This year, I was in Spain over Thanksgiving. With no turkey to baste and family to host, I had a lot of time to think about gratitude. The more I thought about gratitude, the more gratitude loomed large and commanding in every cliche — a remedy for misery, a requisite for happiness, a boast of the lucky, a penance for the pious, an attitude turned platitude. But when I just walked with gratitude a fluttering opened me up to something more … or less. Something more intuitive … less instructive. More visceral … less cerebral. More response than practice although it is that, too. Something so simple yet so intertwined with all the messiness and magnificence of living. Something, perhaps, like this —
Gratitude is the expression of being fully alive
to every joy, every sorrow
every moment of disappointment
every occasion of celebration
every temptation to disappear
every invitation to stay
every dread that takes your spirit away
every delight that dances you into a new day
every misery that shadows your fear
every muse that courts your fancy
every grievance that burdens your spirit
every pardon that releases your soul
every murmuring that cautions hesitation
every whispering that unfurls your wings
every plea to be loved
every prayer to love
every lamentation
every alleluia
of the wonderfully flawed —
all stories waiting to be told
from a throbbing heart
aching, breaking, bursting
in gratitude
for the fragile glory
of this being human.
~ Mary Byrne Hoffmann ~
November 25, 2018
