GRATITUDE IS

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GRATITUDE IS – The Mother of Joy – “Joy is prayer – Joy is strength – Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. She gives most who gives with joy.” Mother Teresa

I don’t know about you, but in general, there hasn’t been a lot of joy, that opening and swelling of the heart, in my life. It wasn’t because of my circumstances, because they weren’t particularly hard, but because of my mental training. Growing up, I learned to plan and to work hard. Accomplishments were good because they led somewhere I was planning to go; high school, college, a good job, a relationship. But they weren’t to be relished and celebrated in and of themselves.

Like so many of us, I was so busy climbing the ladder of success, that I took no time to enjoy the journey. I was too busy getting on to the next challenge. When I think back on particular occasions for joy in my past ~~ graduating valedictorian of my high school, getting married, making a bestseller list for Random Acts of Kindness, for example ~~ I realize that as soon as I attained each goal, my eyes were immediately on the next ‘prize’; getting to the top of my college class, having a baby, getting on the New York Times bestseller list. It was as if I was a machine, mindlessly churning out accomplishments and not stopping to relish the journey along the way.

But I got sick and tired of a joyless existence, and so have thought a lot in the past few years about how to bring more joy into my life. The more I think about it, the more I believe that joy and gratitude are inseparable. Joy is defined in the dictionary as an ‘emotion evoked by sell-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires,’ while gratitude is that ‘state of being appreciative of benefits received.’ In other words, whenever we are appreciative, we are filled a sense of well-being and swept up by the feeling of joy;

So, I determined to stop climbing mindlessly to some undefined peak of accomplishment and focus my attention on all the wonderful things that were happening in my day-to-day existence. As I do, without my even trying, joy creeps in.

How about you? As Sarah Ban Breathnach puts it, ‘Begin today. Declare out loud to the Universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.’ Then think of all that you have accomplished today and celebrate each feat, no matter its size.

GRATITUDE Makes Us Young – “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Young children are such exuberant, joy-filled creatures, eager to embrace life in all its mystery and majesty. Everything is new and exciting, everything ~~ a bubble, a snowflake, a mud puddle ~~ is a gift. But something in the process of growing up so often takes the juice out of us. We become encrusted, hard, jaded. We lose our joy, our exuberance, our passionate embrace of life. We trudge instead of skip, retreat instead of explore, ‘too old for that,’ whatever ‘that’ is.

This drying up is so common that when we meet a vibrant, joy-filled older person, he or she stands out as a singular exception. But we don’t have to lose the happiness or juiciness of youth. All we need to do is to tap into our sense of gratitude, for when we do, we are like little children again, seeing the world for the first time.

In ‘Simple Pleasure of the Garden’, Dawna Markova shares a story about such a woman. “Several years ago, I was walking in March along a gravel road that led to the ocean in Rhode Island. A very old and thin woman came hobbling down a driveway toward me. I waved and continued walking, but as I passed, she grabbed my arm, turned around and began to pull me in the direction of her house. I instantly thought of the witch in Hansel and Gretel, and tried to pull back, but that only made her clutch tighter around my wrist. Besides, she didn’t cackle, so I relented.
“She didn’t say a word, in fact, until we approached her house, a shingle-style cottage with green shutters and a front lawn erupting everywhere in purple crocus. She released me there, throwing her arms up in the air and shouting, ‘Look at this splendor! Isn’t it a miracle?’ ”
This old woman was open to the magic and beauty of life, and her sparkling eyes and eagerness to share made her and everything around her more vibrant and alive.

GRATITUDE Makes Us Feel Good – “Mental sunshine will cause the flowers of peace, happiness, and prosperity to grow upon the face of the Earth. Be a creator of mental sunshine.” Graffiti on a Wall in Berkeley, California

Tom comes from a family of highly successful businesspeople who taught him to climb the ladder of success by criticizing him whenever he did something wrong. He learned early on that life is ‘hard work’, that it’s a ‘dog-eat-dog world’, and that to get ahead he had to never make a mistake. While he did succeed, including getting an M.B.A. from a top business school, he was never happy. To him, work seemed only drudgery, he spent much of his time noticing what he did wrong; he didn’t assert himself at the meeting, he should have made more calls. Most of the time he felt lifeless and depressed.

