thankful :: week 1

We know, we know that thankfulness is good, that the habit of thankfulness is admirable, that we should be more thankful. But thankfulness is more than a should, it is also a pure means of connection with God, the connection between giving and receiving. It is a means to fight lethargy and pettiness, to acknowledge, to notice the breathtaking miracles of ordinary life.

I want to open a space for weekly gratitude here. I'm inspired by the many places around the web in which I see the fresh air of gratitude, and indeed I always have thankfulness scrawled in my journals, on tiny pieces of paper, on cards and in poems. But as this meditation center season is starting, as we get going with our year and things get busier, I want to have a way to recap, right here, the week and its moments and all its gifts.

In thinking about thankfulness, I always come back to this poem by e.e. cummings.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Thankfulness wakes our ears and opens our eyes. So here, for this week, are mine:

I thank you God for the seven sunrises I saw this week, all of them different. For the ones that were fuzzy and gray, for the ones that were brilliant, scarlet.

For the garden and the blooming of flowers, for planting to look forward to. For the dream of fresh leaves, of salads, now hovering over the blank earth.

For mold eradicated, for more mold that will be scoured, for the furniture, for the walls. I thank you for our home, for cherished things brought out of boxes, for the little marks we make on the earth.

For the langur monkey I saw bounding across the road on incredible arms and legs.

I thank you for an old table turned into a new blue table, for Chinua who painted it, for kids who helped. For Jaya.

For the sea, for the sun. For the green that springs from everywhere at the end of the monsoon. For hundreds of baby coconut trees in the coconut grove. For Solo's morning cuddles, for YaYa, so happy to be back, for Kid A reading and reading, for Leafy finding new things to create. For Rani, who invited us for a bonfire, for Reece, who joined us for dinner.

For talks, for silence, for a good week, for the way you lead me away from the storm of my heart, and into peace.

(If you'd like to join in, leave a link to your post or just your thanks in the comments.)