​Thank You

Practicing Gratitude 
in a Complex World

Gratitude and Connection

Gratitude is a process-relational practice. If we see the world in terms of self-enclosed units invulnerable to the effects of others, there is no need to be grateful. But if we recognize that the world is an evolving network of mutual becoming, with all things present in one another even as they are unique, gratitude is natural. It carries within it a recognition of mutual becoming and an appreciation of the goodness of others.

This is what Robert Emmons, a leading researcher in gratitude studies, proposes. He says that gratitude is two things at once: affirming the goodness of the world and knowing that the source of this goodness comes from outside ourselves: from nature, from other people, from music and the arts, from the simple things in life, from God. When these are combined, we feel gratitude. Emmon's research shows that gratitude has four measurable, positive effects in human life:

• It allows a celebration of the present, relieving anxiety about the future
• it blocks toxic emotions such as envy, resentment, regret, and depression;
• it helps us become more stress-resistant; 
• it strengthens social bonds.

Rene Brown adds that it is important to practice gratitude in tangible, practical ways: e.g. keeping a gratitude journal; saying something out loud that you are grateful for three times a day; sharing things you are grateful for after saying grace at meals.

It's not enough to tell yourself that you should or will be grateful; and it's even harder if someone else tells you that you should be grateful, making it a moral obligation. But gratitude can be practiced by doing practical things, on a daily basis, that allow gratitude to well up in the mind, heart, and imagination, strengthening your capacity for positive relations with the world.

Don't worry. There'll still be enough suffering to go around. Enough injustice, enough danger, enough greed, enough hatred. But what the world needs now is positive influences, combined with compassion and care, that add light to the darkness. What the world needs now is people who are grateful for the goodness and want to nurture it. 

Bottom line: It's not the joy that makes us grateful, its the gratitude that makes us joyful. The practice of gratitude is a process-relational practice. It reminds us that the world is not composed of self-contained substances but rather events in relation, that the world is good, and that much of that goodness comes from sources outside ourselves. It is often said that there can be no peace without justice. It is also true that there can be no justice without gratitude.

- Jay McDaniel

Brene Brown on Joy and Gratitude
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What Good is Gratitude?

​Robert Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.”

“First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.”

In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge that other people—or even higher powers, if you’re of a spiritual mindset—gave us many gifts, big and small, to help us achieve the goodness in our lives.”
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Emmons and other researchers see the social dimension as being especially important to gratitude. “I see it as a relationship-strengthening emotion,“ writes Emmons, “because it requires us to see how we’ve been supported and affirmed by other people.”​

- Greater Good Science Center

Thanks

By W.S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is


W.S. Merwin, "Thanks" from Migration: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by W.S. Merwin.  Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, Inc..Source: Migration: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005)

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​"G" is for Gratitude 

Patricia Adams Farmer

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It is not joy that makes us grateful;
it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

--David Steindal-Rast

Say Thank You to a Tree

Here in the Midwest, mid-November is a season of raucous beauty in the woods and parks.  Aromas of cinnamon and apples fill our homes in anticipation of Thanksgiving, and dinner menus are already getting under way.  This morning, I walked in a nearby botanical garden filled with stunning maples and oaks, all dressed up in variegated hues of red, yellow, green, and orange—colors that seem to melt into one another, softening the landscape with something close to tenderness.  Their delicate beauty, translucent and fiery against the cold November sky, brought me close to tears.  All I could do was thank the trees:  

​Thank you for your beauty, your mystery, your willingness to let go and change with the seasons, and for your graceful dignity as you bow toward winter.  Thank you, too, for your luminous inner light that suggests the joyful presence of your creator.  Thank you for sharing the earth with me.

A sense of joy flooded me, as this is the way of gratitude, a spiritual practice that offers almost instantaneous feelings of well-being and joy.  Gratitude is an act of acknowledging with humility our deeply woven connection to people and trees and soil and sun.  It is our way of saying “YES!” to the grace of the world.

But like every other spiritual practice, gratitude is not always easy, especially in dark times.

Gratitude in These Days?

