Early one Saturday morning, I was hurrying through the airport when I noticed a crowd gathered at one of the gates. I thought at first that they were people waiting to board the next flight, but I was wrong. They were people waiting to say thank you.
The flight landed, and a slow stream of elderly passengers disembarked--many in wheelchairs, some with canes, most accompanied by younger relatives. The crowd gathered around them, clapping and cheering. There were young beauty queens with tiaras, gray-haired women waving American flags, a middle-aged hippie who probably had seen Vietnam, and us travelers who, at least for those happy moments, had forgotten ourselves and our hurry. The veterans, eyes shining, reached up and out to shake our hands, all to the tune of a brass band playing World War II-era tunes. Then it was over, and the crowd dispersed, but the taste of that gratitude is still with me, all these years later.
“We can spend our entire lives in scarcity . . . just waiting for the other shoe to drop and wondering when it will all fall apart. Or, we can lean into the uncertainty and be thankful for what we have in that precious moment.” Brene Brown
“It is . . . a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to You. . . .” Eucharistic liturgy