The Journey to Gratefulness

Brother David Steindl-Rast is a Gospel herald calling all who would respond to a type of spirituality that is best described as the journey to gratefulness, gratitude being the key to the manner of living he has, himself, embodied. I won�t deliberate on all that might entail but one can visit http://gratefulness.org/ to gather the gist of his invitation.

What I do want to explore are some of the possible elements of that particular journey. Fundamental to gratitude, it would seem, is a capacity to receive. Fundamental to such a capacity, then, would be both the ability to receive and the willingness to receive. Like all human capacities, the capacity to receive is something that can be conceived of as developmental. Any notion of human development, in both its psychological and spiritual aspects, which are very much intertwined, invokes formative realities: informative, reformative, deformative and transformative. This is true for the psychological aspects explicated by Piaget, Erikson, Kohlberg, Fowler et al, and for the spiritual aspects, such as the sanjuanist formative spirituality and many other approaches. Lonergan has captured much of this in his foundational approach to conversion: intellectual, affective, moral, socio-political and religious. Merton drew distinctions that combine insights from Zen and Sufi mystics and psychoanalysis. Merton spoke of our early humanization, our socialization and our spiritual transformation. I�ll expound some on these.

Humanization very much involves our earliest childhood, where we are developing our human capacities, transcending our animal natures to attain what is uniquely human, though, as Autumn approaches with its return to school, many teachers will sorely lament how incomplete this process can be for so many of their students. Socialization includes much of our educational journey from childhood on through all stages of our adult life. It makes us functional at home, in church, at school, at work, with family and neighbors and friends and others in society-at-large. When we fail to respond to socialization, we are reformed or placed in therapy, individual or group. We all suffer setbacks but most are resilient and largely functional. Those with intractable problems get institutionalized or incarcerated, a painful mystery and a reminder to us all of our frailty. We are resilient but also fragile. If the psychological formation of our humanization and socialization helps us overcome our finitude and human limitations, our spiritual transformation helps us to overcome our sinfulness, as we cooperate with a radically unmerited grace.

Coming full circle back to the ability to receive and the willingness to receive, then, we might conceive of our formative experiences in humanization and socialization as enlarging our capacity to receive by developing our ability to receive: intellectually, affectively, morally, socio-politically and religiously, this very much including our ability to transcend our early deformative experiences, too.. We might conceive of our transformative experiences as an enlarging of our capacity to receive by developing our willingness to receive. These are mutually enriching and mutually entailing experiences. Further, there is a paradigm shift as we move into transformation whereby we surrender both our ability to receive and our willingness to receive to God, no longer turning to society (in every manner in which it can be conceived) for our every need (in every possible manner that our needs can be conceived). Easy to say. This, then, is the hating of mother and father, the leaving of the dead to bury the dead, the seeking of that Bread, His Word, which alone gives us sustenance. This is no less than an existential crisis, a dark night, that we all must go through on our journey to a radical trust relationship with our loving, heavenly Father. We are not at all sure that He will meet the needs that were once met by our successful accommodation to and assimilation by society.

How do we make this turn from the world to the Kingdom?

Gratitude can be a key to open the door to Kingdom living. Once we meet this crisis head on, we awaken, through gratitude, to an awareness that we can depend on God, and radically so, because, lo and behold, it�s been Him all alone, Who was our source. And so it is with every breath we take. Every good thing we received from mother and father, from teacher and preacher, from all elements of society, came from the Hand of the Father, mediated to us from creation and God�s creatures. All things wise and wonderful, all creatures great and small, all things bright and beautiful, the Lord, God, made them all! We thus learn that our entire formative journey: informative, reformative, deformative and transformative are part of God�s plan. Our ongoing conversion, intellectually, emotionally, morally, socio-politically and religiously, are part of God�s plan. We learn that any sinful resistance to enlarge our capacity to receive from other people, with gratitude to both them and God, is a resistance to transformation and, ultimately, entails ingratitude toward the Father.

