Day Thirty

The call and response in yesterday’s song asked us “where is the light?” and then answered, “the light’s inside of me.” Often in this time of year, and at many times in our lives, that outside light seems dim, and the only place we can seem to find a spark is deep inside of ourselves. 

We hope that this thirty-day practice has helped you to find and brighten that spark of deep gratitude within yourself. As we stare now at December’s blank pages, and move out into the unwritten days of our lives, only we can decide whether we will use that light to lead us – whether we will approach those days with gratitude. 

On the last day of our November practice, we invite you to find that daily gratitude reminder you set for yourself, way back on day one – maybe it was a quote, or an image, or a chime on your phone, or a spot in your house. Find a way to make that gratitude reminder last a little longer. You might put the image in a frame. Or set the phone chime to repeat daily for the next… eleven months or so. 

We invite you, today, to make the choice to keep this reminder with you throughout the whole year. In doing so, may you take the first step not towards living a life that’s fully written out with plans, goals, and guarantees for good things to come – but rather towards living a life that recognizes how the light of gratitude can lead, no matter what may come.

With gratitude,
Rev. Ken & Lee

Day Twenty-Nine

We can't banish darkness, real or metaphorical, from our lives. When we try to do this within ourselves, in our relationships and in society as a whole, we can become awfully cruel.  The equation of darkness with depravity is a most damaging belief.

We need the dark to grow, to sleep and to teach us that everything takes a rest for awhile. The addiction to all things sunny and bright is surely that, an unhealthy attachment to an idealized world that few of us will ever inhabit. And even if we could live there in that imagined place, it would certainly be very lonely, because the minute others join us, we'll start to see shadows and want them gone.

This is a dark time of the year.  So may it be. As Carl Jung wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."  Whether we perceive darkness in our internal or external atmospheres, the goal isn't to banish it.

The images and experiences of brightness that bring comfort this time of the year aren't blinding flood-lights, they're the candles of the Menorah, the burning Yule Log, the lights held individually person by person that light up a Christmas Eve service.  Each of these symbols a reminder that we can become conscious in and with the dark.  We can remember what our friends The Friends say  (in a wonderful way to describe that which is of God in each of us)--"The Inner Light."

Gratitude can be this inner spark, the reminder of the light in us.  With this life-giving power, we can appreciatively illuminate our place and the place where others stand as well. As we prepare to bring this month-long gratitude practice to a close tomorrow,  what have you noticed in yourself in your practice this month?  How can you be grateful to yourself for your capacity for gratitude as expression of The Inner Light in you?


--Ken

Day Twenty-Eight

Today, I have a constant craving for mashed sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top. Bring. It. On. 

I’m sure you have your own cravings that pop up around the holidays. Craving and abundance are two sides of the same coin. We tend to want more, yet when we stop feeding the craving, we realize what we need is already within and around us.  As k.d. lang sings: “even through the darkest phase... always someone marches brave, here beneath my skin.”

Each Sunday at WellSprings, we say “there is nowhere else to go, there is nowhere else to be, so let’s be here together, now.” For our Thanksgiving Day practice I invite you to share this simple grace around your table at mealtime.

We are grateful for this day, the only one we have. 
We are grateful for this moment, which is always, always new.
We are grateful for this place where we gather, its shelter and its hospitality.
We are grateful for the precious time we have, with the ones with whom we sit.
We sit together now to share in this moment, and to realize its deepest blessings.

From me to you, please enjoy your sweet potato casserole – or its equivalent! – on this great day of presence and rest.

 

- Lee

Day Twenty-Seven

The day before the holiday that animates this month-long practice.  If we're traveling may we all be safe, and also mindful of the many others who share the road with us.   Perhaps tomorrow we'll be reunited with people we don't get to see very often.  Reunited and, perhaps, it will feel so good.

And maybe tomorrow our hearts will turn to those who are missing.  Those we have loved who have died. When we look around the table or the room, we don't see them.  And in seeing their absence, there  is sadness.  Wherever we may be in our grief is where we are. Could be that our grief is raw, or is complex, or has been fully integrated into our lives, like one length of fabric in a fuller garment.

For me, my heart opens to my mother who died young and unexpectedly twenty-one Thanksgivings ago. My grief is part of who I am, and fully bound up into my life.  I have often turned to this poem "Late Fragment" by Raymond Carver to help express my experience of mourning.

