The Net of Gratitude

In one its declarations at Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, the Church insists that all humans form one community, for we are all from God and we are all destined for God.  Despite quite different teachings, we believe other religions often “reflect a ray of that truth that enlightens all men.” The Church encourages us “to enter with prudence and charity into discussion and collaboration with members of other religions.  Let Christians, while witnessing to their own faith and way of life, acknowledge, preserve and encourage the spiritual and moral truths found among non-Christians.”  (Nostra Aetate 1-2)

This teaching seems in sharp contrast to much I have seen on social media, particularly in the past week following the tragedy in Paris.  All Muslims are terrorists.  All Muslims are dedicated to the destruction of everything that is not Muslim.  The Koran demands the killing of all infidels.  The generalizations keep increasing in vehemence, frequency, and certainty.

Surely, we have witnessed some Muslims who are terrorists.  Surely, we have witnessed some Muslims who wish the infidel world much harm, and we have suffered grievously from their efforts.  Certainly, there are verses in the Koran which offer encouragement to those who follow this path.  And yet, this is not the whole story.

Recently, I came across a counterpoint to much of the screeds I have seen, a “ray of truth” that gives me confidence in the ultimate wisdom behind Nostra Aetate.  It is also quite timely, for it concerns gratitude, that virtue we honor in a particular way today on Thanksgiving.  It was a poem by a thirteenth-century Persian Sufi – in essence, a Muslim mystic – named Jamal al-Din Muhammad Rumi.  It goes like this:

Giving thanks for abundance

is sweeter than the abundance itself:

Should one who is absorbed with the Generous one

be distracted with the gift?

Thankfulness is the soul of beneficence;

Abundance is but the husk,

For thankfulness brings you to the place where

The beloved lives.

Abundance yields heedlessness;

Thankfulness brings alertness:

Hunt for bounty with the net of gratitude.

Given how long I tended to procrastinate as a child when writing thank you notes for my Christmas presents, it’s obvious that I didn’t really get the opening couplet.  How could giving thanks be more important than the gift?  But of course, the giver must be more important than the gift, for the giver cannot give anything greater than itself.

Rumi understood my problem, as he explains in the next couplet.  I let the pleasure of the gift distract me – and the more abundant the gift was, the more distracting its pleasure – I let it distract me from the giver.  I let it distract my heart from gratitude.

And without gratitude as the soul of all of my beneficence and the soul of all my good works, the abundance that I have received from God, the abundance I try to share with others, are simply the husks, or, as Jesus would describe it, the chaff that is thrown into the fire to be burned.

But when I am thankful, I am brought to the place where my beloved lives, the One who has provided me with the abundance that has been my life, the One who is so much sweeter than the abundance, the One who is the infinite and all-loving source of all abundance.

Rumi closes by reminding me not to be dulled by abundance, for without gratitude, mere abundance dulls our hunger for that which is so much greater.  In our perceived satiety, we become heedless of others’ needs, heedless of our own need to be with the One who truly fills us with all that is good.

By gratitude awakens us, alerts us to our source and to our destiny, the One who is all good, all loving and all provident.

Hunt for the One with the net of gratitude.   Thanks be to God.  Amen.