Benedicamus Domino!
Today, I watched a movie called The Gratitude Experiment. It's a documentary designed to get viewers thinking in a different way about their lives. The speakers in the movie all talk about having a daily practice of gratitude and about how this has changed their lives in various and sundry positive and life-affirming ways.
The basic premise of this gratitude philosophy is that if we can learn to be grateful as we go through life, can learn to view ourselves in a constantly-receptive state and as therefore grateful for what we receive, then we will have a more peaceful mind, a more healthy body and a more fulfilling life in general. But my big question is: grateful to what? to whom? You have to have a 'you' to say thank you to after all. The movie talks a lot about being grateful to the universe. I suppose this can work if you really do feel that you are a child of that universe, but is the universe sentient? Is it aware? Is it personal? Some philosophers would have you think that it was. I, however, cannot think this way. Being a Christian, I have to believe that the universe as we know it (and even as we don't know it) is God's creation no less than we are. So, being grateful to the universe for the blessings in our lives would seem a little silly to me. The other problem about the universe is that people tend to treat it like a controlable thing. They say that we can control it and can direct it by our wills, and this is the other part of this gratitude philosophy. Be grateful for what you have on a daily basis and soon, your whole life will change. You'll get everything you can envision if you envision it with a grateful heart. Hmmm...
Another troubling part of this movie was that people tended to ascribe the gratitude we should feel to our own selves for creating the lives that we live. I think that it is important not to hate yourself or to despair about yourself, but I am troubled by the idolatry of the self which can occur if this is taken to its most logical conclusion. Basically, I don't really believe in the law of attraction. Think positively and all will be well? I agree that being more positive can give you courage and fortitude in the bad times, but in the end, that courage and fortitude has to break down if we do things on our own all the time.
I agree that gratitude has to happen. We have to, as Christians, be grateful to God for our lives and for what we have in this life. We should learn to be grateful to Him as often as we can, but it has to be organic. It can't be forced. We have to first start by acknowledging that we are, in fact, in His debt. We are the children of His mercy and not of our merit. Only then can we truly realize how great the gifts He has given us really are, and only then, in our knowledge of our own brokenness, can we begin to change our lives and begin to let Him fill us with His grace. The heck of it is that this is a day-to-day, minute-to-minute thing. It has to always be going on, even amid our distractions. It's one thing to be peaceful when we're in a peaceful place, but I think it behooves a Christian, especially one of a contemplative nature, to carry peace about with him or her. We should take the peace we find in prayer or in church or wherever we find it and learn to cultivate it, learn to recall ourselves to that place, and the quickest way to do that I've found is to say "Deo Gratias," or "thanks be to God." Take joy where you find it and let it fill you. Let it lift you and never forget to say "Thank you!" Will it change your life? Will you suddenly find your dream-job or your true love? I can't answer that, but I know that it will change yourself. I think a holy person is one who can rejoice in the Lord always and be grateful to Him for everything in life, whether it seems to be a positive triumph or a negative trial. Of course, I'm a very long way from doing this, from reaching this state, but it's something I'm aiming for with God's help. Gratitude is not about feeling happy. It's about being happy, and the difference between feeling and being is that feeling focuses on the self and is a constant struggle, while being is more about resting, more about letting go of the highs and lows of emotion and about finding a kind of all-pervasive contentment with life.
Of course, gratitude is a part of living the eucharistic life. It is a very essential part. Indeed, the offering that we can make to God which He will transform and transfigure and return to us is ourselves, our broken and bleeding selves, and the only thing that we can render to Him is gratitude, since He is doing for us far more than we are worthy of receiving. We are children of mercy, not of merit, but we can become children of grace, children of love if we let Him change us as He sees fit and not as we with our limited vision would seek to change ourselves. Till next I write, I will say:
Deo Gratias!
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