On Gratitude

It does not take wizard level perception to notice that we just celebrated the high feast of gluttony and consumption. And by mocking it please know that I am not taking your inventory - but mine. We baked, we cooked, we uncorked wines and even smoked a very nice cigar outside in the waning afternoon sunlight - and yes we said "thanks" over a sumptuous meal with friends and family. It was wonderful and filling, and for it all I am grateful.

But I have been practicing a different level of spiritual awareness of late - one that looks to find faith when there is no reason to believe, and one that celebrates gratitude when there in nothing on the plate in front of me. And I must admit with chagrin that I find this discipline very difficult. I am privileged. I am gifted with abundance - affluence, really (on a world scale what would be called wealth). I am blessed with a life without pain or threat of daily violence. In short, I am not challenged.

How then can I claim to develop and advance my faith? How can I exercise true gratitude? Do I really want to pray for this all to be stripped away? (No freaking way!!) Do I really want to volunteer for the Job experience? (Hell no!) And yet, devoid of these litmus tests of faith and gratitude, I am but a clanging gong or a noisy cymbal.


I have been contemplating the idea of going on a fast - like a five day or seven day fast. But then even that occurs to me as a luxury that I enjoy. Like I can even "choose" to go on a fast, the hardest part of which is that I can choose to break it at any point. There are those who can choose neither - whether to fast (as it most often occurs with the regularity of a neighbors visit) or to end the fast (as if they even know when the next hunk of bread (forget about a meal) is going to come. So fasting just seems like some arrogant, elitist Uncle Tom-ism to me.

All I really want and pray for is to know my god more completely, to strip away all that stands between me and my maker and source. It is just a quest, my quest, and for all of the challenges in trying to fulfill that quest..
...I am most grateful.
Happy Gratitude Day