Once a month my home church makes and serves dinner at a homeless shelter here in town. We even have our kiddos serving food and (hopefully) engaging with the people who pass through the line. This night never fails to prompt gratefulness in me. The gratefulness doesn't come necessarily in the ways one might think. Of course, I am grateful that our family doesn't need to utilize the services of this particular shelter but gratefulness always comes upon observing/interacting with some of the residents there. Sometimes I run across one, or more, who challenge me in my Gratitude Attitude and you know what? I need that. I need the refocus their outlook provides. I need to be reminded that we have a lot to be grateful for. Hearing their stories, watching them do the best they can to find a job or work toward getting back on their feet always provides me the reminder that every single one of us is always "one paycheck" away and we ought not take anything for granted. And I am grateful to rub elbows with people that I might not ever otherwise, I have met some lovely, and very fun, people over the years of doing this.
There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.
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