“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for ALL OUR LIVES – the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections – that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment.”

– Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey –

I am challenged by Nouwen’s words. How easy it is to give thanks on the mountain tops when all the stars align and God answers our prayers. How entitled and privileged we feel there. It is easy to form our theology, our ideas, and musings from this vantage point and pontificate them on to a burdened world. Gratitude in paradise takes no effort or spiritual discipline.

In the dark, shadow path gratitude does not always flow as freely. In the winter space, when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling, it is easy to feel forgotten. And in the words of the great prophet, Leonard Cohen, from here we utter a broken Hallelujah. Gratitude, like breathing, has to become a way of life. At 51 years of age, I am still learning to walk this path.

So as this year comes to a close, one of the more difficult years of my life, I make a choice to give thanks. I choose gratitude because I know gratitude heals broken hearts and keeps the soul unstuck from resentment. I don’t always feel like giving thanks … but I choose it anyway.

I am grateful for life: life with all its ups and downs, its pleasant surprises and terrifying cliff-hangers.

I am grateful for love … a faithful man once wrote that the greatest of all is love … he was right – love is all we really have that lasts forever.

I am grateful for relationships – some old, some new, some family, some that feel like family, some complex, some as carefree as the morning song of our resident kookaburra – to love and be loved is one of the greatest joys of living.

I am grateful for this season I live in … this liminal space that both my partner and I sense has been given to us as a gift to rest and recoup – surrounded by the nurture and care of Mother Nature we feel our weary hearts recovering every day. A quote hangs in my entrance, the gift of a friend: “To be here is Glorious” … thank you for the reminder, Rainer Maria Rilke.

I am grateful for the past – this is a big statement as I also hold regret – but the past has taught and shaped me, my life experience, the good and the shadows, the accomplishments and the many failures … they all play together somehow …

I am grateful for hope, springing deep in my heart, a song that cannot be quenched even in the Shadowlands … a hope that whispers, “nothing can separate you from love.”

I am even grateful for this “silly season” of packed shops, impatient carpark-searchers and mindless renditions of “Jingle Bells” … because amidst all the hype there is a low, consistent melody of a world that hums and rotates in Divine rhythm and wisdom … pointing to the news often forgotten at Christmas – a tiny baby, heavenly joy … Christ has come and Christ is with us …

I am grateful …

“To pray is to regain a sense of mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live … It is embarrassing to live. How strange we are in the world and how presumptuous our doings. Only one response can maintain us: GRATITUDE for witnessing the wonder – for the gift of our unearned right to live, to adore, to fulfil. It is gratitude that makes the soul great.”
– Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder –