On Gratitude Street – with grateful thanks

A couple of weeks ago I overheard a young woman I know talking to herself. She was saying how very fortunate she was to have friends who cared for her and expressing gratitude for the many good things in her life. Knowing a little about her situation I am aware that she has had a very troubled life. A professional woman, she fled her own country a few years ago, with her son and young daughter following persecution, violence and torture, arriving in the UK with nothing but the clothes they wore. Life here hasn’t been easy, and the road ahead is very uncertain, yet she was still able to reflect on her current situation with thankfulness and gratitude. I found it very humbling.

Gratitude is about an acceptance of things as they are and being thankful for what we have. It sees life and all we have as a gift. This is in stark contrast with a mindset that is not content and which always wants things in our life to change. This often includes those around us changing too. Living in a consumer society doesn’t help, since this cultivates discontentment; the idea that what we have now isn’t sufficient and that if we had a better, newer, smarter something or other, we would be happier and more fulfilled. And of course, we could then be grateful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this. Neither new stuff nor anything else we do such as drinking or drugging to make us feel better or happier can do so more than fleetingly, so we’re never really content, grateful and happy for what we’ve got. Resentments and self-pity can become even greater obstacles. It becomes all too easy to live our lives without ever really reaching a place of gratitude.

Of course, it can be hard to be grateful amidst the humdrum stuff of life, and even harder when difficult, painful things happen to us and to others. Sometimes, with the passage of time we may be able look back and see blessings that arose as a consequence of bad times and be grateful, because mostly we learn through our failure and suffering, not through success. Sometimes though, pain and struggle do not have an obvious purpose or meaning. Gratitude is not about living on a pink cloud or cultivating a false and dishonest positivity. Instead it means realising the power we have to reframe how we see a problem or difficulty and turning it into something more positive for which we can be grateful. Or we can look back or forward to some other things for which we can be grateful. In the midst of the bad stuff, our lives have still been blessed. It is hard for others to show us this or tell us – we have to be open to discovering it for ourselves. Like the young woman I overheard, we can actively decide to be grateful whenever we can; grateful for the glimmers of light, the small joys, blessings and fulfilments that we continue to experience along the way. God is at work around and through us to make something beautiful from the mundane and the messy bits of life – and just believing that, is something for which we can be grateful.

When Jesus healed a group of ten lepers only one of them returned to thank him – a reminder to us that if we seek the gratitude of others for things we do, we’d better get used to working with small percentages! Jesus talked a great deal about God’s loving care, knowing what we need and providing for us. About our relationship with him being as a father who only gives us good things. He sought to encourage a loving, trusting, grateful relationship with God. Giving thanks in all things. And this gratitude is not for the benefit of all those around us; it’s a quiet inner thanksgiving to God for what we receive. It’s a relational thing and a mind-set which always has us openly facing towards God, not turning away.

Gratitude is an important part of recovery too, replacing self-pity and blame which help to sustain addiction. There is gratitude for another chance of life, trusting that all will be well in the end. Seeing good in people and circumstances, concentrating on these rather than the negatives and accepting things as gifts. Gratitude is all about having the right mind-set which helps us to think less about ourselves, develops humility and gives us a much more positive perspective on life.  Seeing our glass as half full not half empty. As a narrative on step ten says, “we seek to have an honest regret for harms we have done, a genuine gratitude for blessings we have received and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow.”

Today on the first day of a New Year, as I look out of the window from where I am sitting, sipping a mug of tea, I can see the sun shining brightly in a pale blue winter sky. From the warmth of my home, I watch Geoffrey, the neighbour’s cat walk briskly down the street with an unusual sense of purpose. A child is laughing and the occasional bird flies past the window heading for a roof or treetop perch. This very ordinary scene becomes truly extra-ordinary when I stop and think about what it entails and suddenly I am full of gratitude. I have sight, hearing, warmth and security, but would I have been thankful for these simple, taken-for-granted things if I weren’t writing this piece about gratitude? I doubt it.

It’s been said that gratitude is a decision of the will, and if it’s a decision of the will, the choice to be grateful or not rests firmly and squarely with each of us. So, although New Year’s resolutions are not really my thing, I’m going to break with this and pledge to practice gratitude every day in 2019. Gratitude for the small and simple things of life, gratitude for the many wonderful people I know, gratitude for the pleasures of living, gratitude about my circumstances – even when they’re not great and I can’t see how things are going to work out. And of course, gratitude for God’s love. If I stick to doing this, I hope that there will be more joy, beauty and happiness in my life and perhaps the world around me may be that little bit better too.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. John Milton

I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude. Brene Brown

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Thomas Merton

It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up. Eckhart Toll

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Gratitude-Word-Cloud

 

The Parable of the Fruit – God provides

Ambulance John came to the Food Co-op this week. We hadn’t seen him for a while. He brought with him two sacks of apples and some bananas which were a welcome addition to the fruit we were giving out that day. John drives a beaten-up old ambulance, crudely painted in a shade of dark green and collects food, clothes and furniture from many undisclosed sources which he then takes to charities and people he discovers are in need. How he found us or where he comes from remain a mystery, and for some reason, those of us helping to run the Co-op like to keep it that way. His coming and going is about as predictable as the national lottery winning numbers. Who knows when he will return – he blows where he wills.

