I came back from my senior’s exercise class utterly pooped. But the sun is shining, the sky is a bright blue, the temps are in the 70s, so what is there not to like? In fact, the days when my get up and go, gets up and goes, those are the days it is most important to lean into gratitude. After all, it doesn’t take any energy to be grateful. Gratitude is a state of mind and soul. Gratitude is the gift that keeps on giving.
I am still recovering from finishing Dan Brown’s Origins. The book presented both a frightening future and a future filled with possibility and redemption. The question, of course, is what we choose to do with our technological advances. Our history doesn’t seem very promising, as so far we’ve plunged ahead with discoveries and products, damned the consequences. But then those same terrifying things also open up a whole new way of seeing the world and faith. I agree that organized religion as we know it will eventually disappear in the not-too-distant future, but it seems to me that there is something inbred in us that longs for that power greater than our human advances and even technological creations, and we will find new ways to relate to that mysterious power that underlies all that is.
Which brings me back to gratitude. When we are shaped and molded to approach life from an attitude of gratitude, there is nothing we can’t face or endure. I think of Viktor Frankl in one of the Nazi death camps, who focused on what was still beautiful for him…his memories of his wife and the life they had shared. His gratitude shaped love, not only helped him survive, but also later made some very major contributions to the world.
Even though most of us are simply everyday people living everyday lives, we still are in the position to positively impact the world in which we inhabit by simply being open, accepting, caring, compassionate, and yes, grateful. At this point in time, when things seem to be spiraling downward, we desperately need people to be gratitude-infused candles shining in the darkness of fear and despair.