And did you get what 
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

I have always loved those two words "even so"--they're an acknowledgment that life has its sorrows, disappointments and sufferings, that death is an inescapable part of life, and that to know love is to know loss.  And, even so, the poet writes, there still is belovedness. Even so is a grace note that doesn't cancel out the pain of loss, but can contain that loss, and hold it in a grateful loving remembrance.      

If you are missing someone today, who are you missing?  If we're grieving, may we mourn, and may we be comforted.

--Ken

Day Twenty-Six

It’s been a privilege to write these reflections while taking WellSprings’ Listening to Our Lives Springboard, meeting weekly with a small group for spiritual growth – about a dozen members of our congregation – to talk about the timeless themes that faith communities have wrestled with for thousands and thousands of years. 

It’s fitting that last night, we were talking about God – what that word means for us, how it completely repels some, how for others it is the core and source of our days, and how for many it provokes every other feeling in between. 

Many people get hung up on the noun “God,” and how to define it. But last night, one of the questions we asked together was, “what if God is more like a verb?” What if those places where we see God, or recognize the holy – at the bedside of a sick friend, through the power of the rainstorm, in the sounds of a baby’s coo – are what matters more? What if the constant presence and availability of those holy moments is what we can trust, and have our faith in? 

In today’s song, Audrey Assad sings: “Your worries will never love you. They’ll leave you all alone. But your God will not forsake you.”

We all have the power to decide who God is to us. So who is your God? Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to choose from a menu of options – I’m asking you to reflect, for today’s practice, on what kind of God you could trust. Is there a faithful presence of some kind, in your life, that you are grateful for? That, in some sense, has loved you, and that you could love in return?

As the answers to these questions begin to come to you, consider writing and sharing a gratitude prayer based on today's reflection in the comments below.

- Lee

Day Twenty-Five

Over the last number of posts, we've been writing about how gratitude is a form of intentionally chosen resilience in the face of the suffering of the world. Giving thanks is a powerful reminder that we can live more justly and compassionately.  In grateful, conscious contact with the many gifts of life we deepen our capacity for healing and wholeness.

Today's song is a prayerful hope that we can change.  One day, we may study war no more, as the Hebrew Scriptures say.  In your experience, who has most meaningful called forth this kind of life-giving vision?  Who are you most grateful to for their work towards peace and wholeness?  This might be a notable leader, a Dr. King or Gandhi, or maybe someone with a lesser known name, but who has still worked diligently for a transformed world.  Or maybe it's an organization or group of people.

Today, please express that gratitude  in some tangible way.  Perhaps teach a child about a legacy of hope left by those who came before you. Maybe make a monetary donation to a group that works to create peace and justice.  However you say thanks, please offer your appreciation for those who are working to ease the suffering in our world and expand the space for life to flourish. In expressing gratitude, we're helping to make one day become closer to this day.

--Ken

Day Twenty-Four

Have you ever felt trapped? I have. Trapped by financial circumstances, trapped by a job, trapped by family, relationships, expectations of who I was supposed to be – all sorts of things I felt I couldn’t control.

It’s a common feeling. But it’s a trick. It covers up a deeper truth – we are never trapped, but we may have to give something up to get off the broken road.  

I’ve had lots of visions for how I thought my life would go. Many of them have not happened as planned. Some of them, I am now sure, will never happen. And yes, some of them were denied to me unfairly, in ways I did not have the power to control.

Along the way though, I’ve learned that those plans didn’t need to work out for me to be worthy, to be happy, or to be beloved. Every time I felt trapped with no way out, looking longingly at a path closed off to me completely, I was eventually able to let go (and those italics are deliberate). Eventually, I was able to turn around, away from the place I had my eye on. Once I did, lo and behold, there was a whole other world in front of me. 

The chorus of this song contains some powerful gems – one of them is: “you don’t need to move, love has come to you.” 

Just like yesterday’s post, today we are practicing gratitude as an act of resistance. When we’re grateful for the life we have, we claim it as our own. We can keep on working to make it better, yes – but we never need to assent to the idea that we are not worthy, or not beloved, just because our life doesn’t live up to an ideal vision.

Today, offer gratitude for your power to turn around. What might it be time for you to turn away from? How can you remember to practice gratitude in that act?

