Looking back over the years, gratitude shines like the sky sparkling with diamonds (lifted from a Chekhov card). But it is apt...to decide, the decision!, to feel grateful keeps the light shining from within.
It is that decision, to feel grateful, to say thank you, for all that comes right Now is the bedrock for a life of happy, joyous and free
My quest for gratitude began fifty long/short years ago when I met a man who said...often..."The most spiritual thing you will ever do in your lifetime is to slow down."
I thought he was addled.
A short time later, in response to my question of how I could stop my anxiety, the same man said, "Just do something about something."
Again...addled.
Lo, these many short years later, both of his sayings have become mantras to me, or aphorisms, depending on how seriously I'm taking myself.
Brand new mantra: Be careful what you wish for becomes be careful what you denigrate...both can and will come back and bite us where it hurts most...the ego.
Slow down we realize as spiritual by moving our focus from our worry-want and placing it on our need, our trust in God to fix our worry-want according to his will.
Do something about something is to do the next thing, plain and simple. Note: It is not to do the next right thing, which is the birth of indecision...to do the next thing is such as to put the used coffee cup in the dishwasher, no thinking required.
I am convinced it is the ego that first complicated that saying by adding "right." According to me, trying to decide what is right, and exactly so, stops forward movement. Action, forward movement, is what we need to turn us from our quandary, whatever it may be in that moment.
Do something about something...distract in a word. Distract self to attract Self.
No declarations of loyalty are required, just a response to a repeated question: 'Can we agree to be grateful for all that is given?' - Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 6, 2022
Thank you.
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