"Thanksgiving enables us to be fully present in each of the moments of our lives and, at the same time, be fully present to the eternity which is crashing into those moments (for those who have eyes to see). We have the ability to resist the culture of despair by bearing witness to life and hope! Cynicism loosens its smugly fearful, icy grip, warmed by winds of thanks."
For posterity's sake, I figured that I would spend this time giving some practical examples from my recent life. The first comes from a couple of weeks ago when I was nodding off to sleep. The guy who currently sleeps next to me has had a vicious cough for the last several weeks and on this particular night, he was coughing particularly hard. Instead of being agitated at the distraction, I chose to be thankful and let my mind play within the realm of thankfulness. It got to the point that I became so thankful that I have good health, that my body has a great immune system, and that I have access, if I were to need it, to pristine medical facilities. All of this thankfulness, which gave way to joy, was created simply from the harsh cough of my roommate.
Another time, I was on my way to work, utterly thankful that I have a job. Every time that I see people who are looking for a job or are utterly without one, I am thankful again that I have a job and one that does a fairly adequate job of providing for me. Just simply allowing myself to go down this path resulted in not only a joy but also a desire to share the profits therefrom with those who do not possess a job.
I guess the point of this post is merely to illuminate that these things that I have been discussing are not just nice ideals, but can in fact invigorate you.
This has been the eighth day meditating on thankfulness.
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