Faces on Faith: Gratitude
I believe that gratitude is the heart and soul of the spiritual life. I believe gratitude is central to a life of prayer. The happiest people I have ever met are grateful people. The most generous people I have known are people who are grateful.
For more than a year, we have endured the anxiety and isolation of the pandemic. Yet even in the midst of it, we could look around and see things to be grateful for: heroic healthcare workers caring for the sick, teachers coming up with creative ways to engage their students, farmworkers dedicated to providing food, grocery store workers keeping shelves stocked, friends and neighbors checking in on each other, church members booking vaccine appointments for those struggling to do so.
One of my favorite authors, Barbara Brown Taylor, says this about gratitude:
“To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness … It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity.”
My wife Sue recently wrote this reflection, inspired by the news that we are entering a new phase of returning to a more “normal” life:
“A grateful heart … as we take off our masks and move closer to each other, let us do so with a grateful heart.
For all the scientists who worked around the clock to discover the vaccine, those who labored in manufacturing plants to make it and those who put shots in arms.
Let us have a grateful heart and let us be mindful of those around the world who do not have access to the vaccine; the many countries who are struggling with large numbers of the ill and dying.
Let us be mindful of those around us who are not vaccinated; the children, those who aren’t for medical or other reasons, and those who are anxious about taking masks off and being closer. Let’s have compassion for those people, being kind and respectful of their decisions.
And let us walk into this new day; turning the corner on this pandemic; with a grateful heart.”
With grateful hearts, let us reach out to one another in love and service.
The Rev. William “Bill” Van Oss is the rector at Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church.