Gratitude

If the only prayer you ever say
in your entire life is Thank you,
it will be enough.
Meister Eckhart

While on retreat this past week at Lake Tahoe, I was up early one morning and looked toward the eastern horizon just before sunrise and was struck by the sheer beauty infusing the lake, the sky, and surrounding mountains.  Earth, air, fire, and water – all exuding beauty together.  This sight evoked a deep sense of gratitude in me: thankfulness for the beauty, for my privilege in being able to witness it, for the sense of timelessness that it brought, and for the Mystery of the creator behind it all.

This experience was pure gift, given unconditionally to me and to any who would pay enough attention to see. We are given such gifts all the time.  Even more, we are also given gifts all the time that come to us and for us personally. -- a smile, a caring word, a service, an inner sense of direction or peace or freedom, a listening ear. 

Gratitude, then, is experienced as our natural inner response to being recipients of such gifts – the universal ones and the personal ones – and the more such gifts come without our earning or deserving, the deeper our gratitude. 

Where have you experienced gratitude in the last few days? What was the inner experience like for you?  How did you respond?

Let us consider together Meister Eckhart’s declaration that when it comes to prayer, “thank you“ is sufficient.  In gratitude we recognize that, in truth, all in our lives is gift.  Yes, we may create and do things that may lead us to think that we alone are the makers and doers.  But underneath this is the truth that what we do, how we do it, and the results that come are all possible only because of capacities given to us by God, and by resources provided by others – our upbringing, training and education, cooperation by and with others, opportunities not generated by us, to name a few.  Life itself is the ultimate gift and we had no part in bringing ourselves into being!  To be grateful is to recognize this reality and respond both inwardly and outwardly.  Moreover, this gratitude cultivates a humility through our recognition of the giftedness of life, our participation in community, and the awareness of our mutual dependency on one another. 

Later during the retreat, I experienced a sunset that was nearly as glorious in its beauty: the mix of reds, oranges, purples on the western horizon hovering over the purple blue of the mountains and the black blue of the lake.  In this case, however, I was aware that the colors were due to the smoke-filled air west of the Lake generated by the a fire in the Sierras to the west.  This created a tension within me: experiencing the beauty of earth, air, and water, while simultaneously recognizing that the fire generating the colors was destroying forests and threatening lives, structures, and livelihoods.  How, then, can we be grateful in the midst suffering?

If gratitude is the only needed prayer, what about such times when we experience loss, pain, disruption in relationships, anxiety, and fear?  This is a hard question to which no adequate human answer can be given.  Theologians, philosophers, pilgrims, and poets have wrestled with this from the beginning of time and have offered a variety of perspectives.  Yet the question persists. 

In what ways has this question arisen in your life?  How have you wrestled with it?

I have no wisdom to add to this than what others through the millennia have offered.  I can only affirm that for me, gratitude lies deeper than suffering; it can co-exist with it; and it attenuates in some ways the devastating effects of suffering.  I might say that gratitude and hope live together, and that where one is present, the other is as well.  And since gratitude is our response to the goodness and beauty that we perceive around us, coming unbidden and undeserved, gratitude is always a present possibility, for even in suffering, goodness and beauty and accompaniment by others and by the Divine Mystery remain.

To be grateful in any circumstances and to express it inwardly through prayer and outwardly through action bears fruit within us that deepens life and engagement in community.  Among the experiences I find residing in me when I live from a place of gratitude are greater freedom to act in alignment with my deep values, joy that transcends the circumstances of the moment (be they wonderful or difficult), greater energy to engage with others and with the work of love and justice, an inner peace that originates from within, a heightening of creativity and generativity, and growing compassion for people and all creation.  Although I am not close to realizing these fruits fully, what I can notice is movement in this direction.

When you find yourself living out of gratitude, what differences do you notice in the flow of your life?

Thank you!  It is enough.

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