reveries - gratitude

46. The Practice of Gratitude

"Gratitude ... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy."

-Henri Nouwen

Research actually shows the habitual practice of gratitude can change one's brain chemistry. By no means is this a cure for severe clinical depression, but speaking as one who battles the blues and finds himself struggling if not with depression, certainly with meloncholia, I can tell you that the spiritual practice of gratitude does help me. I don't talk about it much; I do my best to cope.

Not to subject the world to my self-theraphy, but... okay, I'm going to subject the world--at least the tiny fraction of it that stumbles on this blog--with my practice of what Nouwen calls the discipline of gratitude. It's discipline I'm trying to practice each morning when I wake where I intentionally express gratitude to God for big and small things. Perhaps there's too much selfish motive in this--I really do want to change my brain chemistry.

So, anyhow, practice number one is to remember that gratitude isn't primarily about me and what I get, but about God and who He is.

As a late colleague used to say through his long battle with cancer that eventually took his life, "inhale grace, exhale gratitude."

To be continued...