Expressing gratitude can be a humbling experience when it is authentic. It can be expressed as the dizzying honor and awe that one feels when we owe our life to something greater than ourselves. And while most of us have no problem expressing it, I suspect that there are times we seldom give pause and reflect on the source and act of gratitude.
What does it mean to be grateful? What is its essence? To whom should we be grateful and for what acts? We live in a civilization only dreamed of a short time ago when viewed from the high peak of all human history. It is from this rarified perspective that one should, at times, gaze and reflect on the human experience. The devil will always be in the details for sure; yet, stepping back to sight the bigger patterns, the larger landscape, is a perspective we neglect at times. I know I do. Yet, it is only from the peak that we see our smallness while simultaneously coming to terms with the grandeur of ourselves, the individual soul. We see the simple beauty of life and the triviality of the little bits and differences. It is from this zenith that I consider gratitude this Veterans Day.
True gratitude, in the sense I speak of here, calls out for timeless loyalty. This does not mean blind loyalty. It is the undying love, admiration, and reverence bestowed upon the one who gives to others, who exemplifies Plato’s elusive “good.” That projected gratitude lifts us up also to the aspirations that seem barely within our grasp, but are in fact readily available to us. It transcends time, the shifting fads and preferences of the generations. It ignores the petty conventions of a particular age, which are often nothing more than the misguided desires to ignore our shared duty to uphold that elusive good in favor of a newer more “progressive” way.
To uphold all that is good is a timeless struggle itself. There will always be those who are not morally strong enough or too devoted to their own pleasured pursuits. It is easier to embrace the “progress” of conventional thinking than to uphold timeless truths. The good, and other timeless truths, require constant sacrifice and practiced virtue as their price of possession. It is very hard stuff, I admit. This is why convention and progress are seen as more appealing than chasing after something that we can never possess in its purest form. Today, some have convinced themselves that we have surpassed the elusive good by capitulating to the “clarity” of skepticism. They see no point in trying; they actually believe we will be better off for it too. Once we embrace skepticism we are free to side step virtuous behavior. The door is now open to moral relativism, hedonism, demagoguery, and eventually…tyranny. Tyranny is the ultimate form of human destruction, the antithesis of what it means to be human. In its collective approach to the good, the individual soul is destroyed. Sadly, this is how some elements of our society see the human experience. It is what we call progressive today. They are in the dark, inside the caves, just below the peak; this I know.
Yet there are those who do believe. They chase; they seek; they aspire to the elusive good. They know it is real, it can be understood, and it is universal. They do this not for themselves, but because they know they owe it to the good itself, which, among other things, is the service to and sacrifice for others, especially those who are blissfully hunkered down in the shadows of skepticism, for they are in the greatest need of light and love. “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. They stand opposed to the tyranny, which is destruction, and stand up for the true nature of the human being, which is to be a creator. Yes, as humans we make things. We make love; we make babies, we make a living, we make money, we make laughter, we make each other mad, we make dinner, we make each other mad at dinner discussing topics like this, we make medicine, we make our lives better, we make mistakes, we make art for its beauty, we make each other think. Sometimes, we make war. But, this is not done for the sake of war, which is the lust for destruction…but to make a future for the good.
Believer or skeptic? We go about our lives in the early 21st century in this “age undreamed of” without much pause to consider what we should be grateful for. If you do not believe me, take a look at how humanity has lived since its dawn. Imperfect as our society is, with all its perceived injustices and misunderstood lack of fair wealth distribution, I ask you to give me an example of any civilization that has successfully tackled those age old challenges to the degree that we have. I would wager that we have gone far beyond the greatest peaks of the past. Is it because, structured within our being, we aspire to the elusive good? That we believe it without doubt? Could that have brought us to this peak? If so, how valuable is that structure? Valuable enough to protect and defend? Think about the following: We are free to pursue our passions and interests for the most part. Yes, some are more successful than others. This is not because of structured injustice and inequity but because, as Aquinas states of the human being, “All men are created equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.” We all have different gifts. In the end, we are free to chase down our heart’s desires. Never before has a civilization had such freedoms and those freedoms are the wings that have brought us to this metaphorical “City on the Hill.” We have moved far beyond the narrow options and limits of generations and civilizations past. This is evidenced in the fact that many are free to pursue a career in the arts if they choose. This is a good sign. Think about it from the perspective of the peak.
We all contribute in some way to that elusive good, or at least we should. Some of us more than others and that is alright. But, just as there are those who do nothing but take, there are those who do nothing but give. Our veterans fall into the later category. In all fairness there are others who are in this category too and they are not veterans; however, this is Veterans Day after all! Our veterans are the ones who uphold and defend our freedoms while standing in the light. They do the hard things that many of us are unable, or the case of the skeptic, unwilling to do. They make sacrifices we could never make, including the ultimate sacrifice. All this to make a future for us. They deserve our undying love, admiration, and reverence; these are the pillars of our gratitude. Gratitude follows the gift they made for us. In fact, it demands it if we truly embrace what is good and true.
Our veterans deserve this SPECIAL honor because:
They have the courage to stand in the light of liberty in defense of it instead of crouching in the shadow of liberty mumbling and grumbling about how dark and cold it is. The light of truth and liberty is within the grasp of all; the glory of our earthly gratitude belongs to all who seek and defend the light so others can share it, see their way by it…to become free of the shackling shadows.
God bless our Veterans and all that serve the good. Happy Veteran’s Day.
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