Weekly Soul: Week 35 - Gratefulness
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie.
-35-
The
greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows
what it means to live. He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving
thanks for everything.
Albert Schweitzer
Gratefulness is not conditional. Gratefulness
means being aware of and thankful for daily blessings, but thankfulness when
things appear to be going well is just a slice of the pie. Gratefulness is a
practice, an attitude, and a perspective on your life.
Even amid the trials and challenges of
your life, isn’t there a foundation—a big picture—for which you can be
grateful? You are alive. If you’re holding this book, you can see, and you can
read. There is someone, somewhere, who loves you. You have the ability to
choose who you are and who you are going to become. This is the reality, and
it’s always there in the background.
When families in 19th century America
gathered for rare days off from work, they often went to cemeteries. In
communities where the priority for land was that it should be productive, the
most peaceful, serene and well-maintained public spaces were cemeteries. You
could spread a blanket next to Great-Grandpa Hezekiah and Great-Grandma
Prudence, break out the roast chicken, and have a grand time together.
Similarly, over the years, I brought lunch
once or twice a month to a peaceful colonial-era cemetery a few minutes from
the office. I’d enjoy the tranquility, sitting in my Volkswagen camper eating a
sandwich, then often amble among the headstones.
What stories of joy and sadness! A man was
“a kind husband, an affectionate friend, and very beneficent to the poor, the
widow and the fatherless.” A woman led a life that was “industrious, virtuous,
religious, peaceable and charitable.” But there are also many headstones
recognizing people who died—children or young adults—far too young and whole
families who passed away, presumably from infectious illnesses, in short
succession. There are a few people, here in Maine, who were lost at sea. And
there is the young man who died at Bull Run, and 20 feet away, another young
man, presumably his small-town friend, who died at Gettysburg.
Perhaps in recognition of the fragility of
life, early Americans often inscribed tombstones not with dates of birth but
with age at death or, sometimes, with days lived. “Elizabeth Brooks, died
October 20, 1758, aged 27 years, 8 months and 21 days.” “Major Archibald Hoar,
died January 31, 1782, aged 73 years, 5 months and 10 days.”
Cemeteries give me a reverent reminder of
the big picture of life, and along with the chicken and frivolity, I imagine
this was true for our forebearers, as well. Headstones recognize people who
lived short or long lives with much the same human experiences—laughter, loss,
celebration, fear, love—that we experience. Some of them, I suspect, were
insecure and shady characters, but many of them were stewards in the continuing
flow of compassion and human caring across the generations.
Being “thankful for everything” means
cultivating the spiritual practice of awareness of the big picture. You inherit
a world that has been formed for you by countless people who have come before
you. You are alive, and you are now the steward of those qualities of goodness
that they have passed on.
This day is a gift. It provides an
opportunity for you to bring to bear everything that you have learned up to
this point in charting how you are going to live this unique and irreplaceable
day. Is this not a cause for gratefulness?
Reflection
- Think of someone in your
family or someone in your larger acquaintance outside your family who has
taught you something about living a good life. Pause and give thanks for
this person. Write him or her a note expressing your gratefulness, and if that
person is still among us, send it.
- If it doesn’t seem too
maudlin, visit a local cemetery. Look around. Read some headstones. Even
with modern markers that typically don’t have inscriptions, notice the
decorative images that people have chosen. Imagine what these people’s
lives may have been like and how they helped to form the world that you
have inherited. What do you think they would have to say to you?
- How would you put into words
what “the big picture” means for you—the reality, that’s always there in
the background, for which you can be grateful?
- In the week to come, pause a
few times to sit in thankfulness for the big picture of your life.
Author
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) was among the
most broadly-accomplished people of the 20th century, making major
contributions as a theologian, musician and musicologist, physician, and
peacemaker.
He was born in a small village in Alsace,
then part of Germany, into a family of pastors, musicians, and scholars. Beginning
music studies as a young child, he was a celebrated organist by his early teen
years, and continued to perform to great acclaim for the rest of his life. He
became a world expert on the interpretation of the organ music of Bach,
publishing biographies of Bach in French and later in German. He was also
interested in the technical aspects of the organ, studying and writing about
organ design and building.
Schweitzer began theological studies at
the age of 18, earning a doctorate degree and subsequently serving as a church
pastor and as the administrator of the theological school from which he had
graduated. In these years, he was particularly engaged in religious commentary,
publishing his most noted theological work, The Quest of the Historical
Jesus, in 1906 at the tender age of 31.
Not content to make noted contributions in
two fields, Schweitzer began studies in medicine in 1905. At the completion of
his training in 1913, he and his wife traveled to what was then French
Equatorial Africa (now Gabon) to establish a hospital in Lambaréné. He was
motivated, apparently, both by his awareness of the profound health needs of
African people and as an expression of atonement for what he often publicly
described as the abuses of colonialism. With the exception of a short
internment during the First World War and periodic international visits for
concert performances and personal appearances (funds from which supported his
medical work), he lived in Lambaréné for the rest of his life. I imagine this
is the image that is most familiar to many of us about Schweitzer: the
richly-mustached medical missionary administering a rural hospital and nimbly
playing piano on the banks of the Ogooue River into his late eighties.
Schweitzer became involved in issues of
nuclear proliferation in the last years of his life. He was awarded the Nobel
Prize for Peace in 1952.
The quotation comes from Thoughts for
Our Times, a short volume of edited quotations published in 1975 by Peter
Pauper Press.
Book Description:
Keywords:
meditation; reflection; inspiration; miracles; aliveness; purpose; laughter; joy; presence; mindfulness; activism; acceptance; gratitude; forgiveness; creativity; civility; hope; affirmation; wholeness; well-being; mental health; personal growth; transformation; inner peace; personal reflection; joy; joyful living; inspirational quotes; inspirational commentary
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