It has been such a good Good Friday because again and again I have been powerfully reminded of how important it is to be truly grateful.
Gratitude Tale #1 – Sometime this morning, I signed on to Facebook and saw a posting from my friend Bruce Tammen, whose daughter was involved in a tragic accident about a week ago, in which she and another friend were seriously injured and another friend killed when all three of them were struck by a van as they were riding bikes (just embarking on what they planned as a beautiful and fun spring break bicycling trip.) This morning, Bruce posted that they were bringing their daughter Kaia home – but not without a detour to the hospital in Harrisburg where she was initially taken after the accident. They wanted to visit there in order to personally thank those who had given such good care to Kaia. I got a big lump in my throat as I read those words, because if there’s anything we need more of in this troubled world of ours, it’s this kind of gratitude.
Gratitude Tale #2 – I had three interviews today at the radio station, and the second was with Ellen Fitzpatrick, the editor of an extraordinary new book called “Letters to Jackie: Letters of Condolence from a Grieving Nation.” Fitzpatrick appears to be the first historian to carefully study the thousands of condolence letters that are housed at the John F. Kennedy Library – which are actually just a representative sampling of the 1.4 million letters that were sent to Mrs. Kennedy in the wake of her husband’s assassination. I went into this interview tremendously excited at the opportunity, but that did not begin to prepare me for how good it would feel to engage in a thorough and wide-ranging discussion about this fascinating and inspiring book. As you read through these letters, you find person after person struggling to put into words their sorrow over the tragedy and also their profound appreciation for what President Kennedy had meant to them. And when we finished our interview 41 minutes after we began (11 minutes more than I expected to have with her) I actually let out a huge, fully audible sigh of relief and contentment, so grateful for all of the people who wrote these remarkable letters in the first place . . . and grateful to Ellen Fitzpatrick for putting this incredible book together. . . and most of all, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world for getting to do interviews like this and get paid for it. Incredible!
Gratitude Tale #3 – As soon as I was done speaking with Ms. Fitzpatrick, it was time to welcome into our studios a woman from Milwaukee named Edie Shafer, who will be returning to Kenosha to give a talk at the Kenosha Public Museum on Sunday the 11th of April. . . Holocaust Remembrance Day. Ms. Shafer was born in 1941 in the heart of Shanghai, China- in a small neighborhood which came to be known as the Shanghai Ghetto. It was there in an area scarcely larger than a square mile that approximately 100,000 “internationals” – most of them Jews – struggled to survive during the war. When she gives her presentations, she always brings with her a small suitcase painstakingly packed with precious artifacts from those years in China: books, photographs, letters, and even the one and only toy which she had to play with during those years- a humble-looking doll. As she showed me these artifacts- as well as the documents from Auchwitz detailing the precise dates when her grandparents perished in the crematoriums there- I felt waves of gratitude washing over me for the life that I have been blessed to enjoy. And Edie herself remarked at the end of our interview that when someone has tasted this kind of acute deprivation in their life, you cannot help but be changed. Some are left angry and bitter, and understandably so- but she has lived the whole rest of her life tremendously grateful for even the simplest sort of blessings which you and I are apt to take for granted. And I found myself wishing that our time together would never come to an end, because I felt so privileged to be in the presence of such a radiant, vibrant human being.
And all of that was just the morning! Gratitude Tale #4 – In the afternoon came a beautiful Good Friday worship service at Holy Communion, for which Kathy and I joined Kate Potter Barrow and Pastor Samuelson in singing two anthems- a Bach chorale and a Gilbert Martin piece called “Ballad of the Tree and the Master,” featuring Kate in a breathtakingly beautiful solo. And then during the offering, I played and sang a quiet rendition of “What Wondrous Love,” which is one of my very favorite hymns. The real gratitude moment came during Pastor Kathy’s meditation, when she told the story of the stranger in the crowd- Simon- who was forced to help Jesus carry His cross to Golgotha. She said that Simon very likely thought to himself “Why me?” which is what you and I almost always think whenever anything bad befalls us. What is strange and unfortunate, Pastor Kathy told us, is that whenever we are richly blessed in any way, we almost never ask ourselves “Why Me?” And we probably should – or at the very least, surrender a bit of the sense of entitlement with which we tend to accept life’s blessings.
Gratitude Tale #5 – This one is quick – When I ran back down to the radio station in mid-afternoon, I took Ellie with me- and then something inspired me to stop by Petrifying Springs on the way home and let her run in the leash-less dog park there. (I had to stop at Walgreen’s and buy a cheap leash so I could get her safely from the car to the dog park.) I may be a bit biased here, but it sure seemed like Ellie charmed everyone she encountered within that fence, including a middle-aged couple who seemed to take a very special interest in her. It turns out that they had a golden retriever for fourteen years before they had to put her to sleep about a year ago- and they said that Ellie and their dog looked like identical twins – and they seemed so genuinely tickled and delighted at the chance to pet Ellie and play with her because it was as though they were playing with their own beloved and much-missed pet. And that made me even happier that I had decided to bring Ellie for a few minutes of unplanned frolicking.
From remembering the Holocaust to watching the dog play in the park . . . one never knows when and how life will present us with new lessons in gratitude, but whenever and however they come, I am grateful for each and every one!
pictured above: Holocaust survivor Edie Shafer shows me the doll which was hers back in the Shanghai Ghetto – her one and only toy she had in those years. Our conversation airs on the morning show this Wednesday, April 7th, at 8:11 in the morning. . . but you can hear it anytime after that on the morning show archive, which you find on our website: wgtd.org.