- Lee

Day Twenty-Three

Singing and dancing in the rain is not just reserved for  happy-ending, classic musicals.  It happens. And it matters.

I had a friend who, years ago, lived and worked with a group of indigenous people in Central America. Their lives were difficult, and their suffering was often caused by the cruelty of forces and systems arrayed against them. They were regularly subjected to neglect, harassment and violence.  They marshaled as many resources as they could to stand against these forces, yet often they were overwhelmed.

One night a massive storm swept through the village where they lived. In response, the people gathered in the roads of the town and began to dance and sing together, joyfully, gratefully.  At first my friend, still somewhat new to this village, was stunned.  He thought it was almost beyond belief that the people, with all  of the indignities and difficulties they faced, could take time to celebrate in the middle of the mud, muck and mire.

But, then he began to perceive the situation with more depth. They weren't "in denial" about how tough life was. No way to avoid that fact. But in their joy in dancing and singing in the rain, they were asserting their freedom and their dignity.  Gratitude didn't cancel everything else out.   It also wasn't a momentary escape. Giving thanks with singing and dancing in the rain was a reminder of who they were beyond what the world did to them.

Where have you witnessed gratitude as a revolutionary act? A recommitment to life in the face of all that denies life?

--Ken

Day Twenty-Two

In yesterday’s practice, we were reminded to be aware of and connected to the gifts in our lives – a simple foundation for understanding and expressing gratitude.

Of course, sometimes that awareness is the farthest thing from our minds. Today’s song is all about that feeling – being crushed, worn out, grasping for hope. Yet it is precisely for moments like these that we share in the practice of gratitude. 

Gratitude is a resource we can draw on in times of brokenness – like a muscle we can build and flex. It’s a way of looking at the world that improves our resilience, reminding us to always seek out those Amazing Grace gifts. Gratitude helps us approach each experience, good or bad, as one that holds seeds for a new opportunity in our lives.

It’s also a way for us to take power back in those broken moments – not to deny or ignore the pain, but to reassert the power of our spirit, and make the brokenness work for us. We can learn to see even the brokenness in our lives as one piece of our whole selves – a piece for which we are grateful, because it opens up new avenues of connection to others, and reminds us of our limits, and our interdependence. 

We’re going to start to do a bit of heavy lifting with those gratitude muscles today. Reflect, in your journal or in the comments below, on an area of brokenness in your life – a place where you are tired and worn. How might gratitude help you to mend and heal this broken place? How might you begin to actually look upon your brokenness with gratitude?

- Lee

Day Twenty-One

Why six different versions of Amazing Grace?

Because fifteen or twenty seemed excessive.  ;-)

Seriously, picking a single version of the most famous hymn of all time felt totally arbitrary, so here are a bunch of different tastes of this beloved song.  And if your preferred version isn't above, please find it, listen to it, and maybe share the link below.

But offering multiple versions of Amazing Grace is more than just an aesthetic choice. This song has been covered and covered and covered again because it speaks to a near universal human experience. Sometimes in the midst of great pain, sorrow or difficulty, we may experience a profound experience of love, comfort or healing.  I knew Amazing Grace the morning I woke up and suddenly it was finally time to get sober.

Whatever its other meanings or associations, the word grace means gift. And the primary purpose of this blog is to help us become conscious of the gifts in our lives. If we're aware of and connected to our gifts, then we know what gratitude is.  The kind of gratitude that can be real, especially real, when life is challenging.  The final ten days of our practice are dedicated to exploring Amazing Grace together.  And so to begin this final stretch, today's practice is to name the experiences of Amazing Grace that you've known in your life.

--Ken

Day Twenty

I hate rain. Rain, wind, cold – I have the unfortunate bad habit of acting like it is a personal affront to me when the weather doesn’t cooperate with my wishes. Rain is a leading cause of crankiness in my life. Give me 82 degrees and sunshine any day.

I can feel however I want about the weather, but – of course – it’s not about me. The weather needs to do what it does. The rain is necessary for life. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It does mean that I can’t really do anything about it.  

Many of our days will not be 82 and sunny. We can accept this reality and still be upset about it. We don’t have to feel like we’re putting on a false face of gratitude – like we’re so wise that we’ve come to appreciate all our struggles and suffering in life with absolute peace, or like we truly believe that “everything happens for a reason.” Sometimes stuff’s just awful.  