Finally, Tom went to a therapist to ask for a prescription for Prozac. But since he really didn’t want to take an antidepressant if he didn’t have to, at the therapist’s suggestion, he agreed to first try something else for one month. Before he started work in the morning, he was to ask himself, ‘What do I feel grateful for about myself?’ In this way, he reminded himself of his resources, strength, and talents. Then, at the end of the day, he was to finish work by asking. “What did I do today that I feel good about?’
“Do you know what I discovered?” he told me. ‘Gratitude is a natural upper. It works so well that now, whenever I feel my energy going down during the day, I ask myself, what do I feel grateful for in this moment?’ By concentrating on what he’s doing right and what he appreciates about himself, Tom overcame his depression and has begun to look forward to work.

Gratitude makes us feel good because it helps us widen our frame of vision. Under depression or stress, we can develop tunnel vision, seeing only this problem, that difficulty. We can get overtaken by a heavy, dark feeling of despair. But when we experience a sense of gratitude, we give ourselves a dose of mental sunshine. Suddenly the world seems brighter, and we have more options.

And the greatest thing is that as we experience the mental sunshine of gratitude, we begin to glow with sunshine ourselves. Suddenly not only is the world brighter, but we are too. Soon we notice that our lives are full of people who want to be around us because we exude peacefulness, happiness, and joy.

GRATITUDE Promotes Health ~~ Feelings of gratitude release positive endorphins throughout the body, creating health ~~ Sharon Huffman

Josephine is a seventy-seven-year woman who, in her late fifties, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and scheduled for surgery a few days later. While waiting for the operation, she sat in her porch swing and gave thanks for all the wonderful things in her life. She wrote a letter of thanks to each of her family members, called them around her, and went into the hospital. The night before surgery, she suddenly saw “what looked like a beautiful woman with long, flowing hair smiling at me and radiating light. She said she was an angel who felt my love and she had come to reassure me that everything was OK, that I would have plenty of time to fulfill my life’s purpose. And then she said, ‘Always remember that it was your love and your appreciation that brought healing to you.’ “ It turned out that the tumor was gone, and Josephine was sent home without surgery.

Not all healings are as miraculous as Josephine’s but recent scientific research has begun to indicate that positive emotions, such as gratitude and love, have beneficial effects on health. They do so by strengthening and enhancing the immune system, which enables the body to resist disease and recover more quickly from illness, through the release of endorphins into the bloodstream. Endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers. Among other effects, they stimulate dilation of the blood vessels, which leads to a relaxed heart.

Conversely, negative emotions such as worry, anger, and hopelessness reduce the number and slow down the movement of disease-fighting white cells in our bloodstream's, and contribute to the development of stroke and heart disease by dumping high levels of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Adrenaline constricts blood vessels, particularly to the heart, raising blood pressure and potentially damaging arteries and the heart itself.

What this means is that the more we experience a sense of gratitude, the more endorphins and the less adrenaline we pump into our systems, thus contributing to longer, healthier lives. As we count our blessings, we literally bathe ourselves inwardly in good hormones. And while we can’t guarantee that a sense of appreciation will cure us as it did Josephine, we can be sure that it will make us feel better.

GRATITUDE - Eradicates Worry – “You cannot be grateful and unhappy at the same time.” A Woman to Dr. Tom Costa

If worry were a paying job, I would be a rich woman. Somehow during my childhood, I got the idea that worrying could actually stave off future disaster, and as I entered adulthood, I became convinced that if I were to stop worrying, took my eye off the ball, as it were, that something dreadful would happen. If I worried enough about being poor, I wouldn’t be. If I worried enough about my partner’s safety, nothing would happen to him. If I worried enough about my stepson’s health, he wouldn’t get sick. There was no room in my heart for happiness because worry took up all the space. [Indeed I was convinced that if I were too happy, it would somehow hex the situation. If I got too happy about love, for example, I wouldn’t worry sufficiently and therefore it would be taken from me.]

