Thanks Giving

I’ve been busy! Here’s the first blog post in a month or so, for Thanksgiving. More to come soon. Thanks for you!

It’s clear to me that the ability to feel gratitude is true wealth. Many possessions and little gratitude make for an ironic poverty, a dull heart. The open, enlivened heart, on the other hand, reflects even small beauties, amplifying them, finds wonder in common things, and is wealthy with day-to-day gratitude and with a quick delight. The eye become keen pouring beauty into the heart, and bright with the awakened enthusiasm pouring out.

I’m with my mom for Thanksgiving. She a master of thankfulness. Ninety in May, Mom is blind and unable to walk now after her stroke — though she could barely walk before it. She spends her days largely in bed, helped in and out on the way to table or toilet. I would expect her to be at least mildly melancholic, bored, nostalgic, restless. But no, contentment pours out of her like water. Each meal she raves, each phone conversation is a blessing, each piece of music a gift.  In quiet moments she is quietly happy. To all those who come within her purview she offers her lovely smile, words of encouragement and lively appreciation. Her memories are rich and alive within her. She’s learned the secret well.

As I grew up, Mom’s Thanksgivings were wondrous affairs, brimming with food, friends, music, stories, laughter, crackling fires and inclement weather outside, but much warmth inside. I’m grateful for those great celebrations and for the rich spoken words of thanks around the circle that always were the core of the festivities. Mom was and is a good teacher of thankfulness.

I’ve had very lean years and big challenges as most of us have. A life is a long, winding, remarkable journey. Looking for blessings, keeping a keen eye open for goodness hidden in troubles, even disasters, has saved me on many a day. The heart feeds on what it believes. Dispair is poison. Hope is nourishing. Thankfulness based in the knowledge that Life supports us, helps and builds us through thick and thin, is an elixir that can wholly transform our experience.

I saw a warbler flitting about the garden the other day. Recently arrived from the northern forests, it was on its way south to Central America for the winter. 2000 miles down, 2000 to go. I don’t know if it was thankful about having made it this far, or hopeful for the success of its journey — but I was.