The gratitude, on these rainy days, isn’t for the pain in our lives. But there can be gratitude in the renewal rain brings. Tears are necessary for healing. A fallow season makes the crops grow taller. Sometimes someone else gets to decide how things go for us, whether that’s another person, or a big, impersonal organization, or a nasty cumulous cloud. It isn’t always fair. But in our lament, when we feel frustrated, like we can’t move forward – we leave space for fallow ground. There are times when that is truly what is needed.  

Don’t do anything today. Rest. Let the rain in your life just be the rain that it is. No need for distraction. Tomorrow, you can return to the gratitude practice.

- Lee

Day Nineteen

Redemption is a big religious word.  For some people, being redeemed is the whole point of being alive.  For others the word carries a lot of dead weight-- it's been used as condemnation, as if their whole life was a mistake and in need of erasing.

Years ago, a friend shared with me their experience of redemption.  I've found it helpful. Redemption, they said, is about breaking the chain that ties us to prior behaviors that weren't healthy, whole or healing so that when similar circumstances to the past arise again, this time we can choose a different path.

An example might have been witnessing an act of cruelty or injustice and out of fear or indifference, turning away, whereas the next time something similar occurs, you find your voice and courageously speak up. Or, maybe it's learning to not pick up a drink or drug simply because that's how you've always dealt with uncomfortable situations.

I like this understanding because redemption isn't some once and done event.  Redemption is a process of perceiving the patterns in our lives, the repetition of interactions and experiences that can become opportunities for us to grow into greater wholeness. Stevie Wonder calls redemption the higher ground to which we aspire. In that space we can be glad we know more than we did then. Knowing more now, we might land in a similar scenario as before, but we can be different this time.  Break with the old script, and begin writing a new story line.

When have you been grateful for this kind of redemption?  As a practice, think of a scenario in your life, one that didn't go well, one where your actions were not as you would have wished.  Then, think of a second, similar scenario with a different outcome because you acted in accord with your higher ground. What's the title of the first scenario? What's the title of the second scenario?  And what are you grateful to have learned that made the second situation different from the first?

--Ken

Day Eighteen

On Sunday morning, I got to help out with the YouthSpirit group for our middle school-aged kids. Tonie Scullion was facilitating, and we were talking about impermanence.

Tonie asked the kids to share something that had changed for them in the past year.  Then she asked, “so which do you like better: this year, or last year?”

Clearly, kids and adults experience life on a different scale. But we forget sometimes that children deal with many of the same kinds of issues as adults do. Many kids are dealing with new environments, or unfamiliar territory – unsure of expectations. Many are dealing with new people coming into their lives, and the loss of old friends or loved ones. Some feel that they themselves have changed – and are not always sure they like the person they’re becoming. Some feel like life is just happening to them, passing them by.  There’s not always something they can find to be excited about.

The answers to Tonie’s question varied widely around the circle, until one child summed it up like this: “I guess… this year is better, because I still have the memories of last year.”

What memory are you grateful for?  How can you practice gratitude for that memory, knowing it will never quite be what it was again?  How have others helped you carry forth this memory?  How can you practice gratitude today, for something that will then become a new memory?  Share your reflections in the comments below, or in your gratitude journal.

- Lee

Day Seventeen

Impermanence.  The fact of all the facts of life.  Everyone, everything is changing, growing, decaying, transforming.  How does the reality of impermanence strike you right now?  Might be frightening, the thought of losing something or someone.  Might be freeing, the knowledge that one day this too shall pass, whatever "this" is for you.

This old chestnut of a song implores us to use the realization of impermanence to wake up. To not delay life any longer,  and use the time that we have now as well as we can and treat it as something precious and worthy of trying to savor.  As Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "Aware of impermanence, {we can} become positive, loving and wise. Impermanence is good news. Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. With impermanence, every door is open for change."

Today, what are you grateful for that you know to be impermanent?  And how can you express gratitude to, for, or with this changing person or experience?


--Ken

Day Sixteen

If you usually skip watching the video on these posts – today, please don’t. Humor me. I’ll wait…

Thank you!  This is one of my favorite songs. Today’s post is, in part, a blatant move to get you to fall in love with it so that the WellSprings band might start to play it. ;-)

The “you” in this song is used to refer to God, and the video, clearly, was made for a Christian church.  The idea of a God who takes dirt and dust and creates beautiful works of art out of our lives may be something that’s very meaningful for you, or it may not be. 

But what I love about this song is that regardless of who that “you” is for you, the song is true. We are literally made up of dust. All things on Earth were once other things. This is how the universe works. Everything we think is beautiful was once something ugly, and it will be again.  This can be a constant source of gratitude in our lives – all the ugly in the world, necessarily, scientifically, contains within it the seeds of something beautiful. The two cannot be, without each other. 

Today, go out and transform something. Grab debris from the side of the road, or trash out of your trash can or your car, and challenge yourself to turn it into a sculpture. Grab your camera and find something really disgusting to photograph – and challenge yourself to find the angle, the light, and the zoom that transforms it into a stunning work of art. Take a video of a pet, or a loved one, doing something ordinary, but take care with it like it’s a Sundance-worthy documentary. 

Where is the gratitude, for you, in the transformation?

- Lee

Day Fifteen

What does it look like to move with gratitude? To carry thankfulness in our bodies, and to express gratitude not just with words spoken and written but through our physical being?   Have you ever met anyone whose body said "thank you?"

To me, the video below is a body that knows how to say "thank you."   It's of a woman preparing for her breast cancer surgery by dancing. It's exuberant, and it involves everyone in the OR. Soon she'll lie down to have her surgery, but not before affirming the real presence of joy.

Her dance isn't going to make the surgery go away, or ensure that she won't have pain, or eliminate the chance that there will be difficult days ahead.  But her dance expresses an amazing resilience, an infectious "yes" in the face of the "no" that many of us feel when faced with a disease or a dire time.

"Why in the world are we here?  Surely not to live in pain and fear."  Surely, this person has answered that question the same way John Lennon did. Today, how might you dance, move, or strut your way into walking the talk of gratitude?



--Ken

Day Fourteen

When I was living in DC, a few years into my first job after college, I hit a wall. I needed a new challenge, I was bored with work and wanted to advance my career. I didn’t know what I was running toward so much as what I was running from. So I applied for a fancy-looking job at a big think tank, and I absolutely had my heart set on getting it. I pulled out all my connections, I managed to get an interview… and then the position was offered to someone else. 

After the rejection letter came, I wasn’t grateful at all – only further embittered about where I was stuck. Yet eventually, I realized this experience had lessons and gifts to offer. It forced me to think about what kind of path I was actually well-suited for. What was calling me, rather than what I was running from. It meant going through a tough interview process – which was fantastic preparation for my next interview. In pursuing my desires, I was bound to get burned somewhere. But if I’d never stuck my neck out and tried, I would’ve been, as Pink says, “just getting by” – never even moving on to the next step on my journey.

Have you ever had something just not work out as you’d hoped, and yet ultimately you were so glad you tried? Is there a place in your life, today, where the deck is stacked against you again?  

For today’s gratitude practice, experiment with a shift in your mindset towards this obstacle. Try moving from complaint to thanksgiving. Write a simple sentence, in your gratitude journal, or in the comments below, that describes this reframing. What is this obstacle teaching you, that you are actually grateful for? What new possibilities might this obstacle be making space for in your life?

- Lee

Day Thirteen

Years ago, in the days before EZ Pass, I was driving on the Gratigny Parkway in South Florida.  It was in the final days of my first ministry there as I was preparing to move to PA and start WellSprings.  My life felt like it was contained in a series of boxes.  My mind always seemed to be six steps ahead of where I was. Lots of racing here and there.  Saying good-bye. Looking ahead.  Sadness.  Excitement.  Anxiety.

As I pulled in to pay a toll, I absent-mindedly put my hand out with my fare.  "And how are you today?" asked a genuinely warm voice inside the booth.  I looked to the side, and smiling back at me was the toll booth operator, her face broad  and bright with a  kind smile. I answered her honestly, "Well, I'm distracted, to tell you the truth.  Having a hard time telling which end is up."

She nodded, "Yep, one of those days. We all have them."  Not taking her eyes off mine, she made change for my bills and then, with all the lovingkindness of a parent cradling a baby, said, "Listen, you take care  of yourself, you hear?" and reached out of her window and into mine, and gave my arm a little squeeze.

I just about cried from the compassion.   Before I drove off, I said, "I can't thank you enough.  And you do the same."

