The Catechism of Ingratitude

And how grace subverts it.

Image by didier aires from Pixabay

Since my last post on prayer as gratitude, I’ve continued to ponder this virtue. Given that gratitude brings with it a calming peace and a blossoming joy, why is it so hard to cultivate gratitude, let alone remain in a state of perpetual gratefulness?

Well, mass shootings for one thing. But let me come back to that in a bit. First we might look at the usual answers to this question.

A nineteenth-century British preacher, Urijah R. Thomas, offered nine reasons, one representing each of the men who failed to thank our Lord for healing their leprosy. Like:

…One is CALLOUS. He did not feel his misery as much as some, nor is he much stirred now by his return to health. Sullen, torpid, stony men are thankless. Callousness is a common cause of ingratitude.

… One is THOUGHTLESS. He is more like shifting sand than hard stone, but he never reflects, never introspects, never recollects. The unreflecting are ungrateful.

On he goes: “One is proud…. One is envious.… One is cowardly…. One is calculating…. One is worldly…. One is gregarious…. One is procrastinating.”  Thomas was apparently a revivalist, and one or more of these clever darts surely hit the hearts of listeners.

Though the approach seems dated, today’s analysis of ingratitude, both in the church and out, is wound tightly in the tangled roots of mere moralism, which produces insidious weeds that make it difficult for grace to find room in us. One well-known preacher, for example, hits on pride: “At the root of all ingratitude is the love of one's own greatness.” Psychology tends to agree: “People who are ungrateful tend to be characterized by an excessive sense of self-importance, arrogance, vanity, and an unquenchable need for admiration and approval.”

Suggested solutions are of the same order as this one about becoming more mindful. “[Ask yourself] whether you are being kind, caring, compassionate and open to others (thoughts, feelings, opinions, experiences, etc.) or whether you approach others with suspicion, frustration, disappointment, etc.” and learn “to be more appreciative and grateful for all that you have.”  Well, for me anyway, that’s exactly the problem: When ingratitude infects me, I don’t feel up to being kind, caring, or compassionate, and I’m in no mood to list all that I’m grateful for.

In short, the usual advice is “Stop being ungrateful” or tells me to do something that I can only do if I’m already grateful.

Let me be fair and say that when it comes to minor bouts with ingratitude, such a one-two punch of advice can often win the round. Sometimes willful grateful behavior leads to a heart of gratitude. But playing tricks with the heart will not last 15 rounds, especially given the size and strength of our opponent.

I find it helpful to have a clear vision of our chief opponent. It’s not the vices that infect our hearts, though to be fair, they play a role that cannot be ignored. We are awash with advice about how to root out vices and nurture virtue, yes, but we are also wise to consider the environment in which we live and move and have our being. The opponent we’re up against is much stronger and more pervasive than the vices that take up residence in us. Our chief opponent is nothing less than the world, or what St. Paul calls “the principalities and powers” (Eph. 6:12).

We live in a culture that is driven by mass media, whose every breath spews out polluted air. It once was the case that we’d receive a daily newspaper, well, once a day, and our exposure to bad news was limited to the time we spent reading it and the finite number of pages it contained. Today, we live in a media-saturated world where bad news (both true and fake) and cynical commentary (from tweets to long essays) is available to us every minute of the hour, every hour of the day, every day of the year.

As a result, our culture catechizes us to be cynical and angry and to wallow in despair. That sees suffering and injustice as everywhere and nothing but a great tragedy. That turns a blind eye to good news (like examples of virtue or how redemption comes through suffering) by replying, “Yeah, yeah. But what about [insert some ongoing injustice or tragedy here]. That tells us that to nurture gratitude and joy is a failure to live in the “real” world.

Combine this depressing cultural pedagogy with the whining vices that infect our hearts—well, that anyone can be unceasingly grateful is practically a miracle.

No, make that an unmistakable miracle--a grace that comes from outside us and takes root in the deepest part of the self. And what grace does more than anything is to put a huge question mark against the culture’s massive mistake about what is real.

The recipient of such grace does not deny that evil seems to run rampant in our world, but also knows that this evil is tethered by a chain whose length it cannot exceed. Knows that evil only lives as a parasite on the good, meaning the good is therefore a much greater reality. Knows that evil was once met with sacrifice on a cross and defeated for good. Knows that in, with, and under that fabric of world events, no matter how tragic on the surface, is woven the threads of redemption—that one day will become manifest and as beautiful as Joseph’s multicolored robe.

For the recipient of divine grace, this is reality, the deepest reality, the reality available to us to perceive every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, every day of every year.

Such a magnificent gift, as a gift, cannot be gained by following the advice of the world, but it can be welcomed. For the minor bouts of ungratefulness, everyday wisdom can do the trick. For the gratefulness that flips our perception of the world on its head, that goes deep and that lasts, all we need do is ask for it, and receive it with open arms and a humble and contrite spirit.

Grace and peace,

Mark