Our
Spiritual Health . . .
Gratitude
by Charlene
Snyder
This column
is written by YOU... the men and women of our church
family. This is a place where you can share your
thoughts, reflections, and the spiritual practices that
work for you. These may be things that have
evolved, or things that you have learned by trial and
error to incorporate into the daily routines of your
physical and spiritual life. We are all on a
healing spiritual journey and it is in sharing that
journey that we grow and learn from one another.
Here is one Spiritual Practice that many people have
found helpful and nourishing for their Spiritual Health:
Giving "thanks" or being grateful on a daily basis.
The following excerpts are from Sarah Ban Breathnach's
introduction to her Gratitude Journal:*
Gratitude is the most passionate transformative
force in the cosmos. When we offer thanks to
God or to another human being, gratitude gifts us
with renewal, reflection, reconnection.
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to
encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent
moments of awe that change forever how we experience
life (is abundant or is it lacking?) and the world
(is it friendly or is it hostile?). Once we
accept that abundance and lack are parallel
realities and that each day we choose -- consciously
or unconsciously -- which world we will inhabit, a
deep inner shift in our reality occurs. We
discover the sacred in the ordinary and we realize
that every day is literally a gift. How we
conduct our daily round, how we celebrate it,
cherish it, and consecrate it is how we express our
thankfulness to the Giver of all good.
Gratitude holds us together even as we're falling
apart. Ironically, gratitude's most powerful
mysteries are often revealed when we are struggling
in the midst of personal turmoil. When we
stumble in the darkness, rage in anger, hurl faith
across the room, abandon all hope. While we
cry ourselves to sleep, gratitude waits patiently to
console and reassure us; there is a landscape larger
than the one we can see.
Sarah
Ban Breathnach continues, "The Bible instructs us 'to
give thanks in all circumstances,' but it doesn't tell
us we have to be smiling while we say it."
She further suggests, "...If you give thanks for five
gifts every day, in two months you will not look at your
life in the same way as you might now. Gratitude
can lead you, as it did me, away from the darkness of
complicated need into the Light of Simple Abundance."
She closes her introduction by saying, "...every time we
remember to say 'thank you' we experience nothing less
than Heaven on earth."
Some Quotes from the Journal:*
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns
what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial
into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to
clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house
into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude
makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and
creates a vision for tomorrow.
-- Melody Beattie
Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or
something in your life actually attracts more of the
things that you appreciate and value into your life.
And, the more of your life that you like and
appreciate, the healthier you'll be. Science is now
documenting what women have known intuitively for
millennia: that 'thinking with your heart'
will lead you in the right direction.
-- Christiane Northrup, M.D.
For today and its blessings, I owe the world an
attitude of gratitude.
-- Clarence E. Hodges
So whether you write your down the five things you're
grateful for each day in a special journal or in an
ordinary notebook... reflecting and giving "thanks" will
benefit your Spiritual Health.
Let us hear from You!!!
If you
would be willing to share your thoughts and reflections
about the practices in your life that contribute to your
Spiritual Health, please send them to:
editor@suquamishucc.org
*The
Simple Abundance Journal of Gratitude, Sarah Ban
Breathnach. 1996.
