This has been our stewardship theme for November. Gratitude has been our spiritual practice theme for this month.
Today, we will explore their connection.
Gratitude is a practice. We have spent the last two Mondays reflecting upon it as an individual spiritual practice – a practice for our individual spiritual growth and healing.
Gratitude as a spiritual practice is not just aimed for our own inner world. It is also about our outer world.
There is a belief in most religious expressions that our inner world reflects our outer world and our outer world is a reflection of our inner world. What we work on in our inner world, needs to be brought out into our outer world. The gratitude that we have worked on as a spiritual practice in our own hearts, needs to be expressed outwardly in the world.
The Economy of God is created when we choose to take our inward spiritual practice of gratitude and express it outwardly in the world.
What does that look like? It will be particular to you, discerned through prayer and conversation with the Sacred.
Here is what it has looked like for others:
For me, at one point it was the practice of engaging the cashiers in conversation, of giving them a boost of love in the middle of their day when they often experience people expressing impatience, anger, etc.
Another way gratitude has expressed itself is through hospitality. Because when I experienced homelessness, my friends took me in, offered me compassionate hospitality until I was able to get my feet back on the ground; I extend that reciprocal hospitality in the world. When I lived in NM, I housed friends from time to time. One set of friends lived with me for about a month while they were transitioning into retirement, awaiting the finalization of buying a house. I also offered a friend who lived off grid with no running water a bathroom to shower in whenever they needed it.
We have heard the stories of people who have left huge tips for wait-staff out of gratitude for something that had happened in their life and because they knew/felt something was happening in the life of that particular wait-staff.
The other day, I was watching “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix. It was his episode on Nashville, TN. He featured a musician couple who had created a food store for those who could not afford to buy food. They had created it out of gratitude for their success in this world. They desired to pay forward the blessings they had received and they wanted to work to bring an end to food deserts in urban America. There is a similar mobile bus fresh veggie store in Chicago that has a great story based on gratitude as well.
My friends at Beloved Asheville offer their powerful work to end homelessness and food deserts based on a foundation of gratitude. Their grateful hearts are what drives their work for justice. They have taken their inner world and work intentionally to reflect that inner world in their community. It is a ministry of love, steeped in Spirit.
These are just a few examples.
Today, I invite you to consider how the Sacred is calling you to bring your inner experience of gratitude out into the world.
Allow your gratitude to generate generosity in your life. Follow the flow of gratitude to where and how the Sacred wants you to be generous.
May we make a difference in community, together, grounded in God’s blessing of gratitude and Love.