In my forties, I have been working on letting go of my compulsive worrying, and I have been amazed at how swiftly a sense of gratefulness banishes the worry warts.

Worried about money? I focus on the fact that so far, I have always had what I needed and right now, I have enough. Worried about health? I focus on the amount of good health I’m thankful to be experiencing right now. Worried about ~~ my favorite ~~ a loved one being taken suddenly in an accident? I focus on how grateful I am that they are in my life right now.

I think tapping into the wellspring of gratitude works for two reasons. First, worry is always about the future, if only the next hour or minute, whereas gratitude is in the here and now. Cast over your list of worries. Aren’t they always about what might or might not happen? You are worried about the reaction of your boss tomorrow to your presentation. You’re worried about how you are going to afford to send your son to college. You’re worried about the test results. In every case, you project yourself into the future and image something bad happening. As Andre Dubus points out, “It is not hard to live through a day if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.” Gratitude brings you back to the present moment, to all that is working perfectly right now. Tomorrow may bring difficulties, but for right now, things are pretty good.

Gratefulness also eliminates worry because it reminds us of the abundance of our universe. Yes, something bad might happen, but given all that you have received so far, chances are you will continue to be supported on your journey through life, even in ways you would never have guessed or chosen for yourself.

GRATITUDE – Draws People to Us – “Sometimes I go about with pity for myself and all the while Great Winds are carrying me across the sky.” Ojibway Saying

I have a friend who can’t seem to find one good thing about her life. She complains constantly about her job, her coworkers, and her relationships with men. She puts herself down a good bit, too. It does no good whatsoever for me to point out all the good things that I see in her life. It just starts another round of ‘poor me’. After I spend an afternoon with her, I feel cranky, depressed, and, frankly, bored. I notice that I try to avoid getting together with her.

The opposite is true about my friend Abby. Abby has had a hard life, too. She wasn’t born into a wealthy family, she has raised a son by herself, put herself through college, and taken care of aged and ill relatives. But she is cheerful and upbeat most of the time, and I love being around herm, because when we’re together, life seems easy and joyful.

Recently, I made the observation that she had a great career and seemed to be appreciated by her boss and company. She replied, “Oh, yes! I love my job and I’m lucky to have it. Every morning when I drive to work, I grab the steering wheel and thank God for my job. For the job that paid for this nice car I wouldn’t have otherwise, for the nice people I work with in a beautiful office and for a boss that treats me and everyone else so well. I’m absolutely grateful for what I have and make a point to give thanks on my way to work. It grounds me and starts off my day on a positive note.”

I am convinced that it is Abby’s sense of gratitude that gives her such an upbeat attitude. It’s also why I believe, she has more friends than anyone else I know. For when we are grateful, we exude happiness and that makes us magnets that draw other people toward us. They want to be around that exuberant energy.

Gratitude not only draws people to us, but it helps us keep those who are in our sphere. When we see the glass a half-full, rather than half-empty, we notice what is there rather than dwelling on what is not. When we notice what’s there, we get out of our self-absorption and realize that there are people around us, many of whom have done wonderful things for us. And when we express our gratitude for their presence in our lives, it’s more likely that those people will want to continue to be around us.

GRATITUDE – The Antidote to Bitterness and Resentment – “The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.” Shakti Gawain

Twenty years ago, Cynthia, a petite, talented woman in her late twenties, got divorced in a terrible breakup. Two decades later, bitter and resentful, she is sill obsessed with her ex-husband, bad-mouthing him to her children and friends whenever she gets a chance, convinced that he ruined her life. In a way, of course, he did. Because she kept focusing on her pain and resentment, she was never able to heal and move on. Hurt and hateful, she hasn’t been able to attract new love in her life, and her now-grown children avoid her like the plague.
Have you ever met someone so bitter about their life that they feel like a black hole sucking away all the energy around them? Whether we call them pessimists, ingrates, or those who always see the glass a half-empty, they are a drag to be around. So focused on what hasn’t worked for them they can’t see the ways they have been the recipients of gifts, blessings, and surprises.

