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What is your routine after you have been away from home for a few days or longer or even when you have just been doing some errands for a couple hours? We recently returned from spending several days with our son and daughter-in-love --a wonderful time, I might add, making us wish once again that we lived closer to each other. However, it is always good to get home.
We like to resettle into home immediately. Without hesitation. We each unpack and before we know it the washer is going. We find places for anything we have brought home with us and put away our luggage. We go through the mail and stack the papers. We water plants, and if it is still daytime and the lawn needs it, Bruce will mow. I may head to the grocery store to replenish milk and other necessities and figure out what to fix for dinner. Before we know it we are each in our favorite chairs, comfortable in our pajamas. We are home --and life goes on.
That's not to say that catch-up time is not needed after an absence. This week, for example, I am huffing and puffing to re-insert myself into the scheduled assignments and readings for the online writing class I am currently taking. And there are bills to pay and a long list of emails that need attention. Yes, I had my laptop and iPhone with me, but I devoted only minimal time to them. Only for the necessities. Plus, I have not seen my Dad for over a week and need to schedule more than phone time with him.
But in this case re-entry does not add up to stressful moments, erasing the pleasures of the recent days. I wondered about that, thinking about past times of return. When re-entry means a return from a trip out of the country there is jet lag to handle and maybe a feeling of displacement. Where am I? What is it I am supposed to be doing now? Did that vacation really happen? Was I really just in Paris a few hours ago? There may even be a reluctance to let go and re-enter.
Several times, when we were trying to sell our house, a showing would be scheduled for just the time we should have been driving the car into the garage. Once returning from a week in Florida, I listened to messages as we disembarked the plane only to discover that we would not be going home, but would have to camp out at a coffee shop because of a scheduled showing. All we wanted was to get home, for once the direction is back towards home getting there, being there, sleeping in one's own bed becomes the goal, and sometimes one's energy is stretched to make arriving back at home possible sooner rather than later. Delays are not appreciated.
Now, however, the schedule is ours. Bruce is not heading back to work the next day no matter what time we arrive home. Now we have the luxury to treat leaving and returning as times in themselves--time to be in that moment of anticipating the days to come or to reflect on the days just enjoyed. There is time to be grateful. To notice the extraordinary in the ordinary.
When we lived at our Sweetwater Farm in Ohio, my heart lifted and I started breathing faster as we approached home. I felt that way whether I had been gone for a week or only a few hours. I felt welcomed by that place as much as I hope we were a welcoming presence in that home for others. I always felt a sense of sacred re-entry there. I feel myself opening to that feeling here and now as well. Thich Nhat Hanh says, "The path around our home is also the ground of our awakening."
I try to remember to express a prayer of gratitude for our safe return, to do that as part of my re-entry routine, but I must admit I am often too distracted by heavy suitcases and bags as I cross the threshold. Later, however, as I re-bond with home, lighting a lamp, turning down the bed, folding the clean laundry, I know I at least sigh my deep thanks for the leaving and time away, as well as the return and re-entry.
An Invitation
Phil Cousineau quotes Trish O'Reilly in his book The Art of Pilgrimage, The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred, "…you are now back where you started and you have to know you've come full circle." What does that mean for you? Did you bring yourself back with you? Has something shifted for you while you were on the road and if so, how will you keep that awake in you now that you are home? How can you enlarge your circle because of the time you have had away? Are you more aware that the sacred is everywhere? I would love to know.
Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos. When we offer thanks to God or to another human being, gratitude gifts us with renewal, reflection, reconnection.
Sarah Ban Breathnach
I carry the image in my heart of our granddaughter at a young age with her arms opened wide saying, "Thank you so much." I don't remember what we gave her, whether it was a birthday gift or a small "I love you" gift. No matter, for what I remember was her enthusiastic and generous ability to say "thank you." She felt it and meant it and showed it. I suspect a hug and a kiss followed the words.
When was the last time you said "thank you" with such openness and genuine appreciation? When was the last time you felt a lift of gratitude in your heart? When you felt that awareness of gratefulness, how did you express it?
Giving Thanks
November is a month when giving thanks is part of our consciousness. We know at the end of the month the tradition is to gather with family and/or friends to not only feast, but to give thanks. It is the giving thanks that interests me right now.
Gratitude's active partner is expressing the gratitude. Showing it. Living it. Giving it. How do you do that? What are some ways you might do that this month?
Thoughts About Gratitude
The word "thanks" comes from Indo-European words for "think" and "thoughtfulness." The implication of that, it seems to me, is that in order to feel gratitude, we need to live with awareness, with a spirit of reflection. Deciding to live with gratitude is a deep spiritual decision of how you want to relate with life, of adopting an attitude of not giving into life's inevitable ups and downs.
"A thankful person is thankful under all circumstances. A complaining soul complains even if he lives in paradise." Founder of the Baha'i faith
Living this way goes beyond being optimistic or a Pollyanna or in denial, or even the ability to see something positive in any situation, but instead the attitude of being ever thankful arises from an overflowing heart.