The Food Co-op in Bensham is based on the beautiful, humanising model of food pantries begun by Sarah Miles in San Francisco, recounted in her book Take This Bread. The Co-op is as far removed from the conventional UK food bank as we can make it; lots of fresh vegetables, people are members rather than recipients and they choose their own produce, most of the volunteer helpers are also members and access to the weekly co-op is for as long as anyone needs it. Like the first of Sarah’s food pantries at St Gregory of Nyssa, we operate out of a church (the only place willing to offer us rent free space) but unlike California, the North East of England does not have a ready supply of cheap fresh fruit. Prices are too high for us to buy it in for the increasing number of members and their hungry families. Fruit may seem like a luxury, not one of the staples of life, but I can buy fruit when I want to, so, in the spirit of loving our neighbour as ourselves, our view at the Co-op is that we want the people who come to us to get fruit too.

Sourcing it has been another matter. We contacted the obvious people – supermarkets and wholesalers who may have surplus, but generally they failed to reply. The few who did were already supplying their surplus fruit to horse and pony sanctuaries. We thought that a local factory which produces fruit juices for the UK market might be able to offer us fruit at cost price but they didn’t respond to our letters or calls, and neither did their parent company, a multi-national concern with a high level of Corporate Social Responsibility. One or two of us prayed and we continued to look for a supplier, a connection to a guaranteed supply of fruit. But we never found one.

I don’t know when it was that we realised that although we didn’t have this guaranteed weekly supply, fruit was arriving every week. And it was always enough. It never came from the same sources – sometimes an unexpected supermarket surplus, sometime Fareshare, sometimes a cheap offer at the wholesalers and often it came as small individual donations. Fruit pileMy controlling, organised mind-set wanted a nice tidy, planned supply of fruit for the next few years, but instead, God supplied what we needed, when we needed it. No more and no less. And what variety! Over the last couple of months alone we have had plums, peaches, apples, limes, grapes, pears, melons, bananas, mangos, blackberries, strawberries, lemons, raspberries, oranges and pineapples!

Inevitably, this brings us back to that whole question of living in the day and trusting in God to provide us with the resources we need at the time we need them, rather than fretting ahead and wanting everything sorted out in advance. The antithesis of fear and worry is always faith and trust. Constantly I have to learn and re-learn the words of Jesus that we should not worry about what to eat or drink as God provides for the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and cares much more than this for us. It’s all about trust. As it says in the Big Book, “We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves.” “We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All people of faith have courage. They trust their God.”  To me, this faith and trust is not found in the doctrines, dogmas and creeds of religion but rather in placing my trust in a God of love and grace. Where I discover this God, or more to the point, where God chooses to appear is irrelevant – it could be in nature, in the Eucharist, in the kindness of a stranger, in a 12-step meeting or in the arrival of much needed fruit. As Richard Rohr so brilliantly (and uncharacteristically simply) says, “the gospel is not primarily a set of facts but a way of seeing and a way of being in the world because of God. Jesus speaks to the heart, saying (1) God is on your side; (2) God can be trusted; (3) the universe is safe and benevolent; (4) trust yourselves, one another and God; (5) there is no reason to be afraid; (6) it’s all heading toward something good! He does this primarily by touch, relationship, healing and parables.”

As we enter the months of winter, my challenge will be to trust that we will continue to receive what we need at the Co-op when we need it, including fruit. And of course holding on to this trust applies to every other aspect of my life too. I don’t begin to understand how it works, or how I can explain places of atrocity, warfare and starvation and how God’s love and provision is found there, but somehow, I believe it is. But we can only bloom where we are planted and that is all each of us is here to do. So next time you eat an apple or a banana remember this parable of the fruit, reaffirm your trust in God’s care and provision for you and keep on blooming.

You say to God, “I have never seen you provide for me.” God says to you, “You have never trusted Me.” Corallie Buchanan

God will always provide; it just might look different from what we had in mind.  Anonymous

Miracles happen everyday. Change your perception of what a miracle is and you’ll see them all around you. Jon Bon Jovi

When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go.  Henri Nouwen

My trust in God flows out of the experience of his loving me, day in and day out, whether the day is stormy or fair, whether I’m sick or in good health, whether I’m in a state of grace or disgrace. He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am. Brennan Manning