“Sometimes just giving thanks for the mystery of it all brings everything and everyone closer, the way suction pulls streams of water together. So take a chance and openly give thanks, even if you’re not sure what for, and feel the plenitude of all that is living brush up against your heart.”
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
I was thinking about the idea of giving thanks…and exactly what that means. I like the idea of being grateful, of adopting gratefulness as a way of being. Being grateful is the springboard to giving thanks, to showing thanks and to speaking thanks. Being grateful comes first.
Being grateful means living in awe of Life Itself. It means living with a keen awareness of the gift of every moment.
Being grateful means seeing the world with eyes of wonder and joy. It means noticing beauty in even the darkest place.
Being grateful means trusting in goodness. It means seeing possibility no matter what.
Being grateful means leading with your heart.
Being grateful requires practice….we have to be conscious and willing to live in awe, see with wonder and joy, trust in goodness and lead with our heart. It requires practice because we get off track and distracted. We think our gratefulness must somehow be earned…that something must happen in order for us to be grateful. We have it backwards. It’s up to us to start with being grateful…to practice being grateful.
Being grateful, living gratefulness, translates into doing…it translates into kindness, caring and thoughtfulness. It translates into showing, speaking and giving thanks. When we come from gratefulness, the doing part comes naturally.
Using part of the quote from Mark…be grateful for the mystery of it all, even if you’re not sure. Take a chance and feel the fullness and the pulse of Life, in your own self and in the world.
With great trust in the goodness of all creation,
Paula
