An Attitude of Gratitude

I’m not sure there’s anything much better than watching a couple of wild turkey gobblers strut and display not fifty feet from the back of my house. Playing an old and instinctive game of one-upsmanship and who’s-the-best, these magnificent birds go through a ritual as old as life itself, yet as real as it ever gets. Everything they do, even though I don’t understand it all, is geared for survival and propagation. The best genetics, the biologists say, are passed on down the line. The rest are not. If that’s true, they aren’t going through all of this for my benefit.
We have a wonderful menagerie out or back door. Ducks, squirrels, an occasional coyote, garter snakes, cardinals, deer, robins, turkey, frogs, geese, chickadees, and other critters dot the landscape both behind our fence and in our small fish pond in the back yard. And although I’ve never seen them, I’m sure there are the requisite number of such as skunk, opossum, raccoon, and other “varmints”.
We also have some wildlife of the two-legged variety. There’s a hiking trail just beyond our fence, and we see people of all kinds and stripes taking advantage of it. A few are on horseback or mules, but most walk. The neighbor kids have made sort of a play area out of the park just behind their house, and I enjoy watching them at times.
It’s so easy to take for granted the things we see and do on a daily basis. It’s easy to complain, be down, and growl about all of the rain or the wind, the job, the traffic, or whatever. It’s tougher to have and maintain an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving throughout the year, even though we may mouth such things during the holiday season in November. Sometimes those of us who have the most grumble the loudest.
I’m reminded of Israel when they left Egypt for the promised land. They had all they needed or could ever want, yet they almost constantly, it seemed, grumbled and complained about how things were going for them. Nothing was ever good enough, even though, according to the account, their needs were provided by God Himself, sometimes in a very direct and miraculous way. I’m amazed that God was a patient with them as He was, and I wonder if He sees Israel and their complaining sometimes when He looks at his people today.
You may not have turkeys and deer out your back door. You may only have an alley and trash containers to look at. But please, just for today, be grateful. Give thanks and celebrate life. Who knows? Maybe it will be contagious.