Gifts from the past
One early afternoon in April a doctor opened a vein in my inner leg near the groin and pushed a catheter (tube) into it and then all the way up to the heart. Actually he did two of them – one in each leg.
They figured out where in my heart faulty electrical signals were causing atrial fibrillation – when the various parts of the heart do not beat in rhythm together – and with a heat gun in the catheter burned those faulty circuits to smithereens. I was home by 5pm, had a nap and then walked the dog.
A couple of weeks ago a guy in our congregation had a new heart valve installed using a very similar method. He also was home by supper and feeling significantly better than going in.
I am writing this sitting in a modest cottage on beautiful Lake Muskoka. I married well – my wife’s parents bought a lot in the early 60s when vast stretches of Lake Muskoka shoreline were not yet “cottaged” over, and on a shoestring budget reusing wood from a dismantled produce shed back home, built their own little two bedroom paradise. Dad had walked the lake in front of many available lots looking for a shoreline that would be good for the grandkids to play in.
These seemingly unrelated anecdotes have a point: all of us are the fortunate beneficiaries of the efforts and accomplishments of people who have gone before us. The medical procedures I described didn’t arise out of thin air – they are the current end result of several centuries of medical practice and research. The quality and effectiveness of the medical care and procedures we receive come as gift from the past just as surely as this cottage has been an amazing gift from John and Agatha Dick to their children, grandchildren and now great grandchildren (not to mention we in-laws who “married well”).
Look around at your life: just about everything is at least somewhat a gift from the past. Your home – you probably didn’t build it, someone else did years ago. The light bulbs in your sockets – thank you Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb. Your toilet that takes care of business – you probably didn’t design and build your own (my Dad did back on the farm but it was called an outhouse). And I take it you’re not clad in animal skins – rather you prefer clothes made from woven textiles perfected through decades of weaving advancements.
And consider our beloved Canada – it didn’t happen all by itself. All the freedoms and peace and opportunities we enjoy – one of very best countries in the world to live for people of any and all racial and national origins – are the fruit of very hard work by hundreds of people in the past, most notably John A. Macdonald. These days not only do many of us take for granted the gift we have been given – Canada – but we condemn John A and others for their faults without also gratefully acknowledging their positive contributions.
It seems to me that we who live in the most prosperous society in history enjoying the highest living standard of any people ever, are prone to take this for granted – this is just the way life is and, as we are often told in ads, we deserve what we have and more. This is not good for us.
When we raise kids we try very hard to help them learn to appreciate what is given to them and to say “thank you”, out of recognition this is essential to healthy maturity. An ungrateful person is not a happy person and is hard to live with.
Hmmmmmm. The current epidemic of raised anxiety among our youth and mental health problems generally in our population, and the turmoil generally amok in our culture would suggest that many folks are indeed very unhappy and hard to live with. Might this be at least partly connected to the lack of appreciation we have for what has been given to us?
Many of our forbears laboured and sacrificed to make a better life for their kids in family and nation. Genuine appreciation of this precious heritage makes one much more humble, more generous and less self-centred and selfish. It is the antidote to our tendency to focus on what we don’t have by reminding us of the abundance we already have inherited or been given.
Recognition of and appreciation for the gifts of the past are one of the necessary foundations of the happy and joy-filled life we all aspire to, and an inspiration to try to make a better life for our kids.