Most of us aren’t total black holes, but when we fail to give thanks for what happens in our lives, we can get hung up in bitterness that prevents us from developing emotionally and spiritually. If we fail to grow, the light inside us grows dim.

Bitterness is a poison that snuffs the light of our souls, hardening us to life’s pleasures and joys by keeping us focused only on what is wrong. When the man I lived with for fourteen years left me, he said it was because I was turning bitter and he didn’t want to stick around to see it. Although there were other reasons for our breakup, including many he was responsible for, after the pain of the loss had subsided I gave thanks to him for the wake-up call; I was turning into a resentful woman, and that was the last thing on Earth I wanted to be.


I’m determined not to sink into bitterness again. While there are plenty of things in life to be justifiably annoyed, angry, or hurt at, that doesn’t mean that I should completely ignore all that is beautiful, good, and touching. I want my soul to shine with an overflowing of love, and practicing gratitude is one of the best ways I know to do it.

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GRATITUDE – Cures Perfectionism – “A point worth pondering: Upon completing the Universe, the Great Creator pronounced it “very good”. Not “perfect”. Sarah Ban Breathnach

When I was young, I wanted to be a saint. Not just plain old good, but a bona fide canonized saint. I figured that anything worth doing was worth doing perfectly, and while I was being perfect, I might as well get all the adoration that perfectionism deserves. Sainthood seemed to fit the bill. Unfortunately, I kept slipping up: I would forget to make my bed or get jealous of my little brother, and then sink into despair, convinced I was a complete failure.

Ah, perfectionism! Those of us afflicted with the pesky bug may look with amazement (You mean you don’t care you didn’t do it perfectly??) or disdain (What kind of lazy, good-for-nothing guy are you?) upon those who don’t suffer from it, but the truth, of course, is that it springs from our own sense of lack. We simply don’t believe we’re good enough as we are in our humble, human, imperfect state, and must therefore compensate by being Miss Perfect Goody-Two-Shoes.

GRATITUDE Releases Us from the “Gimmes” ~~ If there is to be any peace it will come through being, not having. ~~ Henry Miller

A few years ago, I noticed that if a weekend went by without my buying something other than food for the week, I got an itchy feeling. I wanted to shop, to buy, to consume ~~ it didn’t matter what. I didn’t actually need anything, but I wanted to purchase something.

I don’t think I was alone in the feeling. Consumer debt is at the highest level in U.S. history, as are personal bankruptcies. We’re literally buying ourselves into financial holes too large for many of us to crawl out of.

I didn’t like feeling that I was a slave to shopping. So I decided to buy less and appreciate what I already had more. Instead of a new blouse, I wore an old favorite. But instead of just putting it on mindlessly, I tried really noticing what I liked about it: the delicate embroidery, the silky feel of the satin, the vibrant shade of red. That’s when I discovered one of the greatest gifts of gratitude ~~ it gets us off the consuming treadmill so many of us are caught on. Here’s how.

A perennial dieting tip is to eat something and then wait twenty minutes before deciding to eat something again. The reason is that your body needs that much time to register that it is full. If you keep eating without pausing, you will not realize that your body is full, and therefore you may overeat.

Giving thanks for what we have in our lives is like that pause when eating. It allows us to feel full, the register on the emotional and spiritual level that we have, in fact, been given ‘enough’. If we don’t practice gratitude on a daily basis, it’s easy to over consume, to feel a lack and to try to fill that lack through possessions, because on a psychological level we haven’t registered that we already have what we need.
I’ve spent years talking about this to people, but the only way to really get it is to try it yourself. For two weeks, don’t buy anything new except food. Try really to take in the gifts you already have, not just the wonderful intangible ones such as good health or love in your life, but the material ones as well ~~ your cozy apartment, the green pitcher your mother gave you, the gargoyle bookends your favorite earrings. Walk around where you live and really notice and give thanks for the objects in your life that give you joy. Then notice what effect it has on your desire to buy more.

