On Gratitude and Grace

Mar 14, 2025

Recent events in another part of the world suddenly pushed a rather unfashionable word into the public consciousness: gratitude. It is a word from a different era that sits rather uncomfortably in the lexicon of contemporary society. We are empowered, focused, and inspired; we influence, facilitate, and connect. Enmeshed in our social networks, we like, follow, and endorse. We are enamored of the ‘deal’, enabled by its arts and artifices. We negotiate, pivot, and prioritize. We eschew vulnerability, unless it is a strategy, we shun weakness as it exposes us to exploitation, and we pity the frailty of those who will never ‘succeed’ or whose best days lie astern. We are driven to succeed in ways that are visible, measurable, and laudable. History is a given, the present is a resource, the future a promise.

Gratitude, if it has a profile at all today, is a commodity to be traded, a transaction, a current or non-current liability, or an entry on a metaphorical balance sheet. It is a bargaining chip, or a political tool; it can be manipulated with surgical precision; it can be exploited to raise revenue; it can be weaponized to extort and coerce.

Perhaps this summation is a little bleak, but even a cursory glance at the barrage of social media notifications that flood our personal communication devices every minute of every day, would suggest that it is arguable if not accurate. We find ourselves in a thoroughly transactional point in human history. Every act, every gesture, every word, and every thought, is part of an ongoing flood of transactional interchange. Amidst this sensory cacophony of connection and content, there is little time or space for some very basic, very necessary maintenance work on our souls. We risk losing sight of our being in all our doing.

The simple human act of non-transactional gratitude mentioned above is easy to neglect. When the focus of every waking moment is performance, the idea that we should be thankful to someone or something, seems an unnecessary distraction.

Our sensible rationalization is that those who have helped us were just doing their job, and they know we are thankful, don’t they? We perhaps comfort ourselves with the idea that we will ‘pay it forward’ and help someone else at some point in the future. In a busy world, we are seemingly happy to concede that gratitude is a given.

I was reflecting on the idea of gratitude this week and found myself pondering some of the more abstract aspects of gratitude that we owe but do not express in any tangible way. Our community, right down to its laws, systems, and physical infrastructure, was built on the service and sacrifice of others, many of whom did not live to see the fruit of their labor. The abundance of the present rests firmly on the efforts and energies of the past. The promise of the future similarly relies on our present endeavors. We too plant trees in whose shade we will never sit. Yet, plant we do, with industry and instinct.

At this particular point in human history, we might acknowledge the state of grace in which we all live: a state of undeserved, unmerited favor made possible by the benevolence, kindness, and sacrifice of those in the past. Our ‘now’ is only possible because of their ‘then’. We are impoverished if our debt of gratitude remains unpaid.

Please find a way to express your sincere gratitude this week to someone who has helped make your world a little lighter, brighter, and more livable. And expect nothing in return.

Oh, and plant a tree…

(Grace 恩典: a state of unmerited benevolence or favor)

Dr. Malcolm Pritchard

Head of School