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Comments
One response to “Curb Your Car Month – Kick off! (gratitude #20)”
Here are some reasons I am so struck and so pleased by your theme of gratefulness.
I have returned to an old friend, a book on gratefulness and am struck by its joyfulness.
Some quotes: “Plato recogized that surprise is the beginning of philosopy. It is also the beginning of gratefulness.”
Another quote, “Things and events that trigger surpise are merely catalysts. … We have to find our own (personal catalysts) each one of us. No matter how often that cardinal comes for the cracked corn scattered on a rock for the birds in winter, it is a flash of surprise. I expect him. I’ve come to even know his favorite feeding times. I can hear him chirping long before he comes in sight. But when that red streak shoots down on the rock like lightning on Elijah’s altar, I know what e.e.cummings means: “The eyes of my eyes are opened.”
A further quote I like: “What counts on your path to fulfillment is that we remember the great truth that moments of surprise want to teach us: everything is gratuitous, everything is a gift. The degree to which we are awake to this truth is the measure of our gratefulness.”
Reading this book awakens my own awareness of the gift of life, and I remember that in times of unhappiness gratefulness became my strength. It allowed me to grow toward the light.
No surprise with the reference to Elijah’s altar that this book, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, was written by a Benedictine monk who studied eastern spirituality. I think the blended ideas fit together easily.