Fiercely Grateful

I used to Keep a gratitude journal. Each day I made myself write 5 specific, concrete things I was grateful for that day. It helped me through a dark time, kept me grounded in goodness, and saved my emotional life until I could know again that the world is a friendly place.

Every year at Thanksgiving, I go back to this practice to remind myself of great grace in my life, The gifts I've been given and all that I am grateful for. This year my list is long. Not just longer but bigger in it's scope from living internationally and all the blessings that have come from that. It's like the world has offered itself to me.

I'm grateful for my family, for the love and constancy that we offer one another, the deepening friendships happening among us, and the laughter and fun we have together. Especially John. How can I express the awe I feel that after 37 years together, he is my best friend, favorite companion, and makes me laugh out loud more than ever.

I'm grateful for my friends, old friends who hold the memories of a lifetime in precious hands even while we make new ones with them, with their kids, with their grand kids. What wealth we share. And new friends who bring the fresh possibilities of new ways of looking at things that stretch me, enrich me and keep me fresh, too. My blog friends are in this group. I'm pleased to have sojourners and seekers to share this journey with.

I'm grateful for meaningful work which provides me a way to give back, to help those taking tentative steps toward health, to lend my knowledge, experience and love to those who need it, who bask in it or grab it hungrily and then go forward and do likewise. It's a glorious spiral, a sacred dance.

I'm grateful for books, my passion for them, my ability to get lost in them, my abiding affection for the characters I come to know and treasure. They shake me up and let me into worlds I'd have no other way of knowing. They excite me every time.

I'm grateful for nature and the physicalness of being out in it. The walking, hiking, running- using my body, having it respond, stay healthy, feel good and discover the rush. The sea and the mountains that call me and keep me interacting with them,  that intoxicate me, that teach me the connectedness of all life, the spiritual essence of what I have come to believe.

For all this, for all you, I am fiercely grateful.