By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Gratitude: It shouldn’t be that hard. Everything we have is a gift.

That’s not the stuff of politics much anymore. We live in a time when anger is more of the trend. But that’s not going to work. Gratitude is the only healthy way forward. 

This might sound silly, but during the COVID lockdowns, there was one day where I encountered a flower I’d never seen, with the most enchanting, powdery scent. It was such a simple thing, but also glorious. Another day, I heard an evening birds’ concert — another one of those small, natural and yet magnificent things.

I can’t be alone. I know there are so many awful things in the world, but there is so much beauty, too — both on and off our phones. And it didn’t start yesterday.

At National Review and the National Review Institute, we are preparing to celebrate the 100th birthday of William F. Buckley Jr. — our founder — next year. It’s already been an exciting and encouraging opportunity to remember what we could be and what we are meant to be.

Bill was in awe of the everyday things we all should be awed by. There is so much to appreciate rather than be overwhelmed by. 

One of my favorite things Bill ever said was the following passage about the United States. I love it because it captures so much about not just religious freedom, but the essence of humanity. In 1979, he said: “The Constitution of the United States, and in particular the Bill of Rights, is essentially a list of prohibitions: but it is a list of things that the government cannot do to the people. What a huge distinction: a majestic distinction.”

From there, it even gets better: “It grew out of a long, empirical journey, the eternal spark of which, of course, traces to Bethlehem, to that star that magnified man beyond any power of the emperors and gold-seekers and legions of soldiers and slaves: a star that implanted in each one of us that essence that separates us from the beasts, and tells us that we were made in the image of God and were meant to be free.”

His sentences were long, but they were worth it. 

Imagine if we could recover this. Religious faith is not necessary for the republic to work, but an appreciation of it is. Even if we aren’t religious believers, we can recognize that they’re helpful to have in the mix. They can be good neighbors and even agents of cultural change.

One of the points Bill made again and again was that we’ve been given so much, from so many who came before us. The way he put it in one of his speeches was: “We cannot repay in kind the gift of the Beatitudes, with their eternal, searing meaning — ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ But our ongoing failure to recognize that we owe a huge debt that can be requited only by gratitude — defined here as appreciation, however rendered, of the best that we have, and a determined effort to protect and cherish it — our failure here marks us as the masses in revolt; in revolt against our benefactors, our civilization, against God himself.”

How would that change the world, and our lives, if we realized that daily?

As Bill put it: “To fail to experience gratitude when walking through the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum, when listening to the music of Bach or Beethoven, when exercising our freedom to speak or … to give, or withhold, our assent, is to fail to recognize how much we have received from the great wellsprings of human talent and concern … We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us … The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and prayers, and in our deeds.”

And yet we live at a time where “thoughts and prayers” are maligned. 

None of us can predict what the future of American politics will look like. But what we have in our power is gratitude. And that could be culturally contagious.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book “A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.” She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan’s pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.