Many Expressions of Gratitude
Gratitude has always come naturally to me. My parents taught me good manners, including to say "thank you" often. We always say grace at mealtimes. And over the years, I've written articles on thanking people, animals, nature, things, and the Source of All That Is. We have a whole section devoted to gratitude on our website.
So I am feeling especially grateful today that the "New Morning" show on Gratitude has shown me some new ways to view this essential spiritual practice. Daisy Khan made some wonderful distinctions.
Gratitude of the tongue is saying "Thank you." Okay, I do that. Gratitude of the body is returning someone's gift. I do that, too. But how, she asked, do we express our gratitude to God who needs neither our thanks nor our gifts because God already has everything? "By being sincere in your commitment to realizing the purpose and potential of your life and arranging your life accordingly."
Being all that I can be as one of God's daughters — that is a way of showing God that I am thankful. I think of two men profiled on this show — Todd, a quadraplegic, and Matt, who has MS — and see that, by their very way of being in the world, they are living expressions of gratitude. They exhibit that sincere commitment Daisy was talking about.
Another insight about gratitude came when Brenda Shoshanna introduced the Naikan method. I first learned of this practice from Gregg Krech of the ToDo Institute, and longtime viewers of "New Morning" may remember an early segment in which I traced all the people I was grateful to for bringing pizza to my door. That was my attempt to answer the first daily question in Naikan: What did I receive today? The second question is: What did I give today? And the third asks: What troubles or difficulties did I cause today? All three encourage mindfulness. They also remind me of another story that expands the traditional understanding of gratitude.
On the TV series "Chicago Hope," one of the main characters has a heart attack and nearly dies. When he recovers enough to talk, one of the doctors asks him if he has perhaps learned the secret of life through his ordeal. His answer: The secret of life is "giving and receiving." Both our giving and our receiving are expressions of gratitude.