We are grateful for the very fact of being alive. We are grateful for what was and yet will be. We are grateful for the love in our life and the love we are capable of giving. We are grateful for the breath in our body. We are grateful for our ability to feel a bit more alive each and every day. So many gifts.
And what do we do when we receive a gift? We give thanks.
The feeling of gratitude opens the heart more than any other emotion, except perhaps love, and gratitude is the sister of joy. The more you find to be grateful for, the more you will open your heart and enhance your life, and the more you open your heart, the more you will find to be grateful for. What a wonderful circle. And in that circle of gratitude, the giver of a gift become the receiver of thanks, and the one who responds with thanks enlarges the gift.
Gratitude as Spiritual Practice
"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality." Alfred Painter
The ability to recognize life's gifts arises from what Buddhist's call "mindfulness." Gratitude as a spiritual practice (Note the word "practice.") is the intention to live in the present attentively, in order to see with the Awakened Eye of Thanksgiving. What will your Awakened Eye see this month of Thanksgiving and how will you express your gratitude for what you notice?
"Jewish tradition gives us a goal. We should say one hundred blessings each day. When we try it, we discover that it's quite difficult to find one hundred things each day for which to be grateful. So difficult, in fact, that we spend most of our time looking." Daniel I. Schwartz and Mark Hass
Thank You
I am so grateful to each of you for taking the time to read my blog and allowing me to enter your heart, mind, and spirit. Writing this blog is a spiritual practice for me and reminds me whenever I sit at my desk to give thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts, hopes, and prayer.
Thank you also for your comments and emails and for sharing my blog with others.
Please note that this week's Thursday meditation will focus on gratitude as a way to cultivate gratitude in your life. Watch for a new post on Thursday, November 7.
An Invitation
How will you live with greater gratitude this month of Thanksgiving? In what ways can you express your gratefulness?
I invite you to share your intentions by adding a comment on this blog post.
Meet Peter, our 4 1/2 year old grandson. Everyone should have access to a 4 year old for at least a few minutes a week. Sometimes our daughter would appreciate a little less access, but I digress. Peter and his family were with us for the Thanksgiving weekend, and he was actually a good help Thanksgiving morning, helping me set the table. He decided who would get which turkey plate, and he selected napkin rings for each place setting. Finally, he arranged the vintage turkey and pilgrim candles on the table and did a mighty fine job, I must say.
Peter's Gift
His real gift, however, was given the day after Thanksgiving. He was sitting at the counter having his breakfast, and I was emptying the dishwasher and fussing in the kitchen. Without any prompting whatsoever he said, "I loved yesterday."
Three simple words. "I loved yesterday."
"Oh, Peter, I did, too. We all did."
And life went on, but his words of wisdom have stayed with me, even when "yesterday" was a day that I lost my internet connection for hours and was a day when prospective buyers came to see the house and didn't take a brochure--a litmus test of interest. I admit I don't love all yesterdays, even though I know there are so many things to be grateful for each day, including the fact that I have lived from yesterday to today.
I have just started reading Anne Lamott's new book, Help, Thanks, Wow, The Three Essential Prayers. Now I must admit the writer in me thought, "Why didn't I think of that?" but that's quite another issue. When Peter said, "I loved yesterday," he was praying. He was saying "Thanks," to God, even though he didn't know it. But I knew it, and I know that God did, too. How lucky I was to be an eavesdropper. How lucky I am to have a 4 year old teacher.
Here's what Anne Lamott says,
The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening. Gratitude is peace. Maybe you won't always get from being a brat to noticing that it is an e. e. cumming morning out the window. But some days you will. You will go from being Doug or Wendy Whiner, with your psychic diverticulitis, able to eat only macaroni and cheese, to remembering 'i thank you God for most this amazing/ day.'
Reminders
When Peter said, "I loved yesterday," he reminded me not only to be grateful for the wonders of yesterday without being stuck there, but to love today, right now, as well. No matter what is swirling around us in this moment.
Bruce and I are driving to St Paul today for the weekend. Tonight we will attend opening night of a play our 10 year old granddaughter Maren is in--The Best Christmas Pageant Ever--and tomorrow we will go to the magical St Olaf Christmas Festival at our alma mater, and Sunday we will bring my father home with us for a couple days. Already, I am anticipating loving those days. I'm going to be praying a lot, I think.
Here's the bonus, I think. Loving yesterday, loving today, loving tomorrow are all the same.
I love you Peter. Love, GrandNan
An extra gratitude: A few days ago I made the decision not to decorate the house for Christmas, except for some welcoming greens and lanterns on the front porch. This was not an easy decision for me because I LOVE decorating for Christmas. Once the house is fully in the holiday spirit, I am, too, and move through the shopping and sending cards and wrapping etc with less stress and strain. Because we continue to have showings, including one this morning, I decided not decorating was the prudent choice. Therefore, I was so grateful when I discovered I have a clear view of our neighbor's large Christmas tree holding court in their family room. Thick with white lights it sparkles and glows enough to fill my heart with contentment and peace. Thank you.
