Day 195

Today's Lesson:

Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

Gratitude is a lesson hard to learn for those who look upon the world amiss. The most that they can do is see themselves as better off than others. And they try to be content because another seems to suffer more than they. How pitiful and deprecating are such thoughts! For who has cause for thanks while others have less cause? And who could suffer less because he sees another suffer more? Your gratitude is due to Him alone Who made all cause of sorrow disappear throughout the world.

It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering. But it equally insane to fail in gratitude to One Who offers us the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness. Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive.

Our brother is our "enemy" because we see in him the rival for our peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from us, and leaves us nothing but a black despair so bitter and relentless that there is no hope remaining. Now is vengeance all there is to wish for. Now can we but try to bring him down to lie in death with us, as useless as ourselves; as little left within his grasping fingers as in ours.

We do not offer God our gratitude because our brother is more slave than us, nor could we sanely be enraged if he seems freer. Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it be joined to love. We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of love?

Therefore give thanks, but in sincerity. And let our gratitude make room for all who will escape with us; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss of feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you. Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us.

We thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him. And we rejoice that no exceptions ever can be made which would reduce our wholeness, nor impair or change our function to complete the One Who is Himself completion. We give thanks for every living thing, for otherwise we offer thanks for nothing, and we fail to recognize the gifts of God to us.

Then let our brothers lean their tired heads against our shoulders as they rest a while. We offer thanks for them. For if we can direct them to the peace that we would find, the way is opening at last to us. An ancient door is swinging free again; a long forgotten Word re-echoes in our memory, and gathers clarity as we are willing once again to hear.

Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love. For hatred is forgotten when we lay comparisons aside. What more remains as obstacles to peace? The fear of God is now undone at last, and we forgive without comparing. Thus we cannot choose to overlook some things, and yet retain some other things still locked away as "sins." When our forgiveness is complete we will have total gratitude, for we will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as our Self.

Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?

Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than we could ever dream of. Gratitude goes hand in hand with love, and where one is the other must be found. For gratitude is but an aspect of the Love which is the Source of all creation. God gives thanks to us, His Sons, for being what we are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him. Our gratitude to Him is one with His to us. For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God.

Miracles I'm noticing:

Today's lesson really hits home, especially since I spent Thursday with my Grateful Goddess friends. I've had some incredible conversations with people this week, in my presentations (I did 3 this week) and also with people I've come into contact with. My small talk really has gotten a lot bigger and I'm so grateful that I am where and who I am in this universe.

I love the reminders in today's lesson about getting rid of comparisons, about unity and oneness, and replacing anger and revenge with gratitude. There are so many examples of this I can recall from my past; but I'm also giving up past thinking to be awake and open to the present.

Have you been having any "a-ha" moments where things just make a lot of sense? Maybe those are just flashes or flickers, but they are cracks in your old way of being where the light is starting to shine in. I'm having more and more of those and notice that my focus and attention is much more often on gratitude than on comparison. I do notice almost instantly now when judgments come up for me and I'm very much aware of the reactions in my head before they come out of my mouth.

I realize that shifting paradigms is a process and I'm cutting myself just even slack to forgive without myself without being disappointed or judgmental. As I notice this more and more, I realize that the shift has taken me to an entirely new outlook - one that makes me feel much better, both physically and emotionally. Sometimes this means just taking a time-out and looking back on where I've come which allows for a ton of gratitude to come pouring in.

I'm reminded of my friend Chris Linnares (who has written a really great new novel, by the way). Chris is originally from Brazil, and is teaching us that we need to consciously celebrate much more than we currently do. Everything should be cause for celebration because it moves us from judgment and guilt to gratitude.

I like that shift ... celebration, parties, and gratitude!! That's certainly a miracle!