Padre's Corner - What has you the most thankful?

March 8, 2023 - Padre Justin McNeill, 1 Service Battalion

It’s hard to imagine that spring time leaves and Easter celebrations are just around the corner. Especially when the wind still blows cold and the snow keeps coming!

We have, for the most part, had a pretty amicable winter given some of the previous iterations of cold weather the last few winters have brought our way. I know for many of us, these times spent outdoors have been a welcome reprieve from the sequestered sense of isolation many have experienced over the last few years. And it can become extremely difficult on us when the weather turns cold and forces us to spend more and more time indoors.

But even as the winds whips the snow into ever increasing banks and berms, the hope and promise of snow remains – promising a thaw that will slowly dwindle away the frozen drifts and illuminate the green that lies beneath.

It is coming. Slowly, but surely, spring is coming.

Yes, spring is inevitable as the end of these pandemic times we have been enduring. Winter will one day give way to spring, and in those days we will emerge once more and give thanks.

We will gather around tables and share in meals with friends and families we have been yearning to see, in person no less! We will gather in song and celebration. All the while giving thanks for the times we have had together over the years and across the distances.

The benefits of giving thanks—simply recognizing the opportunities and abilities we have before us, even while experiencing the challenges that remain—have been well proven. Both scientifically and experientially, the simple act of giving thanks can boost our mood, our outlook, our creativity, our adaptability, and even our pain thresholds and limits.

Our willingness and ability to lift up what we have accomplished and what we are thankful for can offer a multitude of benefits. Maybe that is why so many of the religious and faith traditions all over the world focus on giving thanks as a central tenant.

From mindfulness to yoga, and from prayer to self-actualization exercises, our ability to intentionally focus on the positives in our lives, even in the midst of very real challenges, can help us to not only ground our experiences within the larger narratives of our lives, but also reframe some of our challenges in order to experience the positives come with thankfulness. Because, let’s face it: simply being thankful isn’t always easy. It isn’t easy to pick and pull out what we are thankful for in the midst of challenges that can so easily feel like the ever‑increasing drifts of snow so many of us are still shovelling month after month. Thankfulness and the practice of being thankful can easily slide into the realm of platitudes when faced with a seemingly endless list of very real obstacles.

So let me, with the help of author and speaker Brian Fretwell, at least attempt to reframe the reframing exercise of thankfulness and giving thanks.

Instead of simply trying to pull out what you are thankful for in the midst of all of life’s challenges, Brian asks: “In the midst of all that you are going through, what are you most proud of doing?”

By asking this simple yet profound question, it challenges us not to pull out the positive as seemingly disassociated from the reality of our experience, but enables us to integrate the challenges we have or are experiencing into what we are proud of and have accomplished in the midst of life’s challenges. It gives us permission to be thankful for what and who we are even while still acknowledging the reality of our situations.

Giving thanks is not about simply wishing away the reality of snow as is continues to fly, adding to the inevitability of having to shovel it once more, but rather being able to recognize that in the midst of yet another blizzard, spring is slowly on its way once more.

We have come this way before and we will once again. Until then, and in the midst of all that you are going through, what are you most proud of doing?