Lessons in Gratitude Day 811

Posted on October 2, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight it is tempting to hang up out a shingle that says, “Gone Fishin’,” and go bed rather than write this evening. I hit a wall today–one that I hit when I am tired and not exercising self care. So I will not write much this evening. Mama said there’ll be days like this, and so I’ve learned to roll with that, to be with what is in the moment. I am grateful for the awareness that I have that tomorrow can and will most likely be better and that I have the power within myself to make it so. I have developed the tools and capacity to lift myself out of whatever funk I find myself in and restore myself to a place of greater equanimity and calm. Even as I prepare to take my rest this evening I will begin moving toward that calm, relaxing my mind and releasing whatever burdens might be on my heart at the moment. “Give it to God,” the old folks used to say, and so I am.

In these days ahead as I seek balance, equanimity, and rest, I’ll be inviting guest bloggers to share their perspectives on gratitude, periodically I’ll spin the wheel and repost previous blog entries, and other days I’ll pull together original content. The main thing is to remain focused on the thing that started this whole journey: gratitude for the many blessings in my life.

So for tonight I’ve gone fishin.’ I am trusting that tomorrow I’ll be back and ready to engage. Until then I will offer good wishes for myself and for all beings and allow myself to be where I am until I’m someplace else. And I will, as always, be grateful for my many blessings.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 810

Posted on October 1, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am so grateful tonight that I don’t have anyplace to be or anyone who is clamoring for my attention this evening. Every once in a while I get so overly busy that I meet myself coming and going, running myself ragged. I find that at times such as this I need to find a way to push the pause button in my life, stop, and catch my breath. Unfortunately there really isn’t a simple button to push that slows the pace of life, let alone stops it. So it is incumbent upon me to take steps to exercise what one writer calls, “extreme self care.” I was advised recently by a friend that I need a significant other in my life–someone who could assist me in attending to my own needs rather than ignoring them, which is at times what I have tended to do. And while I admit that it might be nice to have someone else looking after me for a while, in the here and now of this present moment, I must do that for myself.

It’s one of those interesting paradoxes–the notion that we are intricately and intimately connected to all beings on the planet, and yet at the same time we are on our own, responsible for our individual lives–the decisions we make, the actions we take, the rules we break (okay, I couldn’t resist the rhyme.) The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Yes, we are connected and dependent upon one another for our very survival. And yet, in the final analysis, I need to attend to my own needs, live by my own light, tend my own fire so to speak.

It has been interesting reading some of my old posts from a year ago as I traveled across the country from California to Maryland. Last year on this day my brother and I had driven over 880 miles from Salt Lake City, Utah to Lincoln Nebraska: the second of three legs with the two of us and Honor before I dropped him off in Indiana to make the remaining 600 driving solo. There’s nothing quite like a long road trip like that for providing incredible bonding time. My brother and I literally talked our way across the country. I am still moved by his incredible generosity in taking time away from his job and family to ensure that I made it safely across the country. Could I have done it myself? Yes, I could have. But it would have been a much longer, more intensely taxing , and way less enjoyable experience to have driven those 2900 miles alone.

So as I fast forward to today I am thinking about how much I have managed on my own over the last few years. Has my journey been more challenging because I have done much of it solo? No doubt. I have learned over time to reach out and ask for help or at the very least invite support and encouragement from a person here and there. While I might think about that more in the near term, for right this moment, I need to pay attention to and take care of myself. For now that means managing my time and energy in ways that leave a little left in my tank to spend on caring for myself. I’m grateful for the reminder to slow myself down and refresh myself. Now it’s up to me to make it happen. May it be so!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 809

Posted on September 30, 2013 by mtchamblee

Last night when I wrote this blog I confessed to having been a bit out of sorts by the close of the day. While it improved only slightly before I went to bed, I was at least able to pinpoint one of the sources of the “dissonance” I identified yesterday. I am apparently deeply affected by anniversaries–it took me years to notice that every spring I would have unexpected moments, times, hours of sadness, moodiness, and/or a general feeling of discontent. When I finally stopped to think about it, my blues almost always hit around the anniversary of my mother’s illness and death. I used to refer to the annual return of seasonal grief as my “mommy cells waking up.” Similarly, when my father died in late September (23rd) 2010, my “daddy cells” were activated and now make autumn–usually my favorite season–a little more melancholy than I’d like. While yesterday’s hum of dissonance could have been partially associated with the anniversary of my father’s passing, a much more recent anniversary  was more likely the contributor to my overall funk. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my last day living in California.