Is it appropriate to be grateful in times as perilous as these?  Our planet is in crisis, unending wars rage on, the gap between rich and poor grows wider, gun violence escalates, and white supremacists grow bolder.  Does gratitude make us too content with the way things are?  Isn’t “counting our blessings” simply too indulgent for times like these?  On the contrary, gratitude might just be our savior in such times as these.  Where else can our energy come from to “be the change” if, like flailing fish, we get hooked on despair or rage?  Of course, despair and rage are perfectly natural for caring people in the face of such horrors as the plague of gun violence in America.  But to be vigilant for change, despair is simply not an option, and rage must be channeled into action.

Gratitude can help us get our bearings once again, for it grounds us in mindfulness, opening fresh possibilities for creativity and change.  For without gratitude, fiery fall trees would be lost on us, and so would the taste of apples or the touch on the arm of a caring friend.  Without gratitude, we would hardly know what we are so passionate about saving or changing or reforming; without gratitude we would fall prey to the darkness around us.  Joy, the offspring of gratitude, would be only a distant memory.  But as the poet Jack Gilbert says, “We must have the courage to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.”  Perhaps, then, gratitude is a form of resistance.
 
Thankful for Everything?

As I write, the television screen is filled with unspeakable scenes of the worst church mass shooting in history—so, of course, we cannot be grateful for everything.  And yet, for those who believe that God is an all-controlling deity who determines every jot and tittle of our world, there are grounds to be thankful for everything, even for mass shootings.  Such horrifying acts are simply part of God’s unfathomable plan that “we cannot understand.”  What I cannot understand is how this God can be comforting, or worthy of worship.

For those of us who cannot toss the responsibility of such horrors into the outer realms of God’s greater wisdom, we see that “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.  But in ourselves”—and in this case, in our love of guns over our love of neighbor.  As a process theologian, when I witness such horrific acts, I do not see God’s unfathomable ways, but rather human negligence and divine suffering.  In my view, when the bullets flew over the congregation of First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, God was, in a sense, being crucified once again.  Family and community were crucified once again.  Love was crucified—again.  In this view, God is not above our suffering, but smack in the middle of it, feeling the anguish of every scream.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only the suffering God can help.”

But there is resurrection, too.  As co-creators with God-Who-Is-Love, we must not only practice empathy after a tragedy, but also attention as we search for fresh sprouts of life—and water each shoot with gratitude.

Gratitude in Winter
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In the midst of our unpredictable and increasing violent world, how can gratitude help transform the ugliness into what Whitehead calls “tragic beauty”?  We can, of course, be grateful for unity and community and a sense of connection that follows a tragedy, and for every compassionate gesture offered.  On a spiritual level, we can be grateful for the presence of an all-loving, suffering God who mourns with us.  We can also be grateful for moments of resurrection in every act of kindness, mercy, and justice.  Only a God of suffering love, deep presence, and creative transformation can offer the world fresh sprouts of possibility on such a bleak landscape as we find ourselves now.  It is up to us to nourish these tiny sprouts of hope with frequent and joyful bursts of gratitude.
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We know that winter is near.  We know that the fiery red joy and soft golden fullness of today will soon give way to a bare, woody landscape of longing.  And yet, we have stored up moments of gratitude like the industrious squirrels saving up their acorns.  We will not starve for beauty in winter if we are grateful in autumn.

Photo: Thomas J. Oord

Photo: Thomas J. Oord

More Essays by Patricia Adams Farmer

Gratitude
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The spiritual practice of gratitude has been called a state of mind and a way of life. But we prefer to think of it as a grammar — an underlying structure that helps us construct and make sense out of our lives. The rules of this grammar cover all our activities. Its syntax reveals a system of relationships linking us to the divine and to every other part of the creation.

To learn the grammar of gratitude, practice saying "thank you" for happy and challenging experiences, for people, animals, things, art, memories, dreams. Count your blessings, and praise God. Utter blessings, and express your appreciation to everything and everyone you encounter. By blessing, we are blessed.

​- Spirituality and Practice

​Helping Kids Practice Gratitude