Simian Farmer: Dishin' with Deus

Happy Thanksgiving, Big Fella

And to you, my Son.

So what's the right way to give thanks, anyway?

Well, tripping past the pleasantries and getting right down to the Big Question, huh?

It's the day for it.

EVERY day is the day for it.

Every day is the right day to give thanks?

Do you ever have a day when you don't have something to be thankful for?

No, I suppose not.

You keep answering your own questions, you're not gonna need me around, you know.

I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. Plus, I'm still looking for an answer to my first question. What is the right way to give thanks?

Tell me first, how do you give thanks right now?

For what, specifically?

For anything, generally.

Well, if good fortune seems to come my way, I thank my lucky stars, figuratively speaking. If somebody does me a kindness unasked for, I go up and thank them in person. Sometimes I just feel like things are going my way and I am thankful for that.

You got it pretty close with that last one. You said, "I am thankful for that." That's all there is to it. You have to be thankful. You have to be thanks.

In order to give thanks, I have to be thanks?

If you want to give someone something, you can't very well do so without possessing it in the first place. So in order to give thanks, you therefore have to be it. It's not like you can save up the thanks you've received from others and then dole it out until you run out. You have a limitless supply, but only if you are it.

Seems to me like there are a lot of folks who give thanks without really meaning it then.

Simon, if I peddled in lip service instead of sticking with this God gig, I coulda put all those dot com billionaires to shame.

That's a shame.

A crying shame.

So then in order to give thanks, I have to be thanks. But if I have to be thanks, then it seems to me that I have to be thanks all the time since it strikes me as being rather difficult to be something some of the time and then NOT be that same something the other part of the time. Either you are or your aren't, you know? I mean, I'm always Simon. I'm never NOT Simon.

And Bingo was his name-O. Like I said, you keep answering your own questions, you're not going to need me around.

Well then answer me this: how often am I truly thankful?

Hardly ever.

But I have been? Sometimes?

Sometimes.

Like when? I'm feeling the need for some uplifting here, being told that I'm a less thankful person than I thought I was.

Well, do you remember that night when your son was born and you snipped the cord and the nurse washed the birth guck off him and laid him naked and squalling on the scale and you tilted your head in order to look better at his face and there were tears streaming down your face and there was this sort of light-ish feeling in your heart?

I remember that very well. Of course.

Right then you were thankful. You were thanks.

For how long, right then, was I thanks?

About seven seconds. Give or take.

That's it?!

That's it.

There have been other moments, right? When I've been truly thankful? When I've been thanks?

A few. That one was the capper, though, to be sure. I like to throw a few gimmes in there just so you know what to look for later on when it's not so obvious.

So if I spend what seems to me like most of my life walking about being a relatively thankful person, and I'm truthfully not, then what the hell am I in those moments when I think I am?!

Like I said, you sometimes truly are. But most of the time you run a whole range of other emotions masquerading as thanks.

Gimme a for instance. Please and thanks.

You are covetous. If someone gives you a thing, you covet that thing rather than being thankful. You are resentful. If someone does a kindness for you, you resent their ability to excel in an area where you do not, rather than being thankful. You are suspicious. You assume ulterior motives on the part of the giver rather than being thankful. You are angry. You feel a sense of obligation creeping in rather than being thankful. You are afraid. You fear the loss of stature in the eyes of others by accepting that which is being given, rather than being thankful. You are envious. You want more of that which was given unto you rather than being thankful. You are...

I get the point!

I can go on, if you want me to.

Thank you, no. Let's take it as given that I'm starting to understand.

Well, if it's given then...?

I should be thankful?

Are you?

I'm going to have to go ahead and say 'no'. I'm not feelin' it.

I'd tend to agree with you.

So before I get totally frustrated, this brings us back to the crux of the conversation.

Being what, exactly?

How on Earth can I be thanks?

Ay, there's the rub.

Well? Lookin' for your help on this one, Big Guy. I'm drawing a bit of a blank. Tell you what, you gimme a hand trying to understand how to be thanks, and the first thing I'll do afterwards is practise on you, being all thankful and stuff as best I can. How's that sound?

Take a little of the sarcasm out of your tone, and we have ourselves a deal.

OK, done. So?

A really good place to start here, as in most things, is the Golden Rule.

That whole 'do unto others' schtick?

The same. The oldies are the goodies. My best advice is normally the short and sweet stuff. A teensy problem being the fact that there's then a whole lot of room for interpretation. But I'm not about to lay it all out for you in minute detail. Interpretation leading to experience is what you're here for anyway.

So how do I interpret the Golden Rule?

However you see fit. Just hafta dig a bit to find your best response to any situation.

So say some schlep walks up to me in the street, cranks me in the head and makes off with my wallet. What then? Should I be thankful that he just hit me and stole my money, or should I run him down and give him his comeuppance? Should I do unto him as he just did unto me? Assuming he too is living by the Golden Rule, I'd be doing him a disservice by not.

Adversity creates the greatest of all opportunities in which you can be thankful. A man struck down as you say may be thankful for at least his life; much more so than he was a moment prior. A woman bereft of her child may be thankful for the years of memories she has accumulated. A child whose pet has died may be thankful for the unconditional companionship that pet provided. A family, having lost every last one of their worldly possessions, may be thankful for each other. A man stripped of his sight may be thankful for his remaining senses. The loss experienced in adversity brings great poignancy to that for which you have to be thankful.

So whether it's genuinely good stuff, like the birth of my son, or truly terrible stuff, like, say, him dying tomorrow...

Odds are slim.

...then regardless, there's an opportunity to be thankful?

Damn straight. Every single moment of your life is a gift for which to be thankful. Each moment is a present. It is pre-sent to you to do with as you please. Draw as much or as little as you want from it, be thankful, and move on to the next one. There is always a choice for you to make. You can be thankful. Or you can be afraid, envious, covetous, resentful... There's a whole gamut of choices waiting to take the place of the one that's best for you. The challenge is finding the right one in each moment.

I don't think that'll be very easy to do. I know it hasn't been so far.

Nope. Never said it was going to be easy. But I'm along for the whole ride with you and will help steer you if you listen. Trouble is, most folks go through life with their fingers stuck in their ears, chanting, "La-la-la-la-la-la!! I'm not listening, I'm not listening!!" I've got patience in spades, though, and a tendency never to shut up, so you'll all come around eventually.

Even those thumpin', dogmatic religious types?