Quotes on Thankfulness

Gratitude... goes beyond the "mine" and "thine" and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. 

 --Henri J. M. Nouwen

Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don't receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.  --Henri J. M. Nouwen

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment. It is amazing how many occasions present themselves in which I can choose gratitude instead of a complaint. I can choose to grateful when I am criticized, even when my heart still responds in bitterness. I can choose to speak about goodness and beauty, even when my inner eye still looks for someone to accuse or something to call ugly. 

 --Henri J. M. Nouwen

Being thankful is not telling God you appreciate the fact that your life is not in shambles. If that is the basis of your gratitude, you are on slippery ground. Every day of your life you face the possibility that a blessing in your life may be taken away. But blessings are only signs of God's love. The real blessing, of course, is the love itself. Whenever we get too attached to the sign, we lose our grasp on the God who gave it to us. Churches are filled with widows who can explain this to you. We are not ultimately grateful that we are still holding our blessings. We are grateful that we are held by God even when the blessings are slipping through our fingers.   --Craig Barnes

{The soul} must forget about {understanding}, and abandon itself into the arms of love, and His Majesty will teach it what to do next; almost its whole work is to realize its unworthiness to receive such great good and to occupy itself in thanksgiving.   --Teresa of Avila
 

You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.  --Charles Haddon Spurgeon 

The optimist says, the cup is half full. The pessimist says, the cup is half empty. The child of God says; My cup runneth over. 
 --Anonymous 

The most important prayer in the world is just two words long: "Thank you"   --Meister Eckhart 

We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts. How can God entrust great things to one who will not thankfully receive from Him the little things?   --Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular. Christians in public institutions often see this odd thing happening on Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in the institution seems to be thankful "in general." It's very strange. It's a little like being married in general.   --Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

When it is time to leave...

Recently I came across this bit from William Ritter while researching different relationship counseling tools.  This bit may be helpful for all sorts of relationships.  I share this for consideration if there is a relationship in your life (work, marriage, friend, etc.).  I am not advocating one way or the other, just wanted to share this mostly so that I have it in my files.

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It may (just may) be time to think about leaving…

When your are no longer doing yourself any good. When you are experiencing no good… feeling no good… and being led to believe that, at the deepest level of your being, you probably are no good.

When you are no longer doing anybody else any good. When there is little evidence that anybody is better off as a result of your persevering in marriage, job or whatever. When no one who is counting on your “hanging in there” will be appreciably harmed if you don’t.

When all that seems to be resulting from your efforts is more harm than good, when you find yourself speaking and acting in ways that are more indicative of your worst self than your best self. And when, in the act of preserving, you find yourself becoming more and more perverse.

When you are hurting the body… by being tense all the time… sick much o the time… abused some of the time… and self-destructive in the darkest times.

When you are killing the soul, by the fact that more is consistently going out from you than is coming back to you. When you are underfed… undernourished… and withering (as they say) on the vine.

When you are the only one who seems to care, to the point of discovering that without a mutuality of effort, it is hard to accomplish anything alone.

When, having prayed to God, it seems that God is no longer giving you the strength to stand. As to when that point is, I don’t really know. But I suppose it is the point when you find that you are no longer standing.

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Was Adam created as an adult?

I have been on a spiritual retreat in Broken Bow Oklahoma and have not been able to post in a few days.  Here is something I journaled about during this time. 

“In his view, the Fall was essentially a matter of wring growing up. Sr. Irenaeus believed, as did many of the early Christians – in marked contrast to the traditional Jewish belief – that Adam was created as a young child. The reason why he was forbidden to eat from the treat of knowledge was simply that he had to grow up first, and that takes time. Unfortunately, Adam was impatient; in trying to anticipate his adulthood, by seizing the fruit before the time was ripe, he thwarted the process of true maturing. St. Irenaeus recognizes that one aspect of this is the disorder that afflicts human sexuality, and in fact we might say that his presentation of the Fall is, essentially, as a mishandling of the crisis of puberty. The result is that man can now only grow up properly by painful dismantling of the false grown-upness. To this end, the Don of God “came to be a child with us”, so that we could be led back to childhood and then grow up again, this time in a true way, til we come to the full stature of Christ himself. (cr. Ephesians 4:13)” – From Prayer by Simon Tugwell

Recently I attended a continuing education seminar put on by the Central Texas Conference for those of us in the process for ordination in which we were talking about “Systems Theory and leadership”. While I do not have the time or energy to go into the details of what I understand to be Systems thinking and the areas in which I find it to be greatly lacking, I want to point out that in this recent education experience, one of the presenters spoke on the need for leaders (and all people for that matter) to become self-differentiated.

The though is that you and I have duel systems working within us, the emotional and the intellectual. We need to be able to mature our lives so that we are able to separate the two out so they are not fused together. When we operate out of fused systems (aka: the undifferentiated-self) then we are quick to defend ourselves and create scapegoats and unable to process or make logical arguments because we are operating out of the strong impulse of the emotional self which is geared for survival (Seth Godin calls this part of our brain the “Lizard brain”).

The way that you and I begin to move to a “differentiated-self” is the process of maturation. However, most of us refuse to do the hard work of continuing maturing and remain in the world of the adolescent (which seems to becoming more popular these days with the “extended adolescent” trends of young adults). 

As I encountered this bit from Tugwell, I could not help but think about how Christ’s ministry, death and resurrection is one of calling us into mature differentiated-selves. We are to engage the Powers of the world in non-violent resistance. We are to repent of our own misdoings and forgive others. We are to listen to others. We are to be with and advocate for the marginalized. We are to die to self. We are to find our call. We are expected to live out our vocation. We are to understand that people may not like you. We are to give to Caesar what is his and give to God what belongs to God. We are to take responsibility for our actions. We are to give grace unconditionally.

This is a very mature and difficult Way. It is of little wonder many of us choose to remain as adolescents. Choosing to skip all the hard work of self-differentiation and thwart our process of maturing. It is way easier to be an immature kid than a mature disciple of God.

Links on the web that are worth looking at

We all have things we find online that we like and I wanted to share some of the more recent things I have found that interest me in hopes they may interest you as well

You can see the Aurora Borealis over Canada live here.

A fantastic image search engine that is pretty to look at as well.

Sweet news app for the ipad (if you have one)

Need motivation to get that blog post done or that project completed, try Write or Die.

Want to know if you will like the book?  Apparently just read page 99.

Straight jackets of Christianity from Inward/Outward

A better pizza box.

Beer Chart and a Rap Chart.

Need to be reminded to follow up on something, check out the free FollowUpThen service.

Your brain on Google.

And an emotionally intelligent image: