"There's so much to be thankful for..."

"Somedays we forget
To look around us
Somedays we can't see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give..."

I am really enjoying Josh Groban's new Christmas CD, Noel and can't seem to get the song, "Thankful." out of my head...and heart...today.   I've enjoyed letting it inform my prayers and recalibrate my thoughts.  It's brought me to my knees in humble recognition of how abundantly God has blessed my life.  Working with one verse at a time, and letting the chorus dance me from task to task, call to call, prayer to prayer, has been love-ly and awakening.  By reclaiming all that I have to be thankful for, I realize that I can take an even bigger bite out of the harvested blessings we've experienced this  year.  My heart is full...and yet...

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

I love the spirit of expectancy and promise this verse is filled with...to overflowing.  To think that we can hope for things we can't even see as yet.  Especially when it comes to the changes...in ourselves, and in our world...that we pray for.  And even though I know that there is so much more that we can be doing to care for our neighbors, promote peace, bring balance to socio-economic variance, end domestic violence, hunger, and pain...I can be thankful for all the ways we have seen progress this year.

"...Look beyond ourselves
There's so much sorrow
It's way too late to say
I'll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It's so long overdue..."

Sometimes I am myopic and near-sighted about where, and how, I might direct my day-to-day desire to make a real difference.  I get caught up in worrying about how other people might view my choices, if my children are happy, whether my hopes are being fulfilled...my prayers are being answered.  But today, this verse kept my heart stretched and expanding like a great white balloon larger and larger with every breath of the divine, filling me with more love, more love, more love.  My truth is, I know that I have many moments throughout the day that could be more focused, more devoted, more conscientiously given to praying, serving, living for others, working for social change, economic equity, and standing up for the spiritual dignity of man.

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

This chorus is gracefully moving me forward, filling me with such profound gratitude for all the ways that the spade of Spirit is digging in and stirring the settled, hard-packed spaces in my heart.  As I watched the leaf-gatherers come through our neighborhood today, their rakes and pitchforks lifting up the rain-soaked piles of leaves, loosening them so that they could be vacumned up and turned into municipal compost, I was reminded of all the ways that this song was loosening time-packed healings and transformative moments I'd experienced this year, allowing me to see them again in their true light. Each an extraordinary blessing that will nourish and inspire my life's work, my spiritual confidence, my trust...for eternity.

"...Even with our differences
There is a place we're all connected
Each of us can find each other's light..."

I think this brief lyrical bridge meant the most to me tonight.  I have spent hours sitting with it...like a new friend...trying to fully understand its message, get to know its promise, rejoice in its application...moment by moment. You know, Facebook, cable news television and satellite radio, political and philosophical blogs (including my own), religious programming, conversations with those whose opinions we do, or don't agree, are constantly telling us, in so many ways, how different we are from one another.   And how justified we are in our own personal sense of rightness.  But this little verse is a gentle, but firm, correction.  We may think we are different, we may think we are right, and therefore, someone else is certainly wrong...right (?)...but there is a place where we are all connected and it is in this space of the heart...this love, love, and more love...that searches for another's light, not their darkness, or the absence of light in them, or in their views, choices, or decisions. 

"...So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more
There's so much to be thankful for..."

So tonight, as I tuck the girls into their little (I know, I know...they are almost teenagers...sigh) beds under the eaves, cover them with soft, colorful quilts, and turn down the lamps before singing them lullabies and hymns, I am thinking of all the ways I can be that "so much more" the world needs, while not losing sight of the "so much to be thankful for" all around me....I am starting with being thankful for each of you...thank you for the ways you have blessed my life, my family....your world.

I am thank-full...deeply so...
Kate


[photo credit:  Hollister Thomas 2009]