Of Grace and Disgrace
‘Count your blessings!” The cliche is a Thanksgiving Day command. Be undistracted by the recall of bad happenings that would lead you to grumble or cower. Be attracted to the remembrance of graces and good things in the past 365 days.
In the normal course of the year, the distractions win out. Tales of violence overwhelm stories of peace. Greed and hatred are more evident than generosity and love. A national holiday set aside so citizens can be mindful sounds like good therapy.
It takes great concentration to stick to the blessings theme. For example, Thanksgiving Day has become a family occasion. But tales of family horror blight the season and hog the headlines. Stories of dysfunctional families, of teens at risk, of abuse and victimization, take up prime time. No thanks for them.
Whoever takes pains to look longer, however, will find reasons to account for and be thankful for families who work, as many families do; for good kids, and there are good kids; for communication between generations--not all of it is disrupted, and for moral guidance that does guide. Stories of all these are among the countable blessings on Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Day, of course, is not first “about” families: it is about harvest, blessings, a nation, and gratitude, in general. But many have sung old songs about going to grandmother’s house for this holiday, and that singing evokes a familial sense. Whenever Norman Rockwell painted a picture of a roast turkey, he surrounded it with images of the generations of relatives who gather to eat. Colleges and universities contribute to family occasions by closing down and letting their students go to places that, despite some emotional growing pains and reluctances, they still call home.
If and when the Thanksgiving grace gets said at the table, those who offer prayer should give an extra squeeze to each others’ hands, if they stop to think of how fragile and threatened are all human ties. If and after they have bowed their heads, they can lift them, catching in the new line of vision a sight of the family and friends they need. Beyond such immediate lines of vision, they can discern people who have little for which to be thankful. Mention them at the feast and it is likely they will be remembered during the week. So far, so good.
This, however, is written under the shadow of a lasting horror in the form of the family story that preoccupied millions over this holiday. Screaming for attention in magazines that lie open on coffee tables near the Thanksgiving dinners is a tale of murder. In a dumpster near the University of Delaware, two unmarried teenage parents allegedly dumped the body of their new born son. Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson Jr., children of privilege who once had enjoyed the prospects of abundant and productive lives, are now charged with having aborted all their possibilities by delivering a child in a motel and, in panic, getting rid of him. There were signs of trauma on the infant’s head. The prosecutors will contend that Peterson bashed it before tossing the baby away and driving off with Grossberg. Murder, it is called.
The details are so familiar that many will have to work to forget them before getting back to their feasting. The events in Delaware match movements from the depths of Greek drama, or that emerge from the webs of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Southern Gothic novel plots. Biblical literature also partly conditions our civilization to tell stories like this one. Its writers train readers and hearers to listen for the wing-beat of dark, demonic forces that seem to issue from the cracks in the Earth, as if from the pits of hell. This Delaware story whispers of such sounds. How to “count your blessings” when lines like these come to mind?
Millions tried last night in community services of worship to say Thanksgiving prayers, despite all distractions. Millions more today sing, “We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing.” Then they disperse, to regather with friends or at family tables. There, they give thanks. All seems well again.
Such Thanksgiving images are obviously too idealistic. The homeless who get fed at shelters and charities over the holiday will remain homeless and return to hunger tomorrow. Millions who did not really wish to be alone popped a TV turkey dinner into the microwave and watched football, in loneliness, wishing for the long afternoon to pass. But even in the lives of the hungry and lonely, there often seems to be some stability, some sanity written into the script, something secure.
All assurances and reliabilities disappear, however, when the story of Amy and Brian and others like it come to mind. Of course, a person can cope with this one, first, by reducing it to the ordinary. Statistics help. A couple of hundred times a year, stealthy parents are reported to have murdered their unwanted newborns and dumped them. If they are children of the poor, few notice. But last week’s cast of characters will not readily disappear off stage, because they were “good kids.” Had frightened Grossberg never been pregnant, or had she and Peterson turned over to their parents this unplanned child, they could have reentered the world of regularities. Plenty of people would have stood in line to adopt the boy. The parental inconveniences would have been momentary. Instead, prospects of life in prison or death row haunt two families.
A second way to deal with a story like this is to point fingers in judgment. Something went wrong, so someone had gone wrong. Certainly, it is being said by the judgmental, two sets of parents and one high school could have done better than they must have done at providing examples, teaching ethics and anticipating what children should do when their path of privilege gets potholed or pocked.
Such judging is futile. What do we know at our distances? Maybe the Grossberg and Peterson elders had done the right things, or had done at least as nearly right as the rest of us parents and grandparents think we have done, or wish we had done. Judge not; pity plenty; fear somewhat.
A third approach to getting the story out of mind is to look for a moral. Grossberg reportedly feared telling her mother of her pregnancy? Henceforth, let mothers keep communication open, to dispel daughters’ fears. Fine. Pro-choice people would add their own moral: Teach young women to resort to abortion in such cases. But for many that is not a moral outcome; it is its own horror.
Maybe, then, educate the young Petersons of the world to act responsibly? Again, fine, but who knows what was or was not taught and exemplified at his house, or Grossberg’s. Friends speak well of both households and the couple. Many families follow the training manuals, take pains to communicate and want to do right, but still know the worst can happen.
Many who want to restore a semblance of order after the violence will go for the farthest reaches of thankfulness, to add depth to their perspective. One hears that “being thankful to” has to match “being thankful for.” Thankfulness to can mean, for some, no more than reaching out in gratitude to the persons to whom we owe much. Thankfulness to can also mean more. The two-thirds of the American people who direct their thanks to “a personal God who watches over and judges people”--the phrase is that of the Gallup poll--have fresh reasons to question the divine governance in a world gone chaotic. But, note, they are back at the dinner table and in the sanctuary again this year, learning to be watchful, ready to be judged. They need this rare, set-aside national day in which they look for the positive signals.
“The vast majority of Americans believe in some unifying and organizing power behind the universe,” the Gallup folk go on to say. Not all direct their thanks to a personal Giver on Thanksgiving. But millions of these others use the day to recognize such power, and set out to do their own unifying and organizing of the fabric of society, in the face of the always threatening chaos around them.
Only the deluded or those in denial can put the tragic side of life entirely out of mind as they gather at Thanksgiving Day tables to count their blessings, especially if they can rejoice in their exemptions from roles in horror stories. But after Amy and Brian, only fools can act as if wealth and privilege will guarantee happiness and protection from evil. Still, the alert, the weathered and the wise, with their eyes wide open to realism and horror, know that there are moments, events, people and prospects to affirm in a world where good things also do happen and where more of them can happen.
Such people are themselves among the blessings to be counted this Thanksgiving weekend. Lift a glass to them.