well. Remember that you matter to others because what you do affects them more deeply than you probably can guess right now.
You cannot begin to imagine how much time, effort, and love have gone into raising you since the miraculous moment of your birth: changing your diapers, feeding you baby food that you spit all over your bib, reading you to sleep, watching your first step, taking you to the bus for the first day of school, making you dinner, buying you clothes, dressing you, cleaning up after you, shopping for your Christmas presents, helping you with homework, bandaging the cuts, building those silly dioramas the night before they are due, signing you up for swimming lessons, taking you to the doctor for your ear infection; the family road trips where you asked “Are we there yet?” 50,000 times; driving you to lessons and games in the minivan; attending your soccer games, concerts, band performances, and parent teacher conferences; paying for your braces, hearing you say you hate them; helping you with your first date; lying awake at night worrying; graduations; saving for your college tuition; the anxieties, fears, and moments of incredible satisfaction, surprise, hope, and pride.
It wouldn’t hurt to show some gratitude.
Spoiled brats think they had all of this coming as a matter of right, so they miss the remarkable gift they have been given. It may not even occur to them to say thanks.
For those of you who have a better sense of what you owe, the problem is more difficult. Just how do you say thank you for a life and for a lifetime of gifts and service? How do you pay it back? Somehow, a Hallmark card just doesn’t cut it.
My favorite story of gratitude is Anatole France’s story of the juggler who wants more than anything to show his devotion and gratitude to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
The juggler was named Barnabas and he lived in the days of King Louis and traveled from town to town entertaining crowds with his skill and showmanship. Eventually, he joined a monastery and became a monk, hoping to be of service to the Virgin.
He grew despondent, however, when he saw how little he had to offer compared to the other monks. Everyone else had a special talent or skill that he devoted to praising Mary. The Prior, for example, wrote learned books… Brother Maurice copied his treatises onto parchment with a beautiful hand… Brother Alesandre illuminated the manuscripts with delicate miniatures representing the Blessed Virgin… Brother Marbode was a skilled sculptor, while others among the monks composed beautiful poetry and hymns to honor the Mother of God.
Seeing all of this, Barnabas felt his inadequacy. In contrast to the learned, talented monks around him, he was an ignorant and simple man, who could not even hope to make the sort of beautiful gifts that his fellow monks offered. He couldn’t deliver a sermon, or write a learned treatise on theology; or carve a statue. “Alas,” he said, “I have nothing.”
“Thus,” wrote Anatole France, “did he lament and abandon himself to his misery.”
Until one morning when he had an idea. He got up from his cot and ran to the chapel and remained there alone for an hour. The next day he was back in the chapel and, in fact, he began disappearing into it frequently, going there whenever he was free and the chapel was empty. This naturally aroused the curiosity of his fellow monks, who wondered what he was doing in the chapel by himself.
Since it was his job to check into such things, the prior decided to follow Barnabas, and one night went to the chapel accompanied by two other monks. They looked through the bars to see what Barnabas was doing.
And there was Barnabas before the image of the Virgin, “his head on the floor and his feet in the air, juggling with six copper balls and twelve knives.”
Barnabas had realized that, after all, he did have a gift for Mary; he showed his gratitude by giving her the very best that he had. He was not a poet, or a sculptor, or an artist. He was a juggler, so he juggled.
You may not grow up to be a CEO, or a brain surgeon, or an opera singer. But whatever work you undertake, do it well, with skill and pride.
That’s how you pay it back.
Charles J. Sykes is the author of 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn in School. This is one of the rules.
