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I
did a simple Google Search for books on gratitude. The results
were amazing. I lost count at about ten thousand books. Why do
so many people need to read, study, learn about gratitude? That
is the question that puzzles me the most about books on
gratitude. You see, I believe that gratitude is inherent within
us. It is gifted to us by the Spirit. The measure of gratitude
within us is infinite.
If you doubt me, pay attention to small children and you will
find when they are at ease they display a wonderful sense of
gratitude for the smallest of things. One day I stopped at the
store to get some lemonade and found that the store was having a
2-for sale on my favorite lemonade. Since I was going to be
dropping by the home of my godchildren I decided to get two
containers of lemonade and take one to them since it was a
particularly hot day weather wise. My goddaughter upon seeing
the lemonade gave me a big smile and said "thank you so much, we
really needed this." She is only four years old and these
words came naturally to her. Her gratitude for his single
container of lemonade was no less than her display of gratitude
at Christmas time opening her gifts. Gratitude is not something
we need to learn but something we need to release from within us
naturally.
We don't have to learn to feel gratitude. Instead, we must learn
to displace those things we have learned from the world that
abuses our inherent feeling of gratitude. Most of us have
learned to displace such things as self-centeredness,
selfishness and lack of empathy and compassion for these are the
things that abuse our inherent sense of gratitude. Still, there
are many who obviously have not learned to shield their souls
from such things, otherwise there would not be a multitude of
books, self-help books mostly, to remind/teach/guide people to
realize gratitude.
From The Buddha: "Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we
didn't learn a lot at least we learned a little, and if we
didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we
got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."
I have used this quote from The Buddha before. I find it to be
wise but also a little humorous. If our sense of gratitude is so
fragile that we must seek someone to teach it to us, then we
must face up to the truth that when gratitude doesn't come easy,
we have some spiritual healing work to do; self-healing.
Keep the Faith!
Henry Lee Bates
(Reverend Dr.)
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