Hands Through The Window
Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D.
It is easy to take life for granted. As long as our bodies don't hurt and our lives are relatively uninterrupted, we suppose that is the way it is supposed to be and it takes effort to be grateful. When we are in pain we recognize how blessed we are to have walked around so long without pain and when we are sick we recognize how fortunate we were to have been healthy so long. Otherwise, we simply don't notice. We have jobs, our cars start when we turn the key, and even the fact that we have a car at all is easy to forget. It may be easiest to overlook our good fortune each time we sit down to a meal.
I have eaten institutional food for more than 40 years. I started elementary school in 1965 and I've worked or lived in a school environment every since. For many of those years I ate three meals a day in a cafeteria of one kind or another, including the cafeteria at Atlanta Christian College where I have worked for 25 years and where I eat breakfast every day. Over these many years I have heard thousands of complaints about the food.
We have our preferences for types of food, amounts, preparation, and presentation. We know what we like and if what we get doesn't match our preferences it is easy to be critical. It is easy to see the food as an object in and of itself, independent of all that went in to preparing it.
Most cafeterias have a window where you put your tray when you are done. You can't see very far into the kitchen and often all you see are hands through the window. They take your tray and it disappears. It is all conveniently impersonal.
We can easily overlook the fact that someone had to plan the menu, buy the food, prepare it, organize it in some way in which it could be served, and then someone has to clean up afterward. All I do is walk through the line, pick it out, and eat it. That is a pretty good deal.
For this reason, I've tried to teach my children to be grateful for food. We don't have to worry about whether or not we will eat each day. Our worries have to do with presentation, selection, and preparation. I want my children to learn to be grateful for this luxury.
Each morning when I finish breakfast and put my tray through the window I bend down so I can see faces in the kitchen and thank the cook. The workers in the kitchen are real to me - not just the hands in the window that take my tray. These people have names, families, and lives. They work hard to provide what I enjoy. Even if I'm the only person who takes the time to notice, knowing at least one person appreciates their efforts may make it worthwhile. But what may be equally important is that it forces me not to take my blessings for granted. It is very easy to go through life with a sense of entitlement and to fail to see those who help us as simply hands through the window.
I spent almost ten years studying survivors of various kinds of trauma and one constant theme I found among healthy survivors was an overt sense of gratitude.* If I can teach my children to be grateful for something so seemingly mundane as a meal, maybe they will be able to see their good fortune in places that are much harder to notice. Perhaps they will start to see people in places where before they only saw hands through the window and maybe their gratitude will help them through the difficult times life will inevitably serve up to them.
Each night before I go to sleep I think about how lucky I am to have a quiet, warm, and safe place to sleep. I challenge you to notice little things like this and start your new year off with an attitude of gratitude. Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you all.
(The results of this study is in my new book "Survivors:
What We Can Learn From How They Cope With Horrific Tragedy"
available spring 2010 from Praeger Publishers.)