(This was originally prepared and intended (and forgotten) for Thanksgiving. It very much fits the current season also.)
From Gordon B. Hinkley’s book “Standing for Something,” he wrote on many subjects of which Humility and Gratitude were also emphasized:
Indeed, gratitude is the beginning of civility, of decency and of goodness, of a recognition that we cannot afford to be arrogant. We should walk with the knowledge that we will need help every step of the way. The absence of gratitude bespeaks a lack of appreciation and an ignorance that comes of an attitude of self-sufficiency. It expresses itself in ugly egotism and, frequently, in malicious conduct. Many selfish, arrogant, and unusually miserable people in this world walk without gratitude. Perhaps they do so because they do not fully realize all they have to be thankful for. With this in mind, I enumerate here some of the blessings common to all of us for which I am most grateful.
To begin with, I am grateful for the wonders of the human body and the miracle of the human mind as creations of the Almighty . . . . Contemplate the wonders of the age in which we live, this greatest of all ages in the history of humanity. More inventions and scientific discoveries have been made during my lifetime than in all the previous centuries of human history combined. This is the remarkable fruition of the efforts of thinking men and women who have applied their inquisitive and dedicated thought processes in the fields of medicine, industrial safety, hygiene and sanitary measures, chemistry, and research in genetics, microbiology, the environment, and other disciplines, all involving the processes of the human mind. How can we help but be grateful for such miracles?
I am grateful for this remarkable land, ravaged though it is with social programs of every order. I have stood in the American military cemetery in Suresnes, France, where are buried some who died in the First World War, including my older brother. It is a quiet and hallowed place, a remembrance of great sacrifices that were offered to “make the world safe for democracy.” . . . I have seen the ridges and valleys where Americans fought and died, not to save their own land, but to preserve freedom for people who were strangers to them but who they acknowledged to be brothers under the Fatherhood of God.
. . . . I am grateful for those who put the welfare of others before their own comfort and success. I am grateful for our forebears and for pioneers who laid the foundations of this great land; they endured untold hardship and personal privations and sacrifice to brave a new world where a climate of liberty and justice could prevail for all.
. . . . I am grateful for the beauty of nature—the flowers,the fruit, the sky, the peaks and the plains from which they rise. I feel thanks for the beauty of animals. There is beauty in all peoples . . . Whether the skin be fair or dark, the eyes round or slanted, is absolutely irrelevant. I have seen beautiful people in every one of the scores of nations I have visited. Little children everywhere are beautiful. And so are the aged whose wrinkled hands and faces speak of struggle and survival, of the virtues and values they have embraced. We wear on our faces the results of what we believe and how we behave, and such behavior is evident in the eyes and on the faces of those who have lived many years.
How grateful I am for beauty—the beauty of God’s unspoiled creations, the beauty of His sons and daughters who walk in virtue without whimpering, meeting the challenges of each new day. ~ Gordon B. Hinkley, Standing for Something (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000) 91-93