The last night in the condo I had shared with my son I was sleeping on the floor writing my blog in the dark on my phone. I had turned off my cable and internet the day before so had no way to post it using my computer. I was so tired and the system messed up such that it didn’t post until two days later, but it made it online: day 443. As I look back on the last few weeks of September 2012, I recall what a terribly stressful time that was for me. I’d been packing for what seemed like months, waiting to hear whether or not a job I’d applied for back in March and interviewed for in July would come through. When it finally did and I negotiated my starting day and partial reimbursement for moving, I had less than three weeks to find a home 2900 miles away in the greater Washington metropolitan area, secure a mover, finish packing my stuff, figure out how I was going to come up with the remaining funds to move as well as put down a deposit on a new place. I barely had time to even ponder the emotional impact of leaving the state would have on me.

A year ago today (September 30) I was on the road with my big brother driving and Honor riding shotgun in the back seat. When I wrote my blog that night, 700 miles and 12 hours later, I was able to begin to articulate some of the feelings swirling around me as I departed.

Last night,I posted this blog from my phone somewhere around 3:30 a.m. I woke this morning at 6:30 a.m. and commenced to packing the car and getting the last few items out of my condo. It was an odd, bittersweet feeling as I closed the door to the place.

Tears of gratitude and a sense of loss filled my eyes. This place was a safe place for me to heal from the traumas of 2011. I never really settled in to the place; I guess I spent a number of months in some disbelief at what had happened to me. Perhaps I thought my partner would invite me back, or my old job would realize their mistake, or that this was some nightmare from which I would awaken. The walls of the condo absorbed my cries, echoed the strains of music as I played my guitar and sang myself happy, reflected the healing that was taking place as I first began writing this blog. It saw my son through his own series of challenges, and witnessed the challenges and triumphs that my daughter faced during the past year. The moon rising over the trees in the back parking lot, the antics of the rafter of wild turkeys who roamed the neighborhood, the raucous shrieking of the previously unknown dark headed junco who woke me many mornings before I learned how to drown out the racket with the white noise of the fan–these are gifts I will treasure from my time in the condo on Tesoro Court. (From Lessons in Gratitude, Day 444)

I had moved to California with a sense of anticipation, trepidation, and excitement. I was leaving emotionally battered and weary, but still standing on my own two feet and with my spirit relatively intact. I read back through the posts for those last few days in September (Day 442) as I began to come to grips with what my departure would mean. Now a year later I recognize that I am still affected by those days; and while I won’t say this anniversary has the same depth of meaning that the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths or other traumatic events, I definitely believe it accounts for some of the discontent I experienced over the last few days.

I am grateful  for all that I’ve experienced in the last year or so. It has definitely not been easy, but it’s been good. I’ve learned and grown a lot and continue to do so every day. I don’t know exactly what’s next for me or when my what’s next will occur. In the meantime I’m living and growing and learning to go with the flow wherever it might lead me and feeling love and deep gratitude along the way.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 808

Posted on September 29, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for simple things: a good, long visit with my oldest sister, a quick check in with my next oldest sister and a phone call with my younger sister. I reckon it was check in with sisters day. It reminds me how glad I am to live so close to the three of them.

It’s been an interesting day. This morning I took care of a number of projects that I’ve needed to get done for quite some time, including a relatively minor but involved plumbing job. I must confess to having been very pleased with myself at the successful conclusion of the project. I was quite productive at the beginning of the day, and yet as I sit here at the close of day I find myself feeling a little out of sorts. I realize that there continue to be something (or somethings) percolating beneath my conscious thought that are creating a slight hum of dissonance in my life soundtrack at the moment. I know that the response to this dissonance is relax with it: not try to drown it out or ignore it. Whatever it is I need to know will come to me, no doubt. I will probably spend a few minutes before I take my rest reading or engaging in something that will lift my spirits a bit and relax my mind.

I am reminded once again of the night time prayer that my sister Sandy shared with me a few years ago. It periodically finds its way into this blog, and today is a good day to bring it back.

It is from the New Zealand Prayer Book (1989):

God,it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,new possibilities.
In your name we pray. Amen.

As I go into another week, I want to do so expectantly, looking forward to new possibilities, new joys. And of course, new things to be grateful for.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 807

Posted on September 28, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight would be one for gratitude to take a vacation, but of course as I’ve mentioned many times before, gratitude doesn’t take a vacation. My son called me this evening to let me know that he’s been “trying the whole gratitude thing,” and it’s been helping him to have a better attitude when he goes to work. While he acknowledges that he’s still challenged by rude, condescending, and generally irritating customers, he’s finding that his brand new gratitude practice is helping even out some of those rough patches. It did the same for me when I began a few years ago in the midst of all my life drama. Being grateful is easy when things are going well; it’s a whole lot more difficult to focus on the blessings in your life when it feels like the rug’s been pulled out from under you. Still, after all this time “I wouldn’t take nothin’ for my journey.” As challenging as it’s been at times, I have learned as much from the difficult moments in my life as I have from those times when I studied or read or engaged in formal learning activities.

Tonight I decided to spin the wheel and I landed on two good posts, one of which I will share this evening. It feels particularly fitting in some ways as I think about some shifts I want to make in how my life is unfolding. I hope it is useful to those who read this evening. From March 2012:

“Tell me,what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

From “The Summer Day”by Mary Oliver

Tonight I was feeling some Mary Oliver and thinking about her rhetorical question. But then, is it rhetorical or have I merely rendered it that? Perhaps I have spent too much time mired in the practicality and predictability of modern adult life to consider my life either wild or precious. Perhaps it’s time to change that.

It is a perfectly good time for me to be pondering this question. Having been in transition for some months now I definitely have been in the planning life mode. What am I going to do to earn my livelihood? Where am I going to live? How am I going to create more connection and community with people so I don’t live in isolation? These are all related to the planning part. Sometimes I feel like I’ve gotten too busy with the day-t0-day crunch of surviving that I haven’t carved out enough time to truly sit and contemplate the “what’s next” in my work life, let alone spend time planning and taking considered, measured action toward the plan. My process has been a bit more helter-skelter than that. Envision, plan, do, assess, re-envision seems like a reasonable cycle for moving through one’s life. Unfortunately for me sometimes I jump from envision to take action without bothering to plan or jump around the circle in somewhat random fashion. Or I might spend a really long time in planning and and not doing a whole lot of taking action.

In the scheme of things, what has this to do with anything? Well, if I am pondering what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life then I could easily focus my time an energy on the planning part, when what might really be much more intriguing is the wild and precious part. In fact I have lived a fair chunk of my life doing the right things, playing by the rules that have been laid out for me by family, by society, by church, by the government, etc. There hasn’t been much room for wild and precious.

So yes, I am in a space where planning is important, but the wild and precious is there, hovering at the periphery just on the fringes of my vision. After 50 plus years of living a tame and domesticated life how does one capture the wild and precious? When one knows within oneself that they are called to be different, to live a larger, less careful, perhaps even unplanned and unpredictable, life how does one escape the bounds of safety and predictability to stretch toward the wild and precious? Ralph Waldo Emerson said,“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”Easy for you to say, Ralph. I say to myself. But of course I have no idea whether it was easy for him at all. What I do know is this: there can be a cost to taking a different path, to deviate from plans that were laid out for you, to diverge from the carefully laid out road. Sometimes I feel I’ve done this my whole life.

So now as I continue to contemplate what I plan to do with my one wild and precious life, it is no wonder that  am dissatisfied with the planning I’ve been doing. It is solidly situated in the safe and sound. So the task is in part to figure out how to venture out a bit away from the shores of safety without totally plunging into the perils of the rapids. After all, it’s for each of us to figure out for ourselves what “wild and precious”means to us. I’m starting to think I need to figure that out.

Joseph Campbell put it famously when he first used the expression “Follow your bliss.”

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are —if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.”

