Photo by Nils Stahl on Unsplash

British writer and philosopher Alan Watts told a tale about a man in a Chinese village whose horse ran away. The villagers said, “That’s too bad!” He said, “Maybe.” Then the horse came back and brought wild horses with it. The villagers said, “That’s great, isn’t it.” The man said again, “Maybe.” His son tried to break one of the wild horses, and broke his leg. “That’s too bad, isn’t it?” the villagers said. And the man said, “Maybe.” Then the army recruiting officers came through and took all the young men—except the son, because he had a broken leg. “Isn’t that wonderful!” the villagers said. The man kept saying, “Maybe.”

The moral of the story: we can’t assess what is bad and good in the moment. We sure try to do so. We say, “That’s great!” and “That’s too bad!” all the time.

This Thanksgiving, I wonder about the limits of our thinking on what’s good and bad. Around the holiday table, we give thanks for family, food, and friends. They can be wonderful. Yet family relationships can be complex and difficult. And the blessing of abundant food contributes to poor health in the U.S. Friends can be an emotional drain as well as a blessing.

However, even the difficulties present an opportunity. A challenging family member may teach lessons in patience, the value of setting limits, and taking the long view. Consider: What have you learned from your most difficult family member? Could you give thanks for them?

Our brains are designed to help us make judgments, especially to assess whether we are safe or not. So we often automatically jump to thinking we are in danger (That’s bad!) even when we are not. It takes practice to begin to ask, “What’s good about this?” 

With all the real challenges we’ve faced through the pandemic, many of the clergy I coach have said, “One good thing about the pandemic is…” Then they go on to describe something creative their church has done, or a necessary shift that they made (like streamlining decision-making or online giving), or how they rediscovered their love of gardening.

Some of the most challenging times in my life have been the most growth-producing, including these pandemic years. I learned perseverance from the challenges I faced in finding a pastoral call as a woman in my denomination, and more recently as an entrepreneurial minister. I’ve learned both patience and flexibility from challenging times as a wife and as a parent. In the moment, I wasn’t grateful at those times. But I am now.

Anne Bogel, in her book “Don’t Overthink It,” suggests asking, “What would I like about this if I liked it?” and “What would I consider to be good here, if I considered this to be good?”[i] I’ve got these questions written on a 3×5 card to remind myself to ask them. They help me stop, even in the moment, and reconsider my negative reaction to whatever is going on.

Thanksgiving this year may be an opportunity to go deeper with your gratitude. Around the holiday table, or alone, you might reflect on what you’ve learned from the challenges of this time, and what the less-obvious blessings have been.

What’s a “that’s bad” moment you can give thanks for this Thanksgiving?