Perennial Gratitude
Watching a young girl walk through a fresh field of lavender, I immediately feel awe at the earth’s ability to renew itself, via growth, birth, evolution and creation of new living forms. I’m also awed by the perennial nature of gratitude itself.
Though I seek to live gratefully daily, any given day may take me away from gratitude, for countless reasons. After many years of practice, I still don’t know how to feel grateful for every challenge, every pain, every chaotic event on this unbalanced, spinning sphere. I’m sure you can relate.
I’ve learned, though, that constancy in gratitude is as unnecessary as it is impossible. Returning to gratitude is much like returning home at the end of a long day. Gratitude too will perennially renew itself, if we’re open to experiencing beauty as simple as fresh eyes meeting fresh lavender. Gratitude is a natural touchstone, in the bedrock of our spirit and soul. Touching into gratitude is as restorative as a walk in a pristine forest. It’s as elemental as a sweet, deep breath.
Even when feeling grateful is elusive, gratitude’s daily work is always still available. We can always work to cultivate beauty for others, no matter the mood we’re in. Thus, I ask a two-part question every morning, in greeting another unpredictable day. First, for whom or what am I grateful, at this particular moment? Then, what is the work of gratitude I’ll do this day, regardless of how pained I may feel?
There’s always an answer to the second question, even on the rare days when I can’t answer the first. To love is to serve; to be grateful is to serve as well. It’s through doing small, simple service for others—including and especially when I don’t feel like it— through which my grateful feelings return. Gratitude in action is transformative magic.
Our transformation is deeper together. Gratitude is easier in community, as are meditation and singing and many other things. We draw strength from each other, and to create conscious community around gratitude multiplies and deepens the benefits immeasurably. To draw this community of celebration closer is to share the wonder of that field of lavender together. To see it through each other’s fresh eyes.
To see new life experiencing the miracle of other new life, reminds me of the earth’s own resilience in healing, which is so much greater than our own. Across four billion epic years of fire, flood, beauty, birth, death, creation, extinction, new evolution, the earth has never complained. When painful changes come, it simply accepts, goes inward, and finds another way for new beautiful forms of life to come into being.
When grateful feelings remain out of reach, all I have to do is to notice one detail of the natural earth’s resilience and rebirth. Then, my remembrance of life’s miracle returns, within something as subtle as the scent of lavender, or the wonder of a child experiencing it for the first time. Will you join me there in gratitude, for a moment? May I see beauty through your eyes this morning?