Ministerial Meandering

‘I am grateful’

 

You open another parcel of hand-knitted socks (for your birthday) from the maiden aunt you haven’t seen in the last 15 years, and toss them into the charity box at your side.  “That’s another letter I’ll have to write”, you mutter to yourself as you jot Aunt Gladys’ name down onto your ‘Thank you’ list, and grab your mug of coffee.

When you get round to writing it, you start off in the same effusive way - ‘Dear Aunt Gladys, I am soooo grateful for the lovely socks you made me…’ thereby ensuring you get yet another pair (for the charity box) next year when your birthday arrives.

But you’re grateful, right?

It’s really difficult, isn’t it?  You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but at the same time you really wish people wouldn’t give you things that you neither want, need, nor would be seen dead in.

A close friend of mine recently was given a huge gift - a new car.  You can hardly say to Aunt Gladys that the car sucks if you don’t like it - and besides, she knew you needed it because your bicycle had a flat and your horse had thrown a shoe.

But a Ferrari ?  In Agassiz?

I think you’d have been happier with a VW Beetle.  Never mind - we’ll know when you’ve been around!

But you’re grateful, right?

Then there was the washing machine; rather like our eldest daughter, my friend is a little challenged in the height department, and was hoping to purchase a stacking system of washing machine and dryer - both front-loading - so she didn’t have to climb head-first into the washer drum to retrieve her ‘smalls’.  

But ‘Santa’ came to the rescue again!  And - lo and behold! - the world’s biggest, deepest top-loading washing machine arrives unannounced; now you are going to have to go to the hardware store to get a ladder to climb up to open the top of your washer, and visit the farm store for a pitch fork to get the aforesaid ‘smalls’ from the bottom of this mechanical abyss.

But you’re grateful, right?

I suppose it’s a bit like the competitive form of grudging admiration we have when we have to take second place on the podium, instead of the top position we are sure we should have had.  It is the opposite of schadenfreude, (which you remember means taking a delight in someone else’s misfortune); the new word is gluckschmerz, which means the pain you feel at others’ good fortune; the sardonic grimace accompanied by the white-knuckled handshake.

But you’re grateful, right?

My last example is of another friend who moved house to be near his family - specifically a grandson (who is already co-located), and his mother (who isn’t).  His mother, who lives on the other side of the world, has been unable to sell her house in order to move; her son (the grandson) works nights and bizarre hours, so is rarely, if ever, seen.  So that plan didn’t work out.  To cap it all, the new house doesn’t suit my friend at all; he says it’s cold, noisy, expensive to run, and he needs a car to get anywhere at all.  His wife, on the other hand, says she ‘will bloom wherever I’m planted’.  That’s an amazing attitude.

So he’s trying to be grateful.

And I’m trying to learn too.

 

Philip+

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