We are to look beyond the finitude of our parents, children, teachers, neighbors, coworkers, politicians and others with whom we share the planet, even looking past their sinfulness, to see the Hand of the Infinite in everything we receive. We surely need to discern which aspects of our intellectual, affective, moral, social, political and religious conversion processes are truly God-like and which are tainted by human sin and finitude, but, make no mistake, God is using this sinful and limited world and humanity to accomplish his work in you. Are you able to receive from other people in manifold ways? Are you willing to receive from other people in every way? Are you grateful to other people? The way in which you answer these questions may properly gauge the depth of your ability and willingness to receive from God in gratitude, too, for there is no real distinction insofar as he is using others to love you. (Why didn�t YOU save me, Lord, when I was drowning at sea? I SENT THREE HELICOPTERS!)

This is the message of the Incarnation. God, Himself, was willing to receive from creation, from human parents, from the innkeeper who offered a stable, from the Magi, from teachers in the temple, from the Law and the Prophets, baptism from his cousin John, lessons from the lilies of the field, the birds of the air, the signs and portents of the skies, from Mary and Martha and Lazarus, annointing from Mary Magdalene, a meal from Zaccaheus, from tax collectors, and all manner of sinners, including even a kiss from Judas, help carrying the Cross from Simon of Cyrene, and Resurrection and Ascension from His Father. He loves creation. He loves nature. He loved water and wine. He loves people. He loves his church. He loves society. He�ll come directly into your heart as well as mediated through creation and other people.

Our early formation was very necessary and makes us able to receive and give to and from all of these sources. It takes a more radical transformation to make us willing to receive. Gratitude is the indelible sign of one who�s aware that we are ALWAYS receiving. This requires a vision of God coming at us in the guise of those we might otherwise consider small or poor, with nothing to offer us, intellectually, emotionally, morally, socially, politically or religiously. You�d be surprised, though! It is a grateful heart, though, that sees the gifts coming from every conceivable angle, as well as from places beyond our ability to conceive.

#26, (did I spell that right?)

I love the Greatful Heart tape I have of Brother David. He talks about the five senses and reads a poem called "five alive." It's so very simple, although I would not say easy.

I am very greatful for your presence and resonate with your soul. I think and feel the same,
but words elude me, so I'm glad you said it for me

caritas,

michael

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Gratefulness is a powerful antidote to selfishness, negativity and cynicism, and it is a virtue that can be practiced and cultivated. Thanks for so eloquently bringing it to our attention, JB.

There is a gratefulness that seems to comes of its own accord in contemplative states -- one is more acutely aware of the marvel of existence itself, with gratitude emerging as the response to this perception. Joy is frequently part of this experience. I find gratitude and joy go hand in hand.

Very nice lesson, Tathagata 26.

There are some big boulders blocking the path.
I just got an e-mail from my mother. She still feels guilty about my sister's death. That was 25 years ago. I suggested to her that other than driving her to God and toward helping others, there is really no purpose to it.

God can transform guilt, shame, anger, pride, decietfulness, envy, greed, fear, gluttony, lust and sloth into their wonderful opposites - the virtues

I really, really enjoy the way He does that.

gratitude.com
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quote:

We learn that any sinful resistance to enlarge our capacity to receive from other people, with gratitude to both them and God, is a resistance to transformation and, ultimately, entails ingratitude toward the Father.

quote:

We are to look beyond the finitude of our parents, children, teachers, neighbors, coworkers, politicians and others with whom we share the planet, even looking past their sinfulness, to see the Hand of the Infinite in everything we receive. We surely need to discern which aspects of our intellectual, affective, moral, social, political and religious conversion processes are truly God-like and which are tainted by human sin and finitude, but, make no mistake, God is using this sinful and limited world and humanity to accomplish his work in you.

On a second reading I just want to point out how outstanding that entire discourse was.

Who was that masked man?

Tathagata 26


Hey . . . uh, does anybody know if this will fit on a license plate or not?

The whole of the opening essay is simply gorgeous. It doesn't need to be repeated, but I have to say it--thanks.