I am grateful this evening for contemplation and reflection. In another life I might have been a monastic spending time in retreat or a naturalist like Thoreau spending significant time outdoors,writing and thinking. I am grateful for the time I spend reflecting on the blessings in my life and sharing my thoughts with those who are interested enough to spend a little while with me. This is a journey we’re all on in some form or another. I am happy to share mine with you and to hear from you what you’re learning on yours. Good luck as you ponder for yourself what you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 806

Posted on September 27, 2013 by mtchamblee

TGIF for real. This has been one of those weeks that have felt like two. I can’t really account for why that is, but it is so. This has been a week filled with meetings, last minute requests, mind draining activities. But at the end of it, I am grateful. Today I was walking toward the lot where I park my car at work. I was leaving about 3o minutes early (though I generally arrive 30 minutes early at the beginning of the day, so it all evens out.) As I walked I was reflecting about how grateful I was that it was Friday, wincing a bit as I told myself how tired I was and how little I felt like getting into my car for the 75 to 90 minute drive home. And then I caught myself. Yes, I was tired. Yes I had worked hard all week. And yes, I suppose I “deserved” to leave a little early to head home. But then I began to think about what a privileged life I live compared to so many others and I had to stop short for a few moments and think.

I thought about people who work much harder, for much longer hours and much less pay. Like me they are grateful to have a job, to be able to keep a roof over their heads and perhaps feed themselves and their families. They may take their hard work in stride: it’s what they do, what they’ve always done. And like me, they get tired at the end of their shift, their work day, their work week. If they have an end to their work week. I work with a number of people who also work other places. I know people who work two and three jobs to make ends meet. They are not thinking about retirement and their 401k; they’re thinking about paying rent, putting food on the table, and keeping the lights and heat on. I have lived the life of barely getting by for a relatively short time. It was challenging and it was scary and I got through it.

It is not my purpose to make myself feel bad for expressing my tiredness; I can guilt trip myself with the best of them, but that is an unhelpful exercise. I guess what I came to was that tired is relative. I am tired and grateful that the situation in which I currently find myself allows me to take the next two days–Saturday and Sunday–to rest from the work I did on Monday through Friday. I will spend these next two days as I choose, and while that might include doing some work for my job or some work in the house and yard, it might not. The weekend might see me collapsed on the sofa catching up on all the TV shows I recorded during the week. This is a privilege that I have that perhaps others do not; I am aware of that, mindful of my blessings.

These are odd ruminations for a Friday evening, I suppose, but it is what is present with me at this moment. I am grateful that even when my mind is tired, my spirit is tireless. I know that at the core of my being all is still and calm and that my spirit is communing with God, gaining answers to questions my mind barely has brought itself how to ask. On a good day, little pieces of that communication bubble up to the surface of my consciousness and I get the kind of inspiration that I wrote about yesterday. Then I sink back down into the mundanity of life and forget that I have access to that font of information, inspiration, and answers 24 hours per day, seven days a week. That knowledge is a beautiful thing and I am deeply grateful to know that it’s there.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 805

Posted on September 26, 2013 by mtchamblee

I am so grateful tonight for inspiration that comes upon me so many times over the course of a day. Some days I run myself so ragged that it feels like I don’t have time to experience a single coherent thought, but when I look back over the course of the day, I can usually find several thoughts or ideas that I’ve shared with others that provide value. At least I hope that’s the case. And if I can manage to have creative, generative thoughts and ideas when I’m tired, running around, and stressed, I wonder what I could do if I were actually rested and slowed my pace from frenetic to semi-normal busyness.

Today I had meetings from 8:30 to 10:00 a.m., 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., from 12:00 until 1:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. I did manage to squeeze in three bathroom breaks in there, though am not sure how I did that, and upon my return I snatched two quick meetings with staff members I literally ran into on my way back into the office. It has been a crazy day, yet in the midst of everything, I got some important things done, much of it in the last hour I was at work. When I left the office at 5:00, I was exhausted and endured the slightly longer than usual (90 minutes instead of 75) commute home. After I cooked tomorrow’s dinner while heating up tonight’s, I quickly ate dinner with Diane (Sawyer of ABC news), then finally settled in to write this blog.

