A Gift Of Gratitude by Brother David Steindl-Rast

A Gift Of Gratitude

by Brother David Steindl-Rast

You think this is just

another day in your life?

It’s not just another day;

it’s the one day that

is given to you…

today

It’s given to you. It’s a gift.

It’s the only gift that you

have right now, and the

one appropriate response

is gratefulness.

If you do nothing else but to

cultivate that response to the great

gift that this unique day is,

if you learn to respond

as if it were the first day

of your life,

and the very last day,

then you will have spent

this day very well.

Begin by opening your

eyes and be surprised that you

have eyes you can open,

that incredible array of colors

that is constantly offered to

us for pure enjoyment.

Look at the sky.

We so rarely look at the sky.

We so rarely note how different

it is from moment to

moment with clouds coming

and going.

We just think of the weather, and

even of the weather we don’t think

of all the many nuances of weather.

We just think of good weather

and bad weather.

This day right now has

unique weather, maybe a

kind that will never exactly

in that form come again.

That formation of clouds in the sky will

never be the same that it is right now.

Open your eyes. Look at that.

Look at the faces

of people whom you meet.

Each one has an incredible

story behind their face, a story

that you could never fully fathom,

not only their own story,

but the story of their ancestors.

We all go back so far.

And in this present

moment on this day, all the

people you meet, all that life

from generations and from so

many places all over the world,

flows together and meets you

here like a life-giving

water, if you only open your

heart and drink.

Open your heart

to the incredible gifts that

civilization gives to us.

You flip a switch

and there is

electric light.

You turn a faucet and

there is warm water and cold water—

and drinkable water.

It’s a gift that millions and millions

in the world will never experience.

So these are just a few of

an enormous number

of gifts to which you can

open your heart.

And so I wish for you that

you would open your heart

to all these blessings and let

them flow through you,

that everyone whom you will meet

on this day will be blessed by you;

just by your eyes,

by your smile, by your touch—

just by your presence.

Let the gratefulness overflow

into blessing all around you,

and then it will really be

a good day.

Comments

Coraggio

When everything looks bleak and the darkness cramps against the cold, it takes courage to simply look out from imagined isolation toward the wide horizon of beauty available in every moment. It takes courage to lean into the sea of life and trust the tide. When weary limbs no longer support us, it takes courage to trust our inner buoyancy and float. It takes courage, in the face of darkness, to remember the light and sit in all our apparent blindness and listen, silently, to the still, small whisper within. It takes courage, in that dark hour, when nothing else remains. Eyes closed. Eyes opened. A glimpse, a memory, a fleeting vision of a light so bright it blurs the borders of things seen and things perceived into a comprehensive wholeness of being. It takes courage.

tree digging

Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the ...

angelbirdflies

Search This Blog