Her kindness to me, a stranger, was a wake up call in that moment.  Simultaneously, I felt how stressed I was and how fast I was moving, and, underneath it all, how the blessing of love and connection was still there.  Our paths will probably never cross again, but I remain grateful to her to this day.

In Buddhist Metta practice, lovingkindness meditation, there are a series of repeated affirmations, orientations of the heart, that we direct to ourselves and others, including people whose presence we may be likely to ignore or pass over. There are variations of those words, one of which is this:

May you live in safety.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you live with ease and well-being.

I have no idea if the toll taker had done Metta practice that day.  But she touched me with her lovingkindness.  Indeed, she made me feel that she was happy and grateful to see me even though she didn't know me at all.

Today, how can you practice gratitude for the presence of someone you don't know well at all?  As they approach you, or you them, maybe say these words of lovingkindness to yourself silently.  Cultivating this attitude, how do you find you are more grateful for their presence?  For what they do, and for who they are?

Today,

May you live in safety.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you live with ease and well-being.

--Ken

Day Twelve

I don’t know about you, but “everybody hurts” is one of those universal truths that I still have a hard time understanding. I know that everyone will have pain at some point in their life. We all suffer. We all experience loss. Yet when I’m hurting, struggling with some reality that seems insurmountable, it can feel like I’m standing in the abyss, with the angry sea swirling around me. Like I’m the only one on the planet who’s ever known what this feels like.

It makes sense that we often feel this way. Our stories are unique – our suffering the product of our own histories, personalities, and circumstances. Yet an early mentor of mine in ministry once taught me something incredibly important: pain is pain. There is no ranking. There is no “insignificant” struggle. All of our suffering hurts. And when you are alone in the abyss, you have to deal with that sea swirling around you, no matter what other kinds of seas and rock formations might be out there in the world. 

So hurting is hard, but hurting also gives us the tools to empathize – not to say, “I know exactly how you feel” or “I know how to fix this,” but to say, “I’m sorry,” and “how can I help,” and “I love you.” To not be afraid to say “I’m here” when a friend is in pain. Because when you have known pain, you have all the qualifications you need to be an excellent companion – to accompany someone else on their journey into and through and back out of that abyss.  

Who has accompanied you in this way? At a difficult time in your life, who has been there to offer simple companionship? Express your gratitude to this person today, in a letter, e-mail, phone call – whatever feels most appropriate for you. Reach out in gratitude to let them know that their presence mattered.

- Lee

Day Eleven

Today, we move into the middle third of our month-long gratitude practice.  Starting now, we'll be working with experiences in which the presence of gratitude may not be as easily identifiable as it might have been for us in the first ten days.  (For an overview of the whole practice, please click here.)

Day Eleven's well known song has a well-known refrain, "The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine."  Often the human mind quests certainty, definition or clarity in order to feel comfortable, happy or secure. There's a whole laundry list of places like that where the singer searches for happiness, but ultimately they're not gratifying. Finally, the less a definitive is sought, the greater ability there is for the singer's life to flourish.

How has being okay with uncertainty helped you experience a deeper wisdom or fulfillment in your life? Are there times at which relinquishing the desire for definition helped open up gratitude for you?  How has "letting the mystery be" allowed you to experience thankfulness?

To help bring this gratitude home today, think of an image in your mind that symbolizes a hopeful uncertainty--an open road, the open sky,  a question mark--whatever it is for you. Then, after you've thought of it, please draw it. I don't care if it's stick figures or a Picasso, please take some time to draw this symbol of uncertainty for which you're grateful, and keep it somewhere close by today and in the days to come.



--Ken

Day Ten

A little humor to mark Day 10 – this image was posted by a friend on my Facebook news feed a few months ago:



image courtesy of www.weknowawesome.com

“De nada,” of course, means “you’re welcome,” in Spanish, and Jesús is a common name in Latino communities. It’s a funny image, but it points at something very real in our world, and in human nature: struggle and comfort co-exist. Everyday miracles and unbelievable joy and amazing grace are present in the very same moment as incredible pain and hardship. And all of it is holy. All of it deserves our attention, and all of it, together, helps us see a whole picture of our lives.

When we think about saying grace before a meal – offering gratitude for the everyday, holy miracles like food on our plates and the relative safety and security of our lives – it lends a wider perspective to gratitude. To really reach deep within ourselves for this gratitude practice, we can’t just work with the things that are happy and wonderful in our own lives. We need to draw a wider circle, both within us and outside of ourselves.

