One of the most important books I have read is Mary Jo Leddy’s “Radical Gratitude.” Leddy is a Canadian Theologian, professor at the University of Toronto, founder of Romero House, a Toronto Refugee ministry, and a Member of the Order of Canada.
Her book is one I delve into whenever the topic of Thanksgiving comes up. It is a powerful examination of the deep “perpetual dissatisfaction” in our materialistic culture, where there is never enough …to the point where we begin to believe within ourselves that we ourselves are “not enough.”
“In the culture of money, we tend to have a ledger view of life. We add up the pluses and minuses and try to account for our lives. In the process, we miss the amazing fact that we have a life to add up. We take being alive for granted and move on to a cost-benefit analysis. Lost in the process is the incalculable mystery of simply being alive. The liberation of gratitude begins when we stop taking life for granted. We will be liberated from the captivity of craving for more only by an attitude of radical gratitude.” (p. 41)
She invites us to live in an economy of grace, of abundance, not in our culture’s economy of scarcity and fear. Leddy’s theology of grace shines through the book: that life is a gift, and that “God’s love is offered, for all, forever, and for free.” Receiving this gift of life with astonishment and wonder pours forth in generosity and hope-filled response to our world. Gratitude is not an inner focused spirituality for personal peace but a communal, world-changing practice. This is a hope-filled, honest and compelling book.
How do you practice gratitude? Daily, moment by moment. Not just at a season of Thanksgiving but every morning, every encounter, every breath! Scripture invites us to give thanks in all circumstances
(e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5:18).
I know my own practice of a nightly gratitude journal has led me to give thanks not only for the obvious things like safe shelter, food, loved ones, and community, but also for hard things, for challenges, for things that frustrate and baffle me. This wakes me up to see God’s grace everywhere!
Meister Eckhart, the 14th Century German mystic said, “Just to be is a blessing, just to live is holy.” Mystics are those who live with perpetual gratitude, awake to the moment. Living “mindfulness” keeps us in a state of gratitude.
Gerald and I sing grace together, as singing helps us to slow down, listen, and pay attention, not just rattle it off mindlessly. I am delighted to discover that the new hymn book “Sing a New Creation” has our favourite grace, John Bell’s
“God bless to us our bread” # 174.
“God bless to us our bread.
Give bread to all those who are hungry
And hunger for justice to those who are fed.
God Bless to us our Bread.”
(There is a YouTube video of John Bell leading it at Sorrento Centre)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjmR8HMLA-I
What Grace do you sing? Yes, even if you live alone! Where in your day do you have a practice of giving thanks?
A couple of quotes I treasure from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: (1907-1972)
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. …get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
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“Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”
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The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the sublime wonder of being is the root of sin. Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious person’s attitude toward history and nature.
Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Hebrew Scripture scholar, invites us to live in “Abiding Astonishment.”
God’s generosity to us is unceasing and overflowing, abundant and free. May this season of thanksgiving erupt into a life-long daily practice of radical gratitude in your live. “God’s love is offered, for all, forever, and for free.”
In Gratitude for each of you!
Yours in Christ,
+Lynne
