Looking with gratitude, appreciation, and delight. Seeing beauty and truth. Learning from the world, in all its diversity. Getting ourselves, our preoccupations, our self-centeredness out of the way. However our own selves/bodies/senses/minds are the only instruments we have to interact with the world, and God creates us and tunes us a certain way – so how do I use this instrument of myself with clarity and truth? Loving and appreciating ourselves, befriending ourselves, pausing and realizing that this body and mind is my passport, my vehicle, my unique path through life, my only way of experiencing this world. Realizing that where I put my attention creates my structure and experience. (Literally my body will change –grow thicker, denser, bones and muscles as I exercise, grow new nerve connections as I try a new activity; my habits of thinking and feeling and my reactions will change as I learn and contemplate and ponder and try new ways of relating.) What’s the best way to nurture myself, to show myself loving kindness and appreciation? What about for the person next to me, and for each person I encounter? What about for all the beings on this earth, for the planet as a whole, for the people yet to come?
How do I create the conditions so that I will pause, savor, appreciate, deepen, grow, be more aware? For some of us, it might be to pause more often, to give ourselves more breathing room, to let some of the things we’re busy with fall away. For some, it might be to become more aware, to experience what we’re doing, with all of our being, as we’re doing it. For some, it might be to fully enter into some passion or calling or vision, and to carry it out in the world. Sometimes there might be a new practice to learn, or making a space to listen to intuition and spirit.
Some people have found that cultivating a practice of gratitude opens one to noticing and appreciating more and more things. It can start as simply as listing 5 things each day we’re grateful for in a journal (no limit if we want to list more), as in the instruction, “Count your blessings.” I have read of people’s lives being transformed by this. When I did it steadily for a few months I found my own positive attitude become even more positive. (A few books and websites, some of which I’ve mentioned in the past: Sarah Bann Breathnach, "Simple Abundance", www.simpleabundance.com; Ann Voskamp, "One Thousand Gifts", www.onethousandgifts.com; Angeles Arrien, "Living in Gratitude", Brene Brown; "The Gifts of Imperfection", www.brenebrown.com); www.gratefulness.com)
We often think gratefully of positive things, things of beauty, things that lift our souls and spirits. As we contemplate life, we can find things to be grateful for even among those we normally categorize as negative. For example, we may learn what not to do from watching someone’s problems, or how not to interact from someone who has hurt us in some way. Pain and difficulties in our lives can be some of our best teachers, and can sometimes be the impetus to transform our lives or the world. We can learn compassion and how to help others from our own suffering. Physical pain is actually a necessary gift that helps us keep our bodies intact and healthy (The Gift of Pain, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey). (I like the quote, “If you’re still alive, there’s more right with you than wrong.”) Difficult, painful, evil, and frightening things can be used for the good in our lives by God’s grace. Certainly the “normal” human reaction in such situations is to avoid and escape, protect, or lash back in anger or pain or distress; and grief and depression are common. However, over, through, beyond, beneath is the opportunity for transformation, growth, awakening.
I appreciate all of you for caring about me, reading what I’ve written, and responding. I see the lymphoma I had as an “unexpected gift” that has helped me to grow spiritually and been an impetus to make changes in my life. I give thanks for all the people with whom I’m connected – family, friends, patients (many of whom are also friends), teachers, co-journeyers through life. I appreciate people to play with, talk with, share with, explore the world with. I am thankful for the gift of life, for the opportunity to love, touch, hear music, discover nature, see sunsets, dance in the rain, taste the sweetness of fruit, smell flowers and baking bread and newly cut sun-warmed grass; for the beautiful colors of autumn leaves, the sounds cranes make coming back to the wetlands for the night, the startling white of an egret, massage, hugs, human touch, the sun’s heat and energy, the coolness of dew, play, the ability to move around, warm purring cats, playful kittens, running horses, the ability of my body to breathe and let me know when I need sleep and food and exercise and to sense love and danger, books, imagination, dreams, learning, poetry, empathy, compassion, creativity, bunnies, the wind, fresh clean air after a rain, fire, work that engages my heart and mind and spirit, rock patterns, redwood trees (and oaks, weeping willows, poplars, pines, maples ...), lilies-of-the-valley, violets, roses, lilacs, California poppies, wildflowers, hills, mountains, the ocean, forests, birdsong, crickets, furry creatures, going on walks, colors, rainbows, clouds ..... (I could go on forever.) Happy Thanksgiving!
Some quotes on gratitude, from http://www.quotegarden.com/gratitude.html:
God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say "thank you?" ~William A. Ward
If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice. ~Meister Eckhart
Gratitude is the memory of the heart. ~Jean Baptiste Massieu, translated from French
The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. ~John E. Southard
Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture. ~Kak Sri
If you have lived, take thankfully the past. ~John Dryden
As each day comes to us refreshed and anew, so does my gratitude renew itself daily. The breaking of the sun over the horizon is my grateful heart dawning upon a blessed world. ~Terri Guillemets
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton
You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. ~G.K. Chesterton
Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. ~Attributed to Jacqueline Winspear
We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~Thornton Wilder
If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily. ~Gerald Good
Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness. ~Author Unknown
All that we behold is full of blessings. ~William Wordsworth
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