The Buddhist nun Pema Chodron says: “Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” Tonight, or sometime during this day, say grace, aloud or to yourself. Do it intentionally, perhaps at mealtime, or at another time you often find yourself grateful for an everyday miracle. Offer thanks not just for the good you receive, but also for the struggle that may have made it possible. Begin to draw the circle of wholeness within your gratitude practice, and explore what thoughts and feelings come up for you in response.

- Lee  

Day Nine

Most of us have known times in our lives when it felt like the best we could do is just hold on. When we were struggling and didn't necessarily see a way that the situation would immediately resolve itself or improve. In those moments we might know "grit and grace", a certain kind of physical, emotional or spiritual toughness that gave us the strength to endure and find a way to a different and better day.

Think of a particular time in your life when you did hold on, when perseverance paid off for you, and you discovered you were resilient.  Looking back, how did you sustain yourself then? What resources of strength did you find in yourself that you are now genuinely grateful for?

For today's practice, write a gratitude letter to yourself for your ability to hold on at that time in your life.   Doesn't have to be a lengthy piece of writing, but just enough space for you to name the gifts you discovered in yourself. Please take a moment to offer yourself some thanks.

Day Eight

New beginnings are happening all the time in our lives. Sometimes they are big new beginnings – a new family member, a new job, a new commitment – and sometimes they are unremarkable. Every day, new people enter our lives, new ideas and experiences are introduced to our minds, and new feelings and reactions spring out from our hearts. Even in the ends of things are beginnings – beginning a new way of life, a new approach to people and events, or a new pattern of action or thought.

What seeds of new beginnings are being planted in you right now? What is newly growing in your heart and soul today? What is new that you are grateful for?

Try offering a simple gratitude ritual to mark a new beginning in your life – something new that you are grateful for. This might be setting out a candle and lighting it at an important, quiet time tonight. It may be gathering people you care about to say a prayer together, perhaps before a meal. It may be creating a simple altar – an intentional place set aside in your home or workplace where a few photos or objects call this new beginning to mind for you. It may be reading a special poem, or piece of literature or scripture, aloud. Keep it simple – just do something that feels authentic for you, to help you mark time and gratitude for whatever new thing might be dawning in your life.

 - Lee

Day Seven

Building on yesterday's theme of investing in yourself and gratefully celebrating a gift you have, today we turn that celebration outward.  How can you pay your gift(s) forward? As Rev. Rebecca Parker asks, how can you "choose to bless the world" through sharing your gift with others around you? Being as basic or as creative, as simple or as elaborate, as you want to be, please share  your gift with others.  Notice how sharing your gift creates gratitude around you. How does putting a little love in your heart benefit others as well as yourself?

Here's an example of paying it forward that I found particularly creative and joyful.



-Ken

Day Six

We have all been given the gift of our life. Think about it: you did nothing to deserve existence. You didn’t have to work at it, or earn it. It is a pure gift that you are here, and it is a gift that you are who you are. You were made to be this person, and no one else. 

This immense gift can reassure us, when we cut through all the noise of past decisions and future plans, that our lives really are golden. Regardless of how we make use of our time on Earth, we still carry the gift of our lives. The original value of that gift can never be diminished.

To do right by this gift may lead us to a place of anxious responsibility. But for Jill Scott, “living your life like it’s golden” isn’t about trying to live up to an ideal, or about trying to repay a debt that can never be repaid. It’s about knowing and being grateful for our own value, and treating ourselves accordingly. Staying grounded and confident in our worth, no matter what the world might throw at us.

Today, find a way to invest in yourself in some small way. Practice that grounding in and gratitude for your own worth and value by signing up for a class you’ve always wanted to take, or making the time to do the thing that always helps you feel centered, or maybe just wearing something that makes you feel especially you. When you shine brightly, from the truest parts of yourself out into the world, it often encourages others to do the same.

- Lee

Day Five

The Beatles sang, "I do appreciate you being round." William James wrote, "The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated."  In the giving and receiving of appreciation, there is the powerful bond of grateful friendship.

Today, please think of a friend whom you appreciate. And please express your gratefulness directly to them. This can be done through any number of ways: a conversation, a letter, a gift. The method matters less than the meaning.  However it's expressed, be as specific as you can be in letting your friend know why you're grateful for them.