I am grateful for the inspiration and clarity that I’ve been getting recently. I’ve spent a lot of time in fasting–the kind you do for spiritual not physical/weight loss purposes. Essentially I’ve said to God I am fasting as an offering, as a sacrifice. It’s my way of saying to God, “I am serious about this–I’m fasting and praying and I want a response.” The thing with this plan, this process, is that you have to be paying attention to how the response shows up. If you’re looking too hard in any single direction, you’ll quite possibly miss the response that comes from a completely different direction. To guard against missing God’s answer to me, I’m keeping my antennae up for whatever decides to show up from whatever direction it chooses. And lately, the responses have been appearing from every which way; but the important thing is that clarity is coming.

This morning I was writing in my journal as I do every morning, and as is sometimes the case when I prepare to write this blog, my mind was bouncing around in search of what I wanted to write about. The nice thing about the journal, of course, is that I’m the only one who reads it. So all of my internal editors, censors and other voices that normally plague me while I’m writing this blog are turned off or at least toned down. This morning I wrote down two pieces of wisdom that represented a seemingly small but significant shift in my thinking, my attitude. I will share them first then perhaps offer some context for them.

When I think about my job, I get frustrated; when I think about my work, I get excited.

This was terrific revelation, and represents a really important distinction for me. There are times at my job when I get frustrated: by bureaucracy and petty politics, the mundane, routine nature of working in an institutional setting, the “death by meeting” culture in which you meet to have meetings to plan the meeting. If I focus solely on the job, I want to run shrieking from the room; but when I focus on the work, my purpose for being there, the work I am called to do, I can rest in the solid assurance that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing at this moment in my life. I can’t tell you what freedom there is in that understanding. I will continue to have frustrations on the job, but I can hold them differently when I view through the lens of the work, of the calling.

The other revelation was also simple and equally important for me today. I have been waffling about whether or not I am going to teach a class next semester. I have teetered on the fence about this decision for weeks, vacillating wildly back and forth literally from one moment, one day to the next. There is a proverb that says, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways…” I’ve always taken that to mean that being indecisive makes one wobbly, and that has certainly been the case in my current life. Then I wrote in my journal this morning, “Perhaps I need to tell Jan that I’m going to do it (teach the class) and let the chips fall where they may. The best way to deal with the consequences of a decision is to make one.” Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Sometimes I waffle in making decisions because I get all caught up in the consequences: what will happen if I do X, what will happen if I don’t? I can make lists of pros and cons, and while I firmly believe that’s a good practice for making informed decisions, I also know that after all is said and done, I still have to actually make the decision and deal as best I can with whatever consequences arise as a result.

I am grateful for the inspirations that have come lately, providing the levels of clarity I have been asking for for a long, long time. I still have questions about a lot of things, including the direction I want my work to take in the months and years ahead. But the truth is, all I can really plan for is the days and weeks ahead, all the while knowing that this moment I’m living right now is the only one promised to me. So I live in the moment and plan for the future, all the while realizing that I really don’t need to plan out the rest of my life. If I have enough clarity for the step I’m on and the next few steps ahead, I’m content with that. “So my life is unfolding,” I wrote in this morning’s journal, “and even though I’m obviously participating in the process, I also need to let go of trying to direct or manage it and let it unfold according to God’s purpose (aligned with mine).” For that bit of wisdom along with all I received as I wrote this morning, I am most exceedingly grateful.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 804

Posted on September 25, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight is one of those nights when I am remarkably tired. I felt at times today like I was in nonstop meetings–in fact the whole week has felt like that, and I’m not sure I can keep up the pace of life that I appear to have settled into. And yet I know I will; I must. It’s that simple. I am grateful this evening first of all for traveling mercies. Every weekday I climb into my vehicle (my safe, paid-off, good condition vehicle) and merge onto one of the more congested roadways in the country. The fact that I do this five times a week, coming and going, without mishaps, accidents or incidents is something for which I am deeply grateful. This evening as I was driving home I was so tired I had to employ numerous tricks to keep myself from falling asleep. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. I am oh so grateful to have made it home in one piece. Even now I find myself nodding off in front of the computer screen.

Given my exhausted state, I decided to spin the wheel so I can finally put myself to bed. Interestingly I pulled a blog that deals with a number of important thoughts, including how to persist in the midst of exhaustion! So without further ado, please enjoy this post from June of 2012.

