Gratitude

Every Tuesday for the past 4 weeks, I have co-facilitated an Ignatian Prayer Experience at the Recovery Cafe in downtown Seattle. Women and men who are in various stages of recovery from alcoholism, drug use, homelessness, and mental health challenges meet to support each other in the hard work required to stay on the journey towards healthy mind and spirit. Every Tuesday I am amazed again at the courage these men and women show in admitting their past mistakes and rededicating themselves to the hard work required to take the next step towards right living. And often they do this without the support of family and friends, who have left them because of past mistakes.

The grace I receive, over and over again, is their spiritual practice of gratitude and absence of self-pity.

As I learn from Jesus and the men and women of Recovery Cafe how to turn my life upside-down and how to experience God’s abundance, I have added something to my spiritual practice. Every morning before I rise and every evening when I get into bed I pay attention to how nice, warm, and comfortable my bed is. I savor the experience. I consider how fortunate I am to have a warm, comfortable bed. That’s all.

Yet I have a deeper hope that acoompanies my simple spiritual practice. I pray that my attitude of gratitude would seep into other aspects of life, and that ultimately I would come to know – to really know in the depths of my heart – that a life with God is abundant, and that my desire for the things that aren’t simple would simply fade away. I pray that gratitude for a bed would help the non-simple things to lose their appeal and become undesirable.

Query for prayerful consideration:

God, please help me to be grateful for the simple things.