Every day the world offers itself to be seen. Seeing things with a grateful eye requires attentiveness and engages our imagination
A Thought
Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and John O’Neil, President of the Center for Leadership Renewal, salute gratitude as a sign of spiritual maturity. Here is an excerpt on “going live” as a way of keeping alert to what is happening inside and around us.
“Every day the world offers itself to be seen. Seeing things with a grateful eye requires attentiveness and engages our imagination; imagination is a way we take part in the world, not escape from it. We can train ourselves to see the immensity of the commonplace, the world offering itself to our imagination every moment. A poem, a piece of music, a particular smell: if we pay attention, these can open up new worlds.
“Such ordinary experiences not only affect the present moment but also shape our sense of the future. In other words, they give substance to hope. Sometimes it’s as if a piece of music or a painting or a book takes possession of us, and we feel amazed and honored to have such guests inside us. We become the host of the undreamed and unexpected. The genuinely new becomes possible. Springtime returns.
“Going live involves deciding where to focus our attention. Human beings, suggests the poet and translator John Ciardi, ‘are what we do with our attention.’ Or as the mystics would say, we are what we contemplate. If we give our best attention to things that ultimately fail to satisfy us, we get into trouble. Going live, then, may be the act of attending to what’s really going on inside and around us. This can be unnerving, because it sharpens our awareness of life’s fragility and difficulty. But it also awakens us to life as a gift and starts the wheels of gratitude turning. The positive feedback that gratitude produces is what allows us to stay live, to not shut down.”
An Excerpt from Seasons of Grace: The Life-Giving Practice of Gratitude by Alan Jones and John O’Neil with Diana Landau
A Prayer
Almighty Father,
your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world.
May your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped,
and obeyed to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Music
Saint Paul Cathedral Choir: Let all the World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3cwvca50jM