On Raking Leaves and Giving Thanks

"Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

I raked leaves yesterday. Raked and raked and raked. They’ve been falling since sometime in September, recent weeks seeing the heaviest deposits on my lawn and driveway. Yesterday was my first effort to bring order to Mother Nature’s random acts of unkindness. I was severely outnumbered. The piles into which I gathered the leaves seemed mountainous. I stayed at it from noon until 5 pm and all I did was clear the deck behind my house, the driveway, and the walk leading to the front door. There’s still more to do, plenty more.

This morning as I went downstairs to make coffee, and then climbed those stairs again to come to this room, I could feel in my back and legs every stroke of the rake, every leaning over to pick up leaves. I will admit feeling some gratification at laboring for hours and then seeing my cleared driveway. When you rake leaves there is a tight connection between effort and result. Every handful of leaves bagged is making a difference, even if that difference isn’t immediately seen. That’s not always true of my “regular” work as a pastor. Still, even with obvious results after more than four hours of work, I didn’t enjoy raking the leaves. This shouldn’t be hard for most people to understand. There’s nothing enjoyable about raking. It’s tedious repetitive work.

And yet, the leaves that so inconveniently cover my yard and driveway and deck are themselves laden with grace and majesty. This is too easily missed. The very nature of raking leaves requires staying focused on the ground, on the dead foliage that has become nothing but litter to be removed. I cannot say that there was a moment yesterday when I stopped and looked up. The leaves at my feet had come from majestic tall trees that stand in my yard. Trees that were there long before there were streets nearby or houses; trees that predate my birth and the birth of my parents. Months ago those very leaves had emerged with the warmth of spring and the approach of summer. They emerged quietly and without being noticed.

I think of the opening lines of one of Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems:

I go among trees and sit still.
All of my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.

I didn’t do that yesterday. I went among trees and complained silently within myself and endured the moments and cursed the breezes that blew my neighbor's leaves into my yard and disturbed my neatly formed leaf-piles and made it harder for me to get the job done quickly. I missed the grace of creation and the wonder changing seasons, how they move in line, each taking their turn up front.

The leaves at my feet were like manna. Not edible of course, but there on the ground every year, every fall morning as a gift – the gift of time. Like the Hebrews who eventually grew tired of the gift of manna, I too saw only inconvenience. I did not give thanks. The movement of time is too gradual and quiet to notice and the massive towering trees were above me where I never bothered to look.

I am more like Jonah. As Jonah waited for God to destroy Nineveh God provided a tree for shade, a comfortable place from which the prophet could see God do exactly what he wanted God to do. After a while God sent a worm that withered the tree and killed it, and the sun baked Jonah’s exposed head and made him miserable. Jonah became angry because he understood the tree solely in terms of his own comfort and convenience. God was trying to teach Jonah about mercy, but the little book of Jonah ends and we never see the prophet celebrate or give thanks for God’s grace in sparing Nineveh. We leave Jonah sulking, inconvenienced and disappointed because things were not working out as he had hoped.

Raking leaves yesterday reminded me that genuine gratitude will never come from a heart that measures everything in terms of convenience or some direct benefit to the self. One who cannot go among trees and sit still, or who never bothers to look up and gaze at what towers above or who fails to realize the simple gift of every day – such a person won’t truly give thanks.

In Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians there are at least three times where he mentions being thankful or giving thanks. None of them have anything to do directly with Paul. He gives thanks for their steadfast faith and for the way they responded to the message of good news concerning Jesus Christ. At the conclusion of the letter his counsel to them is simple and straightforward. “Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18). The truth is, not all circumstances are convenient or pleasant or desirable. Yet God wills that we be thankful in all of them. This will require seeing something above us and beyond us.

For that reason, giving thanks isn’t an occasion as much as it is a discipline. We’re not always good at it. We need practice. Tomorrow I’m planning to rake more leaves in preparation for visiting family. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go among trees and in the midst of the labor look up and give thanks.