Yet, one morning, Ann wakes from a nightmare about dying and learns that she wants to live: live fully. In the days to come, searching for what can give her this full life, she contemplates Jesus at the Last Supper, giving thanks to his Father; she realizes that "eucharisteo" - thanksgiving in everything - is the key to the fullness of joy, the fullness of life.
But - practically speaking, how does Ann begin to grow in thanksgiving? This is the topic of today's blog post: how can we take practical steps to grow in thanksgiving? This is how Ann accomplishes it - through the dare of a friend.
A friend sends Ann a digital message: a dare for Ann to list one thousand things that she loves. To list them daily with pen on paper. Ann realizes that she is being love-dared to list a thousand gifts which are in reality blessings from God. "Sure, whatever," she thinks to herself. And so -
"Sometimes you don't know when you're taking the first step through a door until you're already inside.
"I grab a scrap paper out of the ash-woven basket at the end of the counter, one with a child's drawing of St. Patrick....and I flip it over. Across the backside, on a whim, a dare, I scratch it down: Gift List. I begin the list. Not of gifts I want but of gifts I already have.
1. Morning shadows across the old floors.
2. Jam piled high on the toast.
3. Cry of blue jay from high in the spruce.
"That is the beginning and I smile. Can't believe how I smile. I mean, they are just the common things and maybe I don't even know they are gifts really until I write them down and that is really what they look like. Gifts He bestows. This writing it down - it is sort of like...unwrapping love....
16. Leafy life scent of the florist shop.
17. The creak of her old knees.
18. Wind flying cold wild in hair.
(and continuing on day by day to - )
54. Moonlight on pillows.
55. Long, lisped prayers.
56. Kisses in dark."
Some days, Ann flies on new happiness. Other days she is filled with self-doubt.
" ....Well, if all these were gifts that God gives - then,
wasn't my writing down the list like...receiving. Like taking with thanks. Wait.
"'And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them...' Gave thanks.
"This crazy-dare gift list - it's language lessons in eucharisteo!....
"But eucharisteo - it's the word Jesus whispered when death prowled close and His anguish trickled down bloody. He took the bread, even the bread of death, and gave thanks. I look down at my list. The thanks that I am doing - it seems so...crude. Trivial..If this list is the learning of the language of eucharisteo - this feels like...guttural groaning. But perhaps the 'full of grace' vocabulary begins haltingly, simply, like a child, thankful for the child-like.
"But doesn't the kingdom of heaven belong to such as these?"
What Ann is learning slowly is that eucharisteo is a habit to be learned, a good and holy habit to dislodge and replace her old negative habits of discontent, dissatisfaction, bitterness, self-hatred and self-condemnation. She takes to heart the words of St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians: "I have learned to be content with whatever I have....I have learned the secret of living in every situation." (chapter 4, verses 11-12.) Paul had learned, step by step, day by day, how to be thankful, whether empty or full.
Ann's naming of God gifts is like Adam completing the work of creation with the Creator by the act of naming the creatures. Ann is naming moments and things, precious, sacred moments and things, blessing God for them and finding God in them, discovering more of her individual meaning in God's creation. And, like Adam, she is discovering how much God loves her. And in naming His gifts of love, she is changed and made joyful by and in His love.
In meditating on Ann's learning the habit of thanksgiving for God's gifts, what strikes me is how she "meets and greets" all of creation soul to soul - and with great love. Shadows. Jam. Blue jays. People. Wind. Moonlight. The sound of children's prayers. Kisses in the dark. All of these are wondrous earthy things, to be seen and savored, smelled and touched. Ann has discovered the sacramental dimension to all of creation - for a sacrament is encountering God, and God dwells truly within all that God has made: not just people, but ALL that God has made. Fr. Richard Rohr says, "There are not just two sacraments. or even seven. The whole world is a sacrament."
Rohr says further,
"St. Paul said...'What can be known about God is perfectly plain, since God has made it plain. Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and divinity, however invisible, has been there for the mind to see in the things that God has made.' (Romans 1:19-20).
"How could humans think we were the only or even the main event? Not only did we think that the Earth was the center of the universe; we were certain our human species was the only one that God really cared about. All of creation was just a stage set for the human drama. Normally that is called narcissism. We extracted the soul from everything else. Nature was simply here for our utilitarian purpose, to be used for our consumption. With this belief system, we entered into a state of profound alienation from our own surroundings. We no longer belonged to this world because there was nothing worth belonging to. It was no longer naturally sacred, deserving our reverence or respect. We could rape, plunder, and misuse the earth. We could torture animals and destroy ecosystems because we thought they had no inherent value. We acted as though we were fully in charge.
"Every day we have opportunities to reconnect with God through an encounter with nature, whether an ordinary sunrise, a starling on a power line, a tree in a park, or a cloud in the sky."
Ann discovers the heady joy, the reality of God in all moments, all things, and is so struck by reverence that she wants to take her shoes off and worship before a God as real as the God of the Burning Bush. To be able to continually give thanks for our God moments, whether we glimpse God in a tree, a man at the store, or a trip to visit a sick friend, is to pray unceasingly, to pray the prayer that changes things. Ann says,
"The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips. Because gratitude ushers into the other side of prayer, into the heart of the God-love, and all power to change the world, me, resides here in His love. Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks: 'in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.'" (Philippians: 4:6)
What would you write for a beginning Gift List? Who are the daily people, what are the things, and moments, that are God's gifts of love to you and re-connect you to God? What people, things, and moments in your life today do you - or could you - give thanks for? In your life, can you even give thanks if you are in the darkness of loss or illness or insecurity? Perhaps it is in those dark moments that we can see God's Light and Love most clearly. I still remember the day of our son's funeral, a day filled with the bright warmth of Spring and the scent of flowers. We sat together in a friend's backyard later, remembering Peter with the blue sky overhead, good food, and good music, both laughing and crying with the memories. Everything and everyone around us spoke loudly to our hearts of Life, God's abiding Life, promised to us for forever. I learned that, even in grief, a robin's song can stir our hearts to prayer.
Anne Frank, a young girl facing the terror of the Nazi Holocaust, not knowing from day to day how long she would live, could still look at God's gift of Nature and find thanksgiving and hope:
"I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more."
If God so calls you, pick up a pen and paper and begin your own Gift List!
Consciously Receive your gifts from Him. Take them from Him with heart-felt thanks. Learn to Live in Holy Thanksgiving for God's abiding Love poured over you.