Also, now that we're five days into these thirty days, please click here if you'd like a refresher in how and why this gratitude practice is unfolding as it is.



-Ken

Day Four

There are a lot of people in our world who agree with what Mason Jennings sings in this song – there is more than one way to understand God, despite what those with the loudest voices, biggest institutions, or most fervent followers might say. 

Jennings sings: 

Why do some people say
That there is just one way
To love You, God, and come to You?
We are all a part of You

The evidence is right before our eyes: people DO understand God in thousands and thousands of different ways. We can be grateful for the fact that ultimately, our experience of God, the divine, or the presence of spirit can only be our own – and that we can choose to gather together in community with people whose experience holds some things in common with ours.

Our Unitarian Universalist tradition carries a long history of encouraging personal relationship and response to the divine. Our spiritual ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson, who served as a Unitarian minister, encouraged his fellow clergy to acquaint congregations “at first hand with Deity,” and to “dare to love God without mediator or veil.” 

Today, write or say a prayer to your source of spiritual power. Call it whatever you wish – address your prayer to whatever power speaks most closely to your heart. Try to offer gratitude not just for good things in your life, but also for the presence of that spiritual power itself, and for the ways in which it has sustained you.

- Lee

Day Three

It's been said that all we need to do to find beauty in the world is to step out our front door. Today, the practice is about appreciating beauty through nature. Maybe notice what's present in a front or backyard, the beauty of the turning leaves on your street, the beauty of a walk in the park, or a hike along a trail. To make this an intentional gratitude practice, see if you can really notice one aspect of the beauty in nature: a particular small, sight, sound, or sensation or a combo of these.

When you've noticed what you're grateful for in this natural beauty, please take some time to share it through writing in a "gratitude journal"--could be a traditional journal, could be on your computer or smartphone, could be in the comments section on the blog-- about what beauty you're appreciating, and how it makes you grateful. We'll be returning to our "gratitude journals" in other practices throughout the month.

May you enjoy the wondrous beauty of this season!

Day Two

Last week, during a small group meeting at WellSprings, I did something I’d never done before. I ate a tangerine in complete, unhurried, silence. I took the time to smell the inside of the peel, to feel for the seeds with my fingertips and work them out of the pulp, to taste the juice, and to hear the sounds of the tangerine breaking down into something new.

The tangerine practice was a reference to a story told by Thich Nhat Hanh about gratitude for the present moment. Sometimes our plans and our memories distract, worry, or excite us – so much that we forget what we are actually doing right now. In the story, Hanh’s friend becomes so immersed in talking about his imagined future, that “he was hardly aware he was eating a tangerine.” Distracted from the present, he was popping sections of the fruit into his mouth, completely cut off from the sensations of the moment – “it was as if he hadn’t been eating the tangerine at all.” Thich Nhat Hanh’s friend was missing his own life, just as it happened.

Today, allow yourself the time to do something very small, something you might do anyway in the course of your normal day – like eating a tangerine – consciously. Focus on nothing else but that one thing. Pay attention to one of your senses: taste, touch, smell, sound, or sight. Explore that one sensory experience of the one thing you’re doing. Let it happen. Be done with it when you’re done with it. Then think about where gratitude showed up for you in this experience. What did you discover or notice about yourself, and the world around you, that you can be grateful for?

- Lee

Day One

Welcome to Day One of Thirty Days of Gratitude!  We're excited to start this journey with you.  We encourage all of us to have a beginner's mind as we set out. A conscious gratitude practice can raise up all kinds of new awareness within us and around us.   Maintaining an open and curious attitude will help each of us deepen our experience as we move into this time to come.

Our first practice is about intention and attention.  What draws you here?  What are your motivations as you begin?  How do you hope this practice will help you change, grow or flourish?

To help make good on our intentions, today's practice is to set up a daily gratitude reminder to help keep this practice at the forefront of your awareness over the next thirty days. This can take the form of a visual cue--a gratitude-related quote or image posted at your computer, on a mirror, in your car, at one or several places--or maybe it might be a meditation bell set to go off at regular intervals on your smartphone. Whatever shape this reminder takes, it should help bring you back to your intention and refocus your attention to the day's gratitude practice.

Here's a cue that we're using, right at the site from which many of these practices will be posted.

So, what are your intentions and ways of paying attention as you begin?
We're grateful that you're here!