Tag: gratitude

Know Your “Why”

November is National Gratitude Month. I have a long list of things that I am grateful for; one of the top contenders (after family and friends) is my education. I am sadly aware that educational privilege is not shared by everyone.

I was overjoyed to find Northwestern University (ranked among the top 10 U.S. universities) has graduated adults who are incarcerated with bachelor’s degrees. The first group of women from Illinois’ Logan Correctional Center, 18 strong, joined the ranks of Northwestern graduates! One woman who was released from prison in 2021 was a role model for the others: “I stand here, back inside (this) facility, not as an incarcerated woman, but as a Northwestern graduate, as an executive director and as an advocate for criminal justice reform alongside the women in the community who shared this journey with me.”

Northwestern partnered with Illinois Department of Corrections, along with Oakton College, to deliver college credit to those incarcerated since 2018. The degree program (initiated in 2022) has graduated two groups of men, but this groundbreaking opportunity has now gifted women for the first time. One graduate was able to share her achievement with her 12-year-old son — the first time they saw each other in person since her 2016 incarceration. Elated graduates expressed gratitude to their families and professors.

Nancy Pelosi, first woman to be named Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, delivered the commencement address with her blessing: “Be confident, be yourself, that’s the most valuable thing I can say to you — there’s nobody like you. Know your why, because it’s rough to contend and compete, so it has to be worth it to you for your why.” One woman offered, “My daughter and my granddaughter, they are my ‘whys.’” Another woman poetically referred to Jennifer Lackey, Northwestern Prison Education Program director, as delivering education “…to the mud…planting seeds…which have bloomed into beautiful lotuses.”

Of almost 5000 U.S. higher education institutions, it is estimated that 4% (around 202) offer college credits inside prisons. The number of Americans who are incarcerated is approximately 2 million. As few as 1% of these individuals complete a bachelor’s degree during their prison years — about 2% gain an associate degree and about 7% complete a vocational or academic certificate. This leaves a lot of ground for improvement.

Each college/university must reach out to underserved populations. Educational improvement also is needed in U.S. public K-12 schools. The Program for International Student Assessment evaluates 15-year-old students globally in main areas of study. The U.S. ranks 13th globally in reading, 27th in math, while science is a U.S. strength.

President John F. Kennedy made this phrase popular: “A rising tide lifts all boats,” to emphasize how lifting up economically lagging regions of the country helps everyone. How about lifting up U.S. sagging education performances to help every person’s wellbeing?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

548. In what ways do you show gratitude for your education?

549. How might we increase levels of education for all Americans?

Tender Gratitude

“Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world…this is the essence of gratefulness…Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention” (Canadian American cultural writer David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen).  

Another writer’s definition of gratitude also aligns with the importance of attention in the present moment: “Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without and beside us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life” (Irish poet David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words).  

Yes, “presence” is key to the experience of gratitude! As Thanksgiving emerges this week into present time, it is a reminder that we might consider being present to gratitude more of the year than on the annual Thursday holiday when many of us gather together to contemplate our blessings. I am reminded that not everyone in America celebrates this day. The distorted narrative of the Pilgrims feasting with indigenous people — who had long settled this land prior to the newcomers’ landing — is disturbing.

On our precious planet we need to be “tender narrators,” a phrase delivered by Polish psychologist-turned-novelist Olga Tokarczuk when she received the Nobel Prize in Literature for her entire writing in 2018. A tender narrator considers the big picture: “…a perspective from where everything can be seen. Seeing everything means recognizing the ultimate fact that all things that exist are mutually connected into a single whole, even if the connections between them are not yet known to us…[it] also means a completely different kind of responsibility for the world, because it becomes obvious that every gesture ‘here’ is connected to a gesture ‘there,’ that a decision taken in one part of the world will have an effect in another part of it, and that differentiating between ‘mine’ and ‘yours’ starts to be debatable.” Is American soil “mine” or “ours?”

In gratitude for her genetic roots, Tokarczuk recalls curiosity about everything. Her wide-eyed life view enables her to make connections that may not be obvious initially. While she invents stories for her novels, she sums up what I endorse as a writer of nonfiction and blogs: “…I made it into a general belief…that our task is to synthesize and consolidate the world, looking for connections, both overt and hidden, and building an image of the world as a complex whole full of mutual relations.” Let’s be grateful for mutual relations.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

448. What prompts gratitude in you?

449. How often do you express gratitude out loud?