Waking Up Grateful

I went to the Diocesan Clergy Retreat recently.  Brother Curtis from SSJE was our leader.  I love him.  Each day we were there he looked us each in the eye, and in his gentle, soft voice, thanked us profusely for our work as clergy, encouraged us in our ministries and told us how very loved we are.  How often does someone say such things to you?  I just wanted to bring him home and have him read me a bedtime story every night.

One practice Curtis encouraged us to work on is to thank God at bedtime, not only for the day past, but for our whole lives - in effect - to say thank you and goodnight to God as if we knew it was our last chance to do so - to "pray a completeness," as if our work was over and done.  And then, if by some stroke of good fortune, we find ourselves still alive in the morning, to wake up and receive the new day with gratefulness and joy.

It's a popular thing to do these days to make a gratitude list - writing out at least 10 things that you can honestly say you feel thankful for each morning:

1. I'm grateful for my warm bed
2. I'm grateful for the good breakfast I'm about to have

etc.

The retreat brought the gratitude list idea to a new level for me. I realized that I'm often and easily grateful for those things that are obvious and pleasurable.  Who wouldn't be?  However, there's a gratefulness in me that I don't always tap - a deeper gratefulness that I truly do have inside - which is a kind of buried, dormant gratitude. 

I remember when I was a teenager I broke the toe next to my pinkie toe on my right foot.  The pain of that broken toe disrupted all of my usual activities - from walking to sleeping.  I remember thinking, "Wow - you don't know how important a little toe is until it's not functioning!"  I know that if tomorrow I were gasping for breath, I would realize how much I took my easy breathing today for granted.  I know when the recent hurricane took our power for three days, I realized how much I take unspoiled food, light, and warmth for granted - things I normally have in abundance every day and night.  Curtis' words made me think about how I'd rather notice and really appreciate the gifts I've been given without having to lose them first. 

So I'm working on taking careful notice of the many basic and important things God has given me today.   Through doing this, I've also begun to notice that a real, profound and powerful gratitude is already there inside me to be mined and felt all the time.  And mining this treasure out of my own depths puts me in touch with how much God loves and supports me today - right now!  (Which feels a whole lot better than resenting what I think I should or could have and don't.)

Mining this deep gratitude helps me receive the day "as a gift rather than a given," as Curtis put it, and it also keeps me from worrying so much about what to do with this day, or worrying about what might happen in the course of it.  In the state of gratitude, everything that comes along during the course of a day is also a gift. 

Working on uncovering your deepest gratitude is a wonderful thing to do during Thanksgiving week.  I've found myself far less concerned with making the perfect meal or writing the perfect Thanksgiving sermon this year.  Instead I've been working on unwrapping each hour as a new gift to be savored and have found this gratitude practice to be as satisfying as a Thanksgiving feast.

Practice

Well, I haven't written in weeks.  I really like my blog, and enjoy writing it.  It's kind of like keeping a scrapbook.  I enjoy having my camera with me to snap pictures of things that strike me as beautiful or thought provoking, and I like coming home and taking a few minutes to write about what I experienced.  I started this blog last spring, and have posted about once a week or even more since then - until July.   With vacation and other schedule changes, I got out of practice and here it is a month since I last wrote.

It strikes me that most things of value in life require practice, whether you're talking about learning how to play an instrument, becoming good at a craft, or learning how to be a good spouse, friend or parent.  Doctors and lawyers and other professionals call their work their "practice," because skill and wisdom increase with repeated experience - or practice.  And of course, people of faith put many spiritual practices into their lives - doing things like praying, worshipping, studying and performing acts of service regularly - in order to get closer to God and deepen in their faith.

While it takes effort to practice, practice adds up and you get to keep it under your belt.  Though you get rusty when you fall out of practice, you can, with renewed effort, get back and pick up your practice again.  Take running for example.  This summer has been wicked hot, as we say in NH.  Since the heat hit, I have not run three times a week as I did last spring, and I think if I tried to run a 5K tomorrow, I'd certainly have to walk some of it.  But last week, I started walking regularly again.  I don't know if I'll be running like I was last spring any time again soon - or ever.  But I am now back to enjoying the feeling of moving my body down the trail, even if I only break into a run every now and then.

I have often set ambitious goals for myself in life (like running in that 5K last May.)  So I think it's important for me to remember that practice is different than achievement.  Practice is not the means to an end - it is the way I live my life everyday. 

My oldest son, Orion, was a magnificent cello player throughout his youth.  In fact, when he was in high school, he began working with a world class cello teacher who told him he had what it took to be a professional orchestral cellist in an elite orchestra.  "But," the teacher said, "you're going to have to practice 2-3 hours a day for the next two years to get ready for conservatory.  Not many people have this opportunity - or your talent - but I can help you do it if you decide it's what you want."  Orion was deeply impacted by his teacher's invitation to be a cello star, and he began working very hard.  He did practice 2 -3 hours a day that fall, even though you could tell it was like pulling teeth for him some days.  Finally that winter he said to me one day, "I know not many people have this opportunity, but this just isn't me."  He decided a life as a classical cellist was not what he wanted.  Now he spends his time doing a different kind of music.  He is a songwriter and guitarist with his own band.  (http://therockefellerfortune.bandcamp.com/) 

Practicing the cello 2-3 hours was a monumental effort for Orion - something that took incredible self will to maintain and something that made his life feel like it was not his own, but someone else's.  But once he made the switch from classical music to indie folk/rock, he never stopped practicing.  His guitar was practically attached to his body and now he probably plays 2-10 hours a day without giving it a second thought.  Though obviously Orion's practice still takes effort, it is no longer a struggle.  Instead, practice is part of who he is as a human being.  And as a result, his music just keeps getting better and better.  In the end, I admired that he gave cello as a profession a good try, and I also admired that when he realized it wasn't right for him, he let it go. Giving things a try and letting things that are not working go are both important skills we will all be invited to practice over and over in life.

I'm learning more and more every day, in my own practice of life, that forcing myself into a discipline I think I "should" be doing or sacrificing today for the hope of some future goal I think I "should" reach is not what I'm called to do either.  The way I want to practice my life is to willingly engage with the world and live as only I can  - discerning every day how to be more and more what God created me to be.  It often takes quite a bit of effort to joyfully follow God's will for me - it is a practice that often stretches and challenges me. But the more I practice, the more it becomes just who I am.