Here we are again on my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.  It is my third blogging Thanksgiving and I really cannot think of a better way to mark the occasion than with the post from my first blogging Thanksgiving.  There are differences, of course, between then and now, most obviously Aidan is no longer with us.  But he taught me a lot about life and thankfulness and I am happy to remember him today.  So, here is my annual Thanksgiving post:

A Taoist Thanksgiving

   (For other parents thinking about disability, see this recent piece on disability; hap tip: Laura).

    First, let’s think more
generally about the act of thanksgiving.  In the Christian American
context, that means giving thanks to God for all of the good things we
have.  (We tend to skip over the bad things today; we focus on the good
in order to balance out the bad).   What I like about this idea is the
underlying assumption that we do not really control the course of our
lives and we need to be humbly grateful for the good things that happen
along the way.  I think that sentiment is consonant with Taoism.

Of course, a Taoist (at least a philosophic Taoist) would not invoke a
god figure as the ultimate controller of our destinies.  Rather, Way
itself (Tao) is the all-inclusive, self-generating, continually
unfolding complex reality that surrounds and shapes our lives.   So, a
Taoist would recognize the one’s subordination to Tao.  But would a
Taoist give "thanks"? 

     In a way (pun!), yes.  Although
Chuang Tzu tells us that fully apprehending the uncontrollable power of
Tao should lead us to let go of virtually all emotions ("joy and sorrow
never touch you" 92), there is still room for gratefulness, even if
gratefulness assumes a happiness for which to be grateful.  A Taoist
can be grateful – and, indeed, can be happily enchanted – to witness or
sense some small part of the wondrous richness of Tao.  This is not a
function of education or age: even the smallest and weakest infant
simultaneously absorbs and expresses a corner of Tao. Indeed, the
immaturity and naivety of the infant is presented as the best state
from which to experience Tao:

Embody Integrity’s abundance
and you’re like the vibrant child…
      – Tao Te Ching 55

   A Taoist, then, would give thanks, in the sense of recognizing and
gratefully subordinating oneself to uncontrollable forces of Tao that
shape our lives and produce the good (as well as the bad) around us.

   It is in that spirit that I give thanks.  And as I give thanks in
that way (Way), with Aidan silently sitting next to me in his
wheelchair, air rattling in and out of his tracheostomy tube, I am
thankful for him in precisely the way that he is.  I do not regret his
disabilities (this is not Regretsgiving Day, after all).  Of course, if
I were some omnipotent divinity able to determine the conditions of his
life, I would call a do-over and have him fully abled in all the ways
he is not now.  But I am not omnipotent.  I am subordinated to Tao, and
Tao moves as it will, with no heed to my desires or expectations.

   But can I be positively grateful for his disability?  Yes.  I can
because I have come to see that his experience of Tao is just as
valuable and worthwhile as any other experience of Tao.  He cannot
speak or see or stand; but he can hear and touch and feel the warmth
and love around him.  He takes in Tao and adds to Tao in his own,
unique way.  I may think my own understanding of the world around me is
greater or more significant than his, but philosophic Taoists would
scoff at such arrogance.  It is, after all, the immature and naive
infant who can "embody Integrity’s abundance."  It is, after all, our
human-created knowledge that can obstruct our view of Tao. 

    To be perfectly honest (and I have said this elsewhere),
if I had a choice, I would not change places with him.  I am too used
to and happy with my abilities to experience Tao that I would be loath
to give them up.  But that might just be my own lack of understanding.
Yet, whatever my own hesitations, I can be fully grateful for him, in
precisely the form he is.  It is he, as he is, who has fundamentally
challenged my world view and opened up to me the serenity of
philosophic Taoism.  It is he, as he is, who has had myriad good
effects on the people around him.  It is he, as he is, who is a perfect
expression of the wholeness of Tao in himself. 

     So, Happy
Thanksgiving.  We are happy here.  We are thankful.  And among that
many thinks I am grateful for today is Aidan and his profound
disability.