It’s been an emotionally bumpy day or two, I must confess. I sort of knew from the moment I woke up this morning that today might be a bit rocky–I wrote about it in my journal. It wasn’t so much that something in particular happened, it’s really more that nothing did and that my circumstances remain unchanged. I realize that I am weary of the struggle. I have stood up after having been knocked down a number of times now. I have buoyed myself as best I could through physical activity, volunteerism, healthier diet, meditation and spirituality, traditional therapy, etc. I have lost heart, then found it again. I have saluted back at my father through tears, anger, fear, and depression and soldiered on. I have offered prayers of lovingkindness and compassion, practiced forgiveness, worked on equanimity and joy, studied the four Noble truths, the Eightfold Path. I’ve prayed and cried out to the God of my parents. And now, I am weary.

It’s not that nothing has changed (how do you like them double negatives); I believe I have experienced some significant internal shifts in mind, heart, and spirit. At the moment, these changes are too subtle to have much of an impact on my weariness. My vision of myself, of my life before my personal tsunami of 2011 and after is markedly different. While I was never brimming with self confidence, events of the past 16 to 18 months have been dramatic enough to pull the plug on the little bit that I did have. It all makes me want to either shout and curse and swear at the top of my lungs and let out all the anger and emotions that I’ve stuffed down over the past year (longer actually) or curl myself into a ball under my desk. I won’t do either, unless I decide to engage in some watered-down, morphed version of the two choices in which I bury my face in my pillow and howl while curled into a ball under my desk. It has its appeal.

Three hundred words in and not a single use of the “G”word. I will use it before the blog is finished, not to worry. I get mad at God about that too. Even when I am righteously pissed off and splashing around in ill-tempered renunciations of my basic,lifelong belief in a supreme Being,some wonder will catch my ever-wayward attention–the call of the turkeys,a flitting ruby-throated hummingbird,a wandering butterfly,a snatch of my favorite song,the clash of surf and rock, and the many wondrous things–and all my mutterings are silenced, even if only temporarily. It is enough to break the grasp that those less noble emotions had on my heart and I am able to once again drag myself back from the edge and keep climbing. It’s what I do;it’s what I’ve always done. It’s not that big a deal. So very many other people around the world,even in the small suburb where I live have faced challenges worse than mine. It’s also what they do.

I am grateful. As I prepare to lie down in my clean, comfortable bed in my warm, secure shelter having eaten a small but relatively healthy meal, and review all the times over the course of this day that something made me smile or reminded me that I am blessed, I can do so knowing that I have the power to change my perspective all by myself in an instant. That at the end of a emotionally bumpy day I can go to sleep with the hope that I will wake in the morning and see better things ahead. That,as Julian of Norwich said back in the 14th century, “All shall be well,  and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” And so it shall.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 803

Posted on September 24, 2013 by mtchamblee

Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what to be grateful for, or perhaps what I mean is that it’s hard to settle on one thing and then determine what to say about it. Finding things that I’m grateful for has rarely been the challenging part; it’s trying to express that gratitude in a way that another person can understand and find meaningful. It’s been my dilemma for the past 800-plus days–well perhaps only for half of those days. One thing that I remain consistently grateful for each day is the faithfulness and appreciation of those of you readers who have embarked on this journey with and walked alongside me.

A writer needs her readers in part to serve as a mirror, reflecting back her ideas, or as a sounding board taking in the words and asking questions that help her clarify and refine her thinking. You have borne witness to my evolution through so many changes as I’ve walked this path. Most of the feedback I receive on this blog has been in the form of “likes” on Facebook as well as the occasional comment here on the blog site. Periodically I’ve had conversations with some of you, focusing on a particular theme or you’ve made some observation that lets me know that you are taking it in, reflecting on it, and responding. That is wonderful and in fact one of the most important purposes for writing this blog every night: stimulating each reader to think about the  practice of gratitude, focus on the blessings in their life and the things they are grateful for, to pique curiosity and interest in the various themes, issues, and ideas I raise. If that happens–whether for 20 or 200 0r 2000 people, I am grateful.

