A Grateful Pause…
For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.” —Elie Wiesel
My reasons for loving Thanksgiving and the long weekend that follows have changed over the years. I find myself now treasuring the emphasis on gratitude and the slower pace this week brings at Eremos.
Specifically, the realization of gratitude’s power for healing, transformation, and openness to possibilities for good that come after even a few moments spent writing, reflecting, or sharing what we’re grateful for stands out this year.
As I wrote about last June, this understanding finally sunk into my bones after hosting two back-to-back sessions on grief in which both facilitators (Terra McDaniel and Dr. Claire Colombo) had participants focus on gratitude before beginning to explore their grief.
With all that is changing—sometimes shockingly so—in our world, gratitude can serve as a potent boost to our system to help us weather these changes. So you’re invited to pause often to acknowledge all you’re grateful for. Not as a chore or one more to-do, but as a powerful and loving act of self-care.
“At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” ―Albert Schweitzer
Sometimes this past year my light has dimmed in moments of despair for what’s unfolding in the world (at least on the surface). I am grateful for the people, creatures (especially all the dogs I meet on my walks), and stunning beauty glimpsed in nature that rekindle my light. What are you grateful for? Who has offered a spark to reignite your light?
May your awareness expand to the many people, creatures, places, and things you have to be grateful for. And may this awareness carry your forward into many moments of peace, joy, and love this holy, holiday season.
Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s Powerful…
“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.”
—William Arthur Ward
A Grateful Life
“The whole world is sacred, and we connect with that sacredness when we give thanks. So have a grateful day. Better yet, have a grateful life.”
― Rivvy Neshama
Blessing for the Fullness of This Day
I bless this day in the fullness of good it already contains, in the many occasions it offers to listen deeply, to be of service to others, to express gratitude moment by moment and to keep my mind so filled with love, beauty and joy that no negativity can find even the tiniest crack in which to set foot.
I bless this day in the infinite opportunities it gives me to love: to love and bless every human I meet, every beast or bird I pass by, every plant I behold, for all are but the manifold expressions of the infinite Life that undergirds all.
Truly, I bless this day for the wonderful adventure it can become as I walk through it with the eyes of wonder rather than boredom, use every opportunity to express peace rather than irritation, and chose love over fear. Thank you, Life, for this day.
— Pierre Pradervand, The Gentle Art of Blessing