GRATITUDE Keeps Us Current ~~ That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet. ~~ Emily thingyinson

Last night I watched my daughter Ana, whom we recently adopted from China, lie on the bed in an ecstatic trance of bottle-sucking. Her eyes closed, her rosebud mouth pursed, her exquisitely long fingers curled around the plastic bottle, she gave herself over to the experience. She wasn’t obsessing on past wounds, although perhaps she had a right to. Neglected for over a year, when we got her she had second-degree burns on her buttocks from laying in urine. Nor was she worrying about where future bottles might come from, although she had a right to do that also. Abandoned on Christmas evening on a cold street until someone heard her newborn cries, she had been fed only watered-down milk and seemed to be starving the first few weeks we fed her.

Rather, she was so focused on appreciating the warm milk as it went down her throat that everything else, past and future, simply disappeared. As I looked at her, I realized that this total and complete absorption in the present moment is available to us all when we choose to let gratitude wash over us uninhibitedly.

But many of us have been taught not to give ourselves over so fully to something or someone. As a child, I believed that you couldn’t let yourself become totally immersed in an experience, because something bad might be happening as your attention is diverted. My parents used to say that as a child they never saw me asleep; I always had one eye open, alert to disaster.

But if Ana, who has suffered so much in her very short life, can give herself over to the joy of completely appreciating her bottle, can’t I allow myself in this moment to fully appreciate the sweet peas on my desk, the wonder of being able to think and read and write?

As I allow myself to open to the fullness of gratitude, the past and future fade away and I become more alive in the present moment. That’s because gratitude is, for the most past, about the here and now. While we can be thankful for past blessings and hope for future ones, when we experience a sense of gratefulness, we are usually contemplating some present circumstance. We are brought up to date with ourselves. Our focus moves away from all that we or others did or failed to do in the past, or what we hope for or worry about in the future, and we find ourselves placed squarely in this precious moment, this experience that will never happen again.

GRATITUDE Opens Our Hearts ~~ The most invisible creators I know of are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible ~~ without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt ~~ their medium is their being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive. ~~ J. Stone

I spent several Christmases recently with a family that loves to give presents. Every year, the floor around the tree was heaped with hundreds of gifts, so many that it took the entire morning to open them all. But despite all that was given and received, I would leave there every year feeling empty and alone. There had been a plethora of presents, but no presence. This family gave so many gifts because they didn’t know how to connect deeply to themselves and one another. They ripped through the mounds of merchandise, saying a pro forma ‘Thank you’, but no sense of true appreciate was expressed or received.

The experience was so powerful ~~ the contrast between the material plenty and the emotional lack ~~ it set me to thinking. That’s when I realized that you can’t experience gratitude with a closed heart. It’s just not possible. Gratefulness is only experienced in the moments in which we open our hearts to life ~~ to the beauty in the moment, to the possibility of surprise in the next.

A person does something kind for you, even a very small thing, say, holding a door open for you. When you say, ‘Thank you’ and really mean it, rather than saying it out of social convention, your heart instinctively opens to the person. In that moment, you experience your connection to one another, even if you never lay eyes on each other again.

Openheartedness takes courage. It requites enough trust in the goodness of other people and the universe at large that we can put aside our self-protectiveness ~~ that stance that says I am not going to be grateful for what I am receiving right now because it’s too scary to risk getting hurt ~~ and take a leap of faith to acknowledge that we have received a gift.

The fact that true gratitude creates a sense of openheartedness is the reason so much of the ‘thanks’ in this culture is rote and unfeeling. People are afraid to feel thankful, because they are afraid of the out-of-control experience that occurs when they acknowledge the bond between giver and receiver. We are afraid to feel the love that gets created any time we express true thanks. As adults, our hearts have been broken many times and, by golly, we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The choice is ours, in every moment. Do we want to live in seeming safety, shut inside the shell of our individuality, unwilling to experience the deep and abiding connections that are ours in any case, or are we willing to risk, over and over, having our hearts broken open to the beauty and the pain of all that is ours to experience?

