WHAT ARE YOU GRATEFUL FOR?

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so what better use of this weekend's blog post than a discussion of gratitude.  For the purposes of this post, gratitude shall heretofore be referred to as the GRATITUDE DUDE or GD (not to be confused with the Jewish abbreviation for our deity--although, come to think of it, maybe they should be interchangeable...more on that later.)

Anyway, my friends, the Delagis, have a family tradition where they pass around a booklet at the Thanksgiving table and everyone has a chance to write down what they are grateful for. They keep those little handmade books and can look back on them years later to see where they each were on the gratitude index at that particular Thanksgiving day. Interesting idea! Theoretically, we might be grateful for something now that we barely even paid attention to on a previous year. For example, if you have been relatively healthy, you might take good health for granted and only feel grateful for it after having recovered from an illness. My point is that one common human blind spot is that we often do not feel grateful for something until we feel the pain of its absence.

Several of the recent self-help movements espouse the benefits of keeping a Gratitude Journal. Dear GD, one would write, today I am grateful for x,y, z and a bit of b. Have I tried it? Sort of. I devised my own variation in which I would find one thing to be grateful for for each of my fingers. Simple, right? Lying in bed at night, I will count off something that I am grateful for as I touch each of my fingers, and most nights, I am happy to report, I run out of fingers before I run out of points for GD. Of course, there are those blueish days, followed by darkish nights, when I struggle to reach ten. Do we all have those moments when the glass is half empty rather than half full? Let's assume that the liquid in the glass always remains exactly the same. Even knowing that, won't there be days when it looks as if it is completely empty? And other days when it looks like it is overflowing? Is the GD just a figment of our imagination? In other words, if gratitude is man-ufactured (or woman-ufactured), then don't we have the ability to feel grateful no matter what is in our glass?

So today, what are you grateful for? Here's my list (in no particular order):
*JOSH
*BEN
*EMILY
*MY AMAZING PARENTS
*MY SALLY,  MY JULIE,  MY BETH and all my other amazing friends.
*MY LOVING FAMILY (including a sister who could write the "How to be a Great Sister" handbook).
*MAX--my loyal Rescue Dog--whom Emily rescued and who now returns the favor by rescuing me from any momentary bouts of loneliness I might have.

*MY WORK & MY STUDENTS
*MY CREATIVE BRAIN
*MY LOVING HEART
*LAUGHTER
*CAPE COD--where I feel most at home.
*FOOD--cooking it, sharing it, eating it, thinking about it.
*MY PILATES REFORMER CLASSES--an exercise class that I actually look forward to :)
*BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS.
*FABRIC and YARN and all the ways I can create beautiful things out of them.
*TURKEY DAY--Love the food! Love the holiday! Love the reminder to thank GD!


So if one wants to move this conversation to a more spiritual plane--perhaps, GD and G-D are really the same. When we are grateful, we are acknowledging our appreciation to a higher power or the universe. We are really saying "Thank You. I see what you have done. I feel what you have given me. I am appreciative of this breath I am taking. I am aware that walking and talking and even pooping (yes, I've been told there is even a prayer for that) are gifts that I cannot take for granted."
Dear GD:
Let me live each moment in a state of gratitude with the understanding that G-D, like all of us, appreciates knowing that SHE is appreciated :)

By the way, I recently stumbled upon a tiny little book of sayings attributed to the Hassidic  scholar Rebbe Nachman of  Breslov(1772-1810). Rebbe Breslov wrote: "when asked how things are, don't whine and grumble about your hardships. If you answer, 'Lousy,' then G-d says, 'You call this bad? I'll show you what bad really is!' When asked how things are and, despite hardship or suffering, you answer 'Good,' then G-d says, 'You call this good? I'll show you what good really is!'"

So enjoy your turkey and your stuffing and don't forget to let GD know what you are thinking.
And know that I am VERY grateful for you--all of you bleaders (blog-readers). Your comments and feedback keep me motivated to continue this year-long experiment!!
Rachel