Being Grateful in Every Moment
“Can you be grateful for everything? No, not everything, but in every moment.”
After a night of heavy rain, the sun peeks out from behind the clouds this morning and a blustery wind blows the leaves off the oak tree in the backyard. It is Thanksgiving weekend. A 20-pound turkey takes up most of the bottom shelf of the fridge, leaving just enough room to cool the white wine we will be having with dinner. Butter and cream cheese soften on the kitchen counter, ready to be folded into a pumpkin-maple Bundt cake. After much deliberation, we have decided to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with our children. There will be only six of us and our bubble is small, we feel safe. But we have decided not to invite my mother to join us, she is elderly, her health is compromised, and it feels too risky. My mother understands and will be enjoying a wonderful dinner with her friends at the seniors’ residence where she lives, but I still feel a twinge of guilt. It does not feel right, not to have her sit down with us, but even the slightest chance of infection is not worth the risk.
My Facebook feed has been full of Thanksgiving memories from past years. Two years ago I wrote,
I have gotten into the habit of waking up at 6 am most mornings and I so enjoy the quiet, slow start to the day – my morning coffee, some time for reflection, and a deep sense of gratitude. Today is Thanksgiving, and while there are so many issues in the world that frustrate, challenge, and worry us, there is also so much kindness and wonder and beauty. Closer to home, our fridge is full to the brim of goodness, and we will be sitting down for dinner tonight with family and friends. We are healthy, we are happy, and we are content.
I thought this week that I would blog about all that I am grateful for, then realized that I celebrate the bounty in my life on an almost daily basis. I began keeping a gratitude journal many, many years ago. In 1996, I read Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life by Sarah Ban Breathnach, a book that was accompanied by The Simple Abundance Gratitude Journal. At the time, Oprah referred to the journal as ‘life-changing’. At that time, I made a commitment to myself to write down my gratitudes at the end of every day. I did this in part because life was not always easy for me in my 30’s and 40’s. I know now that I was struggling with dysthymia. Noting the things that I was grateful for would often bring some calmness at the end of a dark day. But not always, sometimes I would go through a whole month without being able to write a single gratitude. Dysthymia, a persistent chronic depression that flowed in and out of my life, would make me feel hopeless, and without hope, it was difficult to feel gratitude.
As the years passed, my gratitude practice became an oral practice. No longer was I keeping a gratitude journal, instead gratitude would often be my last thought, lulling me into a peaceful sleep.
My favourite teacher on gratitude is Brother David Steindl-Rast, who is now 94 years old and has been a Benedictine monk for over 65 years. About gratitude, he says, “Can you be grateful for everything? No, not for everything, but in every moment.” His video, A Grateful Day, is bookmarked on my computer and I have probably watched it over one hundred times. On days when life feels overwhelming or hopeless, this video grounds me, reminding of all that I have to be grateful for.
Brother David spoke of gratitude and thanksgiving in an interview he did with Krista Tippett on On Being in 2016.
The reason why I use the words “gratitude” and “gratefulness” and “thanksgiving” in the way in which I use them is that we really need different terms for our experience. And we all know from experience that moments in which this gratitude wells up in our hearts are experienced, first, as if something were filling up within us, filling with joy, really, but not yet articulate. And then it comes to a point where the heart overflows, and we sing, and we thank somebody; and for that, I like a different term, and then I call that “thanksgiving.” And the two of them are two aspects, or two phases, actually, of the process that is gratitude, so that’s why I’m using it in this way.
He continues by saying that gratitude is a chosen response and that gratitude brings joy. The words he then shares resonate deeply for me this Thanksgiving when there is so much happening in our world that brings fear and worry.
I always say, joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens. And usually, we have the idea, well, when something nice happens, then I’m happy. And when something bad happens, of course, I’m unhappy. Well, you can be unhappy, and yet, joyful. We don’t think of that, but there is a deep inner peace and joy in the midst of sadness. If we feel our way into it, we know that.
As the whisper of the coming season beckons, and I prepare Thanksgiving dinner, it is Brother David’s words that bring me gratitude – “Today. It is the only day that is given to you. Today. It is a gift. It is the only gift you have right now. And the only response is gratefulness.”