On Gratitude

Religion is supreme thankfulness or gratitude

          Thomas Aquinas

________________________________

 

In the morning when I rise

I have a choice

 

A choice about how I will walk through this new day

A choice about what I will notice

A choice about what I will allow to shape my thoughts, my feelings, my actions

 

Sometimes it feels as if I don’t have a choice

As if the world has the power to shape me into its mold

 

And it is true!

I can’t avoid the ugliness of the world

The brutality of the war in Ukraine

The cold grip of religious authoritarianism

The racism

The greed

 

I must be awake to what is wrong in the world

 

But it is not true that I must let those realities

shape my soul

It is not true that I must allow

The ugliness of the world to become ugliness within.

 

I must also be awake to what is beautiful

I must see the beauty of the mountain on a spring morning

Snow painted pink by the rising sun.

I must see the beauty of the mule deer, who

affronted by my presence stare at me across the fence

I must see the beauty of creation

God’s self-expression

 

And I must be grateful

Gratefulness comes from both without and within

I can see the beauty without

When I am in touch with the love within

 

When I am not shaped by the world

But am transformed by the inner presence of Sacred Love

Then I have the freedom to see the good in the world

The good in other people

(and yes, the good in myself)

 

And then I can be grateful

And gratitude is powerful

Meister Eckhart once noted

“if the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘Thank you” that would suffice.

 

We must learn gratitude

Matthew Fox suggests that the opposite of gratitude is forgetfulness

Forgetfulness

Forgetting God’s love

God’s creativity

God’s grace

 

This day may I not forget

This day may I remember

That love, creativity, and grace

 

This day may I be grateful

And live accordingly