This is Faith in Play #89: Grateful, for April 2025.
It was again a television contest, and the contestants were told to create something that represented that for which they were most grateful. I wasn’t paying enough attention to know what they all presented, but it got me thinking.
There is an obvious answer arising from my theology: I am most grateful to God for creating me and saving me. Yet there are other things in my life for which I am grateful–most of them family, some of them material. This article isn’t about the objects of my gratitude, though, and while you might benefit from considering your own, again that’s not the point here.
The point is that our characters similarly are grateful for some things in their lives. Maybe they would not say so; maybe they are not completely aware of this. Yet on some level they are grateful.
This might be a motivating factor in their lives, whether they have expressed that gratitude or are doing so, or whether they regret not having done so. That is, we all have people we wish we had thanked or could thank. Some of us express that appreciation better than others.
Not everyone is grateful for what they have received from others. Some people are resentful, annoyed that they feel this debt to someone who made a positive difference in their lives that they feel they ought to repay. That, too, is an aspect of personality. In one Star Trek episode, Geordi LaForge is offered his eyesight, and he declines with the words, “I wouldn’t like who I’d have to thank.” We speak of debts of gratitude, and indeed gratitude can be a debt, and one sometimes we would rather not incur.
For most people, this is a minor point; for a few, it becomes a driving motivation. Yet for everyone, there is this aspect of gratitude, or sometimes ingratitude, in the background somewhere. Give a moment’s thought to the question of to whom your character might be grateful, why, and how he is expressing that in life.
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