Tonight I am grateful for the magic that happens when people sit down and have meaningful conversations. This morning I talked with a good friend as I commuted the 26.4 miles from my house to the parking lot at work. We talked briefly about a number of thorny issues he is trying to work through in his work situation. But more important than the issues was the energy bubbling underneath them; what we quickly got to was the heart of the matter. And that is where I like to live–where the heart and the spirit and the mind are all interacting. The issues that we face are often secondary: the real “juice” in the situation is at the spiritual level. I love talking with this particular friend because he is so receptive to talking about the spirit, the heart of the matter. He recognizes that what happens at the surface simply provides us with the starting point to focus our attention so that we know where to excavate for the treasures underneath. It is these conversations that help bring me to a closer understanding of what I am meant to be doing: helping people answer their own questions about what they’re meant to be doing. And I love it.

It is so very gratifying to see things finally come together that have felt like they were in the planning stages for a very long time. I was at a gathering of people today in which seeds that were planted months ago started springing up and growing wildly almost overnight. Those who are gardeners know that feeling of anticipation when you plant something and it finally pops up and it gets even more exciting when the first blossoms or tiny fruits begin to appear. I witnessed that happening today and I could barely contain myself. Some of those blossoms sprung from seeds I sowed or had a hand in tending and others I have simply gotten to witness. In the end it doesn’t really matter who planted, who fertilized and watered, or who cultivated; what matters is that the effort is bearing fruit.

This blog has been a seed planted not 803 days ago, but much earlier in my life. I am grateful that it sprung forth and has borne fruit over these two-plus years. My hope is that it is bearing fruits I cannot even see–the inspiration that it has planted in the hearts and minds of people who read it, faithfully or randomly. In the end that really doesn’t matter either. If one reading for a few moments on one day motivates you to allow gratitude to fill you up and spill out of you, then it has accomplished it’s purpose and I have accomplished one of mine. And it is all good.

Posted in Gratitude, Serving Others, Spirituality | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 802

Posted on September 23, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight is a good one for simple gratitude. It has been a long day: I was up and out early assisting with a charity golf tournament supporting scholarships for students in one of the programs offered through my office at work. It was cold and blustery for the first part of the day before the sun finally came out and warmed things up. It was a typical autumn day; crisp and cool. Autumn is my favorite season. Very soon the leaves will begin changing and before I know it I’ll have to be out raking them up. I continue to be amazed that the summer is over. One minute it was here and I was enjoying a few days out on the beach in North Carolina, the next it’s 65 degrees and we’re nearly at the end of September. Still, with all that life is good.

I am grateful for the periodic reality check that comes my way. It’s nice to be able to check in with oneself and realize that I have in fact changed and grown. Tonight I received a phone call from a person who had brought a significant hurt into my life some years ago. As a result I limited my interactions and conversation with them because I still felt hurt and heartbroken and was uncertain about how I felt about them. I have done a lot of intentional work on forgiveness. On any given day when I offer prayers and good wishes for a variety of categories of people, I include offering well wishes for people who have injured me in some way. Over time I have found that I’ve been able to move to greater and greater levels of forgiveness. I can tell how much progress I’ve made with particular people by how I react when I think about them. So tonight when my phone rang and I saw who was calling, I knew I had another opportunity to see how I was doing. When all was said and done and we had talked for over an hour, I knew I had taken another step toward greater healing in that relationship.

I have no interest in holding grudges or intentionally remaining angry with people. Forgiveness to me much more favors the person doing the forgiving than the forgiven. It is in my own best interest to practice forgiveness. That’s not why I practice, but it offers a definite benefit. I am grateful for the check in I was able to do with myself this evening in conversation with a person with whom I struggled. The fact that I could talk with them with little to no trace of anger, pain, or bitterness let me know that I’ve made progress. I’m sure I still have work to do, but I’ve come a long way.

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield leads a wonderful meditation on forgiveness that I’ve listened to a number of times over the past few years. It has been a wonderful guide to helping me both offer as well as ask for forgiveness from others. It’s important to me that I am also aware of the times when I have hurt others, and while I don’t always know everyone whom I have injured, I pray for and ask forgiveness from and healing them, whoever they may be. I’m a big believer in forgiveness. I am grateful for the place it holds in my life and spiritual practice and will continue to develop it throughout my life.

Posted in Forgiveness, Gratitude | Leave a comment