A Month of Thanksgiving

Gratitude is like a flashlight. If you go out in your yard at night and turn on a flashlight, you can suddenly see what’s there. It was always there, but you couldn’t see it in the dark.  – Dawna Markova

Each year when November comes around and we draw close to Thanksgiving, I always welcome the reminder of how important it is to pause and give thanks. Maybe especially this year, when the daily media feed feels pretty dark and gloomy. I appreciate the reminder in the above quote about turning on the “flashlight of gratitude”, so that we don’t miss all the moments of beauty and generosity and solidarity and courage. Each one is a balm for the soul in dark times.

The German medieval mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you’, that would be enough”.  Perhaps he saw how gratitude turns our eyes and our hearts toward the Creator, the Giver of All Gifts, and reminds us that there are blessings to be found everywhere. Saying thank you opens up a place inside us which allows us to truly SEE the gift of the Other and generates energy which heals divisions and draws us a bit closer. It creates spaciousness where we are shut up tight- kind of like a closed fist gently opening into a handshake.

Perhaps you might like to join me in making November a month of Thanksgiving- where each day we make a point to turn on the flashlight and let gratitude show us something that is gift. Write it down each day, and then we will be ever more ready to welcome the light of Christ as we enter into Advent on the last day of the month.

Let your gratitude light shine!

Pastor Annette