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.
