I am grateful. It is a phrase I have used in various forms hundreds of times over the past seven months that I’ve been writing this blog. So many things for which to be grateful…they are all around me, inside of me, everywhere. No matter how tired, stressed, depressed or half asleep I am, I haven’t failed to find at least a half dozen things each day that I am grateful to have in my life, so many reasons to give thanks. Today I spent some time reading and writing about gratitude and related topics. In addition to continuing to write this blog, I am working on a top-secret gratitude project. Okay perhaps not top secret, but is what I expect to be interesting work that allows me to think more deeply about what it means to be grateful and how to continue to cultivate a gratitude practice.
Tonight I am grateful for being in the right place at the right time. I am exactly where I’m supposed to be. Sometimes I don’t know exactly where I am or how I got here, and I’m still sorting out where I’m supposed to be going and what I’m supposed to be doing. But none of that really matters. All the planets have aligned to bring me to this spot today. I’ve spent a lot of time asking questions about what I’m supposed to be doing with my life right now. As I’ve let go of conventional, preconceived notions of what that might look like and remained open to different possibilities, I believe I’m closer to getting answers. I am reading, reflecting and writing on a variety of things and the more I engage in those three pursuits (along with meditating, praying, singing and others) the stronger my feeling that I am headed in the “right” direction.
I confess that I am not always cool and calm about this process. A lot of things in the here and now are staring me in the face–for example the ever-present financial realities of trying to meet my responsibilities while unemployed–that cause me to wake up sometimes with my heart thudding and my mind racing about how I’m going to take care of everything. The bills are already here; the sources of income are still in manifesting mode and haven’t quite shown up. In spite of this I find myself experiencing a curious sense of optimism. Curious because if I look around me with the naked, untrained eye everything looks pretty much the same as it has been for the past several months. But when viewed through the eyes of…well, of faith, everything is coming together in remarkable and miraculous ways. I can’t wait to write about it as soon as it begins to unfold in clear, tangible form. When it manifests, I’ll post it right here in this blog for us all to read and rejoice. Note the date: January 21, 2012. You read it here first.
Of course right this moment I can’t write about what it is: it’s a secret, even from me. I am grateful for the placid assurance I am feeling in this moment. It will pass, it always does. Emotions come and go–I get excited and hopeful and terrified and fearful and calm and panicked–it runs the gamut. But what remains steady and unflappable is what happens at the level of spirit. I’ve touched that steadiness before–it’s a place of calm and stillness where I know with absolute certainty that everything is going to be alright. I do not yet live in that place, but my plan is to visit it much more often. I am grateful to have this blog “out there” as a witness to the power of gratitude, generosity, love, and faith to transform lives, or at the very least this one life. Thank you to those of you who read it and are on this journey with me. May we all know happiness and the source of happiness. So be it!