When do you experience an open heart? What are the conditions that foster your willingness to open your heart? As we practice true gratitude, we learn to take the risk over and over again.

GRATITUDE SPAWNS KINDESS and GENEROSITY ~~ Our work-a-day lives are filled with opportunities to bless others. The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated. ~~ G. Richard Rieger

Deborah Chamberin-Taylor had been studying Buddhism in Thailand, at a monastery where all the teaching, housing, and meals were free. Shortly before she left, a Thai family came and made a meal for the 250 retreatants as a way of expressing their gratitude for the teachings of the Buddha.

Shortly thereafter, Deborah was helping to plan a weekend retreat in Northern California. The planning group was discussing how to feed lunch to all those who would be attending, because the cost of the meal was not in the budget. Filled with a sense of gratitude for the generosity of the Thai family, Deborah found herself volunteering to pay for lunch for all the participants. “I noticed what joy it brought me to consider giving such a gift . . . Later, when I told this story to a group, I was pleasantly surprised when person after person walked up and handed me unsolicited money for the ‘lunch fund’. They also wanted to be part of fueling the ‘cycle of generosity’.”

As this Deborah’s story shows, gratitude begets generosity which begets gratitude which begets generosity. Gratitude creates a sense of fullness. And from this fullness, we feel moved to give. That’s because true kindness and generosity come from a response to this sense of fullness we give best from overflow.

It’s a beautiful cycle. The more you feel grateful, the stronger is the impulse toward giving. And the more you give, the more you get ~~ love, friendship, a sense of purpose and accomplishment, even, sometimes, material wealth. As author Lewis Smedes notes, “When I feel the joy of receiving a gift my heart nudges me to join creation’s ballet, the airy dance of giving and receiving, and getting and giving again.”

It doesn’t have to be an extravagant, expensive gift. When we live with a grateful heart, we will see endless opportunities to give: a flower from the garden to a coworker, a kind word to our child, a visit to an old person. You will know what to do.

GRATITUDE JOINS US TO ALL LIFE ~~ I feel this communion, this strange attunement, most readily with large white pines, a little less with sugar maples, beeches, or oaks. Clearly white pines and I are on the same wavelength. What I give back to the trees I cannot imagine. I hope they receive something, because trees are among my closest friends. ~~ Anne Labastile

In The Continuum Concept, Jean Liedloff describes a profound experience she had when she was eight years old on the connection that Anne Labastille describes. “This incident happened during a nature walk in the Maine woods where I was at summer camp. I was last in line; I had fallen back a bit and was hurrying to catch up when, through the trees, I saw a glade. It had a lush fir tree at the far side and a knoll in the center covered in bright, almost luminous green moss. The rays of the afternoon sun slanted against the blue-black green of the pine forest. The little roof of visible sky was perfectly blue. The whole picture had a completeness, an all-there quality of such dense power that it stopped me in my tracks . . . Everything was in its place ~~ the tree, the earth underneath, the rock, the moss. In autumn it would be right; in winter under the snow, it would be perfect in its wintriness. Spring would come again and miracle within miracle would unfold, each at its special pace, some things having died off, some sprouting in their first spring, but all of equal and utter rightness.

“That night in my camp bed I brought The Glade to mind and was filled with a sense of thankfulness, and renewed my vow to preserve my vision.”

“With every leaf a MIRACLE . . . “ WRITES Walt Whitman in his poetic tribute to lilacs, and this is what he is talking about ~~ when we are in touch with a profound sense of gratitude, we connect to all of life, recognizing the miracle in the tallest tree, the smallest bug.

Such a sense of connection is purely joyful; it grants to our human endeavors no more or less importance than they should have, and inspires us to do whatever we can to conserve and protect all of the natural wonders of the Earth and sea, not just those that are convenient for us. Thus gratitude also gives birth to a fiercely loving environmentalism, a sensitivity born of the connection made explicit between us and everything else that creeps, crawls, sways, and clings. We recognize that we cannot live outside of the great web of life and lovingly holds us in its nurturing embrace, and vow to protect the sanctity of that web.

GRATITUDE CONNECTS US TO SPIRIT ~~ If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you’, that would suffice. ~~ Meister Eckhart

Marjory is a former ‘jeweler to the stars’ who made one-of-a-kind rings and other extraordinary pieces for such luminaries as Tina Turner. Her business boomed and the good time did indeed roll. When gold prices skyrocketed, however, her business went bust and she became a recluse in a small cabin. But she refused to feel sorry for herself.

On a flight during a recent job-hunting trip, Marjory was seated next to Paul, a charming and sweet Baptist teenager from South Carolina on his way to China. Now, it’s each to figure out within a couple of meeting Marjory that her religious leanings are fairly New Age, especially as she goes over her complete astrological chart with you right off the bat! In any case, the two were chatting away when Marjory noticed the spectacular sunset diffusing golden and fuchsia light, turning the PACIFIC ocean into a pool of amber glass. “Oh, God. Look at that. How beautiful!” Marjory exclaimed, her eyes tearing over.
Paul turned to Marjory gravely and asked, “Who is your God?”
Taken aback, Marjory replied that her God was just God and she didn’t worry much about where He came from. The teen pressed to know if her God was the Father of his personal Savior, Jesus Christ. Marjory stared back, glassy-eyed, when a small miracle took place.

Paul began quoting from Psalm 23, a magnificent and lyrical stream of biblical poetry about how beautiful this home is that God had made for us. Marjory and everyone else within earshot relaxed instantly and looked at the sunset, seeing again, through the eyes of timeless wonder and gratitude, the marvel of this world we live in.

However you experience God ~~ as loving Father, nurturing Mother, Creator of all that is, your Higher Power, the Spirit of Kindness and Compassion, whatever is true for you ~~ the quickest easiest way to connect to Him/Her is to express your gratitude. That’s because gratitude is the response to the giver of a gift, and when we give thanks for things beyond the gifts, we received from other people, we are de factor thanking the Greater Power for what we have received: food, shelter, the beautiful sunny day, life itself. As we give thanks, our spirits join with the Great Spirit in the dance of life that is the interplay between giver and receiver.

I love the sensibility of this exchange that is inherent in Native American spirituality. Whenever a person is about to take the life of something ~~ a deer, a tree ~~ he or she humbly asks permission of the Spirit that dwells in the animal or plant, and gives thanks for their willingness to sacrifice their own life. Sometimes, an offering, such as a pinch of corn or tobacco, is given in compensation. Such an act acknowledges that something has been given and received on both sides.

GRATITUDE OPENS US to MOMENTS of GRACE ~~ Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are, unseen and unseeable in the world. ~~ Francis P. Church

Morihei Ueshiba, the father of Aikido, once described an experience he had walking alone in his garden. Suddenly “I felt that a golden spirit sprang up from the ground . . . My mind and body turned into light. I was able to understand the whispering of the birds, and was clearly aware of the mind of God . . . the spirit of loving protection for all being. Endless tears of joy streamed down my cheeks. Since that time, I have grown to feel that the whole earth is my house. . .”

Have you ever had an experience in which you slip out of ordinary space and time and tap into the flow of the universe, where there is no separation between you and everything else and where everything seems perfectly right just as it is? Some people find such moments of transcendence through meditation, others in nature, still others when making love. As a young child, I often experienced such moments in the early spring tromping alone in the icy stream near my house.

Some people find such moments of transcendence through meditation, others in nature, still others when making love. As a young child, I often experienced such moments in the early spring tromping alone in the icy stream near my house.


I’m convinced that you don’t have to meditate for years on a mountaintop or take LSD to experience such transcendence. All you have to do is tap into the fullness of a sense of gratitude, and grace will likely descend. (Indeed, I am sure that what meditation and mind-altering drugs do is break down the barriers to experiencing gratitude in its full abundance.)

We can’t force or demand such magical mystical experiences. But we can offer ourselves up as willing and worthy participants by reveling in the wonders that we are already experiencing. Through gratitude, our souls, in Emily thingyinson’s words, ‘always stand ajar; ready to welcome the ecstatic experience’.