Meister Eckhart
I also know, in all honesty, that I never would have made it to this point in my life without another prayer. I call it the Prayer of Pooh, because as I recall, Winnie the Pooh used this phrase quite often: "Oh, help."
Sometimes that's all I can manage to say, for myself, for someone else, when the needs are overwhelming and words don't work, plans don't work, nothing at all works.
"Oh, help."
And that prayer is enough. For the asking.
But life is so much more than asking, and I think that's the deeper meaning of Eckhart's quote. There are always reasons to say "thank you" to the Giver of all good gifts.
But if God already knows my thoughts, my intent, the state of my heart, why bother to say thanks at all? Is it just "being polite" to God? I don't think so.
I believe thankfulness matters most because of what happens in me when I choose to say "thank you," to continue that list of gratitudes on the worst (unending) days of winter, dragging into...April. (Snow. In April. At least three times.) But, oh, that last snow, clinging whiteness in the dark of night...ethereally beautiful. Even in April. I can still remember it vividly.
When I choose to say thank you, I see reasons to say thank you.
When I say it, I see it.
All around me, small and large reasons for gratitude begin to catch my eye. The more I say, it the more I see it.
I don't "get more" reasons to be thankful, I simply become more tuned in to the thousand reasons I already have.
Granted, some days that's easier than others. Days when spring is suddenly here, there, everywhere. Days like today. Yesterday too. And who knows? Maybe tomorrow. But for today...
I want to remember to say "Thank you" for...
1. New life in the pasture,
and the reminder that wool color is just wool color...
and sheep are sheep.
(and the greener grass is on the other side of the fence!)
2. Ears to hear..."Flicka, flicka, flicka."
(No green in sight, but he's still a sure sign of spring!)
3. Eyes to see the golden-green willow,
the bluest sky,
the soft pink reaching along the mountain,
the clouds chasing each other...
pick one, pick them all.
4. Smiling faces in garden places,
wearing green leafskirts.
5. Happy voices of recess-carefree children
on the green-grass hill.
7. Big view sky in my little greening valley