The Gift of Thanks

Published in the Catalyst, Vol. 32, No. 2 - Spring 2009

The Gift of Thanks: the Roots, Persistence, and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual.
By Margaret Visser
Toronto: HarperCollins, 2008.

Reviewed by Kathy Vandergrift

Children are taught to say “Thank You” at an early age in Western societies, but not in every culture. That is one of the surprises in Margaret Visser’s exploration of what gratitude has meant through time and across cultures. Saying “Thank you” sounds simple, but giving and responding to giving is a complex social interchange, with many different textures. The complexity is unpacked when Visser explores the many motivations for giving and thanking and contrasts gratitude with some of its counterparts: envy, resentment, revenge, narcissism, entitlement, and selfishness.

Acts of gratitude, asserts Visser, are the cement of society. They create links between people in the giving of gifts of all kinds and giving back or to others in gratitude. Healthy societies, observes Visser, actively cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

In the Christian tradition, gratitude is a free response to grace from the first giver of all. Visser reminds the reader that only gratitude motivated by love is a virtue. Love remains the primary Christian virtue. The word for gratitude in French, reconnaissance, reminds us that recognition of the giver and respect for the other link gratitude with the current struggle for identity and meaningful relationships.

Like Visser’s other explorations of common, yet profound aspects of life, this book is a delightful journey through stories and images from around the globe. It also presents a challenge. If we are going to overcome the ecological crisis, says Visser, gratitude will be key. Fear of disaster and environmental laws will not be enough. Gratitude changes attitudes, how we see and value what comes to us as gift in the world around us. Gratitude reaches areas of society where laws cannot. That’s what it will take, in her view, to achieve genuine change in the way we care for our world.

After reading Visser, thank you will never be quite the same, but more important than ever.

CPJ board member Kathy Vandergrift lives